Tasting

Why taste tea?

At the beginning there was a specific tea variety and a distinct expectation which was, that this tea variety should still taste the same and be of the same quality next year as today. For the tea trader this is of highest importance with respect to his purchase decision. He can only decide which teas to buy in large quantities for his customers if he can be sure that its quality is consistent.

 

This is where the quality control is used, undertaken by a professional tea taster, who is the only person fit to recognise teas in all its nuances and with all his senses. Apart from the tasting of high-quality, loose plantation tees which are sold in specialty tea shops, the tea tasters are constantly required to decide on the use of each tea lot and its use for tea blending.


Market and sample - how the tea is given its price

 

The commodity tea varies in taste from plucking to plucking and also the prices differ. In the large tea cultivation countries, an auction is common. Each tea garden sends its harvests to the stock exchange centre such as the habour cities Calcutta or Colombo where tea auctions take place regularly once a week.

 

The broker mail samples of suitable teas complete with lists stating the characters and the so-called 'call-price' to the international customers, i.e. the importers. Each importer who is interested in the tea, informs the broker about which varieties he wants to buy and issues a price limit. However, before the bids are issued, the tea taster needs to assess the tea in terms of quality and price.

For this assessment, all tea tasters world wide use the same procedure: they all use a standard tea set, a standard amount of tea and water and a standard amount of brewing time.

Tea set and room

What first appears curious, makes sense on second thought - the tea tasting room requires daylight, preferably from North, so that the differences in colour of the various infusions can be assessed adequately and are not influenced by the different sun stands.


The process of the tea tasting or degustation

 

Homogeneous preparation of the tea:

Weighing: The tea sample is weighed with a hand weight and a six-pence piece weighing 2.86 grams - here you can clearly see the long lasting influence of the British Empire on the tea industry (other sources say that the weight varies between 2.2 and 2.8 grams).

Pre-infusion: The tea leaves are put in a tea mug and brewed with boiling water, but the mug is not filled entirely. The timer is set to a brewing time of 5 minutes.

Covering: The mug is covered with a lid.

Filling the mug: all samples are then filled up.

Covering: The mugs are covered with a lid.

Decantation: after the brewing, the tea is decanted into a cup. With the lid on, the tea is decanted through the set of teeth.

Setting up the tea leaf: the optic and characteristics of the infused tea leaf also has a large impact on the verdict of the tasting. This is why the lid, covered with the infused tea leaves, is put on top ot the mug where the tea was brewed in.
Now the actual tasting starts.

The tea tasting: Looking, smelling, slurping and spitting

There are three main steps in each tasting:
1. the assessing of the dry leaf.
2. the testing of the infusion, the infused leaf.
3. the viewing and tasting of the brewed tea.

Testing of the dry leaf

The taster also prepares a bowl with the dry leaves next to the infused tea. This is then tested for specific characteristics:

the leaf is supposed to be even and correspond to the right leaf grade. Colour and optic are assessed. Then, the cleanliness is assessed, no stems or other pieces of the tea tree, or even dust should be contained in the leaves. The leaf is not only assessed optically, but also haptically.

Tasting of the infusion

Now, as a second step, the taster tests the aroma of the infusion. For this, he smells the infused tea leaf. The origin has to be clearly distinguishable and the scent characteristic for the cultivation area and no other scent may be present which might come from the transport or a false storage.

 


Viewing and tasting of the brewed tea: the tasting

The final and most important step is the acutal tasting which is comparable to a wine tasting for everyone who has no experience in tea tasting. The tea is tasted either via a spoon or directly from the cup, depending on the tradition. The taster uses this sip of tea to test the scent, character and strength, hence, the entire spectre which can be used to describe the tea aroma. Finally, just like when tasting wine, everything is spit out and the verdict is cast.

 

 

This verdict, which is formed within a few seconds, is based on many years of experience. Seven to ten years pass until the taste and the sense of smell of a professional tea taster are developed, until he knows the entire range of tea varieties and their corresponding qualities and can taste them blind.

All in all, tasting is about the fine nuances which have to be determined. Is is not uncommon for tea taster to test around 500 different tea varieties a day. If you then calculate how many teas that makes in a span of only 5 years, you can imagine how much time, patience and experience with respect to taste and aroma have been accumulated. 


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