Tea Help

A tea tasing room in Assam.

Tasters and blenders have a vocabulary of some hundred words to describe appearance and flavor. The most common are:

• body - a tea with body has a strong liquor not a thin, weak one.
• bold - big pieces of leaf.
• brassy - refers to a liquor with a bitter taste.
• bright - a bright liquor, not dull in appearance.
• brisk - a lively taste, a well-fermented, well-fired tea.
• choppy - leaf that has been chopped in a breaker or cutter rather than rolled.
• coarse - a liquor that has strength but poor quality.
• colory - special category teas with good colored liquor.
• dull - the opposite of bright, and not a desirable quality.
• even - leaf pieces of roughly the same size.
• flaky - leaf that is in flakes rather than twisted pieces.
• flat - a tea that has gone off, has too much moisture.
• flavory - with a distinctive taste.
• grainy - denotes well-made fannings or dusts.
• gray - gray-colored leaf resulting from over-cutting or because the desirable coating of juices on the leaf has been rubbed off due to over-handling during the sifting stage.
• greenish - an infusion with a bright green color, not desirable, due to under-rolling or under-fermentation.
• harsh - a bitter, raw taste with little strength.
• irregular - uneven-size pieces of leaf.
• malty - with a hint of malt, found in well­made teas.
• mellow - the opposite of greenish, harsh, etc.
• point - leaf with desirable briskness.
• plain - lacking in desirable qualities.
• pungent - astringent without being bitter.
• ragged - uneven and irregular pieces of leaf.
• smooth - with a pleasant, rounded taste.
• tainted - unpleasant flavor caused by chemicals used in cultivation, or by damp conditions, or by pollution during transportation, etc.
• thin - a tea with little strength due to hard withering, under-rolling, or too high a temperature during rolling.
• tip - the very end of the delicate young buds that give golden flecks to the processed leaf.
• wiry - well-twisted leaf, as opposed to open pieces.