Deqen Tea

Deqen Tea

　　Tea belongs to the dicotyledon family, comprising about 30 genera and 500 species, distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. China has 14 genera and 397 species, mainly produced south of the Yangtze River. Among them, the genera Camellia (tea) and Schima (evergreen oak) are of high economic value. They are trees or shrubs; leaves are alternate, simple, leathery, and lack stipules; flowers are usually bisexual, rarely unisexual, solitary or clustered, axillary or terminal; sepals number 5–7, arranged in imbricate fashion; petals typically 5, sometimes 4 or more, also imbricate; stamens are very numerous, though sometimes fewer, separate or somewhat fused; the ovary is superior, rarely inferior, with 2–10 chambers, each containing 2 or more ovules; the fruit is a capsule or, in indehiscent forms, resembles a drupe. The tea we commonly refer to is a beverage made from the processed leaves of the tea plant, which can be directly steeped in hot water for drinking.