Explore the world of teas and become a connoisseur. It’s easy, inexpensive and a lot of fun! Like wine, chocolate and cheese, tea-tasting incorporates all of your senses: sight, smell, taste and touch. Tea-tasting has its own distinct routine, and culturally has different meanings. Create your own ritual and report your results to us.
Teas grown in the same region – like wine – have their own characteristic flavors and profiles, which allows you to compare the quality of the tea. Depending upon the kinds of teas – brands or bulk– you’re tasting, this might be difficult, because they have been additionally processed with other flavors, spices, or herbs. But it really doesn’t matter. What is interesting is finding out what you like.
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Steps
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- Examine your tea. Put some in your hand; notice the size and texture of the leaves, buds, or mixture. What does it smell like?
- Measure a teaspoon and place into a tea strainer, then into a cup. Make sure you use clear cups to view its color. Pour hot water into the cup. Begin your observations of the tea as the cups are being filled. Has the tea remained wiry or tightly rolled, or did the leaves unfurl and become whole in the hot water?
- Steep your tea for a fixed time, usually three to five minutes, depending upon the strength you like.
- After steeping, smell the aroma of your tea and examine the infused leaves for color and evenness. Your tea is now called “liquor.” The color of the tea does not necessarily indicate the strength or body of the tea.
- Now taste your tea and swish it around your mouth to get a sense of the tea’s body and flavor. There are four kinds of taste – salty, sour, sweet and bitter. Usually you can taste the bitterness at the back of the tongue, saltiness in the middle, sweetness in the front, and any sourness on the sides. A stringency or pungency is a sensation – not a taste – that is felt on the gums and walls of your mouth. When the liquor is swirled around the mouth, the thickness, body, or viscosity can be felt and judged.
- After you have tasted the tea, either drink it or spit it out
- Describe what you just tasted. It may be difficult at first, but after sampling many teas, you will begin to notice the similarities in color, taste, and smell
- If you want to sound like a connoisseur, here’s a list of commonly used words – your glossary – to describe tea. Besides tasting and describing the tea, the ability to value a tea calls for experience and knowledge
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Tea Tasting Glossary
The only thing that really counts is that you like the taste of the tea and you are trying many teas, but if you want to sound like an expert or connoisseur, here are some words and adjectives used to describe tea-tasting:
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| Adhesive – tea that is well-rolled or wiry leaves that tend to cling together |
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Aroma – the smell or scent escaping from your steep, denoting “inherent character;” sometimes referred to as “nose” or “bouquet”
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Astringency – the pungent sensation in your mouth that gives tea its refreshing quality. This is not to be confused with bitterness
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Attractive – tea that is uniform in size, color, and texture
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Baggy – an unpleasant taste – could be from a number of things
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Bakey – an over-fired tea – not enough moisture – unpleasant taste
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Biscuity – a pleasant aroma resembling fresh-bakedbread
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Bitter – an unpleasant, caustic taste
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Black – refers to your tea’s color and is associated with “bloom”
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Bloom – healthy-looking tea that retains a lustrous “sheen”
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Body – a tea having fullness and strength in your mouth, as opposed to being thin
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Bold – can denote flavor, but experts refer to “bold” as particles of the tea leaf being too large for its particular grade
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Brassy – an unpleasant metallic quality similar to brass
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Bright – a tea with bright color as opposed to dull color
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Brisk – a “live” characteristic – a vivacious, slightly astringent taste
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Brown – usually refers to the over-processing of tea, which turns the leaves brown.
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Burned – observed or tasted; usually caused by too much drying
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Character – distinct qualities that allow you to detect the region where the tea was grown
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Chesty – a tea tainted by other flavors or has an undesirable resinous smell
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Chunky – broken, large, tea leaves
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Clean – clean leaves
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Coarse – a tea producing an undesirable harsh, bitter flavor
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Colory – indicates depth of color and strength
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Complex – a tea that has many flavors or smells
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Common – a thin tea with no distinct flavor
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Coppery – bright tea leaves that indicate good processing
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Cream – a natural precipitate obtained as the tea cools down – a bright cream indicates good quality ,tea whereas a dull cream usually indicates an inferior quality tea
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Curly – leaf appearance
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Dark – a dark or dull color, usually indicates a poor leaf quality
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Dry – indicates lack of moisture in tea due to over-drying; bakey or scorched taste
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Dull – tea lacking bloom or lively bright character in both appearance and taste
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Earthy – can either mean flavor or body
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Empty – a tea lacking fullness or substance
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Even – tea leaves being the same size
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Fibrous – denotes the presence of fibers with the tea leaves
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Fine – tea of exceptional taste and quality
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Flaky – tea leaves light in texture
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Flat – a tea with no characteristics – usually not fresh – lacking briskness
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Flavor – an extension of character
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Flavoury – a tea that has a pronounced, desirable – and satisfying – flavor
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Fruity – an over-ripe taste not desirable in tea
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Full – a good combination of strength and color
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Golden Tip – tea that contains golden-colored leaf tips
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Green – usually refers to underfermented black teas resulting in a light-looking liquid
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Grey – tea that turns grey by too much abrasion during sorting
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Grainy – describes the look of a tea
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Hard – a pungent flavor or a tea that has penetrating and desirable strength
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| Heavy – a thick, strong-colored tea with limited briskness |
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High – tea that has been over-dried, but not burned
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Hungry – a tea not having its usual regional characteristics
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Irregular – when the tea leaves are not uniform in size
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Leafly – whole leaf tea
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Lacking – describes a tea with no distinct flavor
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Light – a tea lacking strength and color
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Make – used to describe a well-made tea or a tea not up to its grade
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Mature – a flavor that is not bitter or flat
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Mellow – a satisfying mellow tea
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Metallic – a sharp coppery or brass taste
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Mixed – uneven tea leaves of mixed color
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Muscatel – a grape taste usually used to describe a desirable Darjeeling tea
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Musty – tastes or looks like mold
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Neat – a grade of tea having good make and size
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Nose – the smell of a dry tea leaf
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Pale – a tea that does not have depth of color, but may be flavoury or pungent
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Plain – tea that is lacking desirable characteristics
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Point – a bright, acidic and penetrating characteristic
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Powdery – refers to crushed tea leaves
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Pungent – astringent, with a combination of briskness, brightness and strength
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Quality – describes the most desirable qualities
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Ragged – a badly manufactured tea
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Rasping – a very coarse flavor
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Raw – a bitter, unpleasant taste produced by insufficiently fermented tea leaves
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Rich – tea that is pleasantly thick and mellow
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Round – a full, smooth-tasting tea
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Soft – a tea lacking in characteristics – the opposite of briskness
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Stalky – tea with a high concentration of stalks
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Stale – tea that has an unpleasant taste
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Stewed – a tea with undesirable taste caused by poor processing
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Strength – the substance and body of tea
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Taint – an unfortunate taste that is foreign to tea such as oil, garlic, or onion flavor
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Tarry – a smoky aroma
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Thick – tea that has good body, as opposed to being thin
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Thin – an insipid light tea lacking desirable characteristics
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Tired – a tea that is flat or stale
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Tip – a quality tea determined by sight
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Tippy – teas that contain lots of leaf tips and produces a more flavorful cup of tea
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Twist – indicates the style of leaf created during processing
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Uneven – refers to poor or uneven pieces of tea leaf – cheap tea
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Weedy -- a grass or hay taste
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Well-twisted – a description of the way the tea is packaged
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Whiskery – tea leafs covered with a fine, hairy fiber
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Wiry – an appearance of a tea leaf that is twisted, thin, and long.
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Woody – tea that has a sawdust flavor or tea manufactured in late fall
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Now you can add your own words and definitions to describe the teas you taste.
Once you’ve become an expert, try sampling teas from specific countries – China, Japan, India, or some other exotic location – and compare the differences, or stick to flights of greens, blacks, or herbal teas.
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