Common Tea Terms & Expressions  

Introduction

Both tea tasters and tea blenders have a vocabulary of some hundred words to describe appearance and flavor of the teas that they are assessing.  For the uninititated, it can seem a little intimidating, but it need not be so.  We've put together this short list of "tea terms" that you can impress your fiends with!

The most common words in the tea industry are:

Body- a tea with body has a strong liquor not a thin, weak one

Bold - big pieces of tea leaves

Brassy- refers to a tea liquor with a bitter taste

Bright- a bright tea liquor not dull in appearance

Brisk- a lively taste found within the tea

Dull- the opposite of bright, and not a desirable quality to be present in tea

Even- tea leaf pieces of roughly the same size

Flaky- a tea leaf that is in flakes rather than twisted pieces

Flat- a tea that has passed and has too much moisture

Flavory- a tea with a particularly distinctive taste

Grainy- denotes well-made tea fannings or tea dusts

Gray- gray-colored tea leaves resulting from over-cutting or because the desirable coating of juices on the tea leaves has been rubbed off due to over-handling during the tea sifting stage

Greenish- an infusion of a bright green color within the finished tea; it is not desirable in fine teas, and is caused from under-rolling or under-fermentation

Harsh- a bitten raw taste with little strength; not a desirable trait of a fine tea

Irregular- uneven size pieces of tea leaves

Malty- a trait of superior teas which features a hint of malt, found in well-made teas

Mellow- the opposite of greenish, harsh, etc.; a favorable trait of good tea

Point- tea leaves with desirable briskness

Plain- any tea that is lacking in desirable qualities

Pungent- a sharp tea taste that is astringent without being bitter

Ragged- uneven and irregular pieces of tea leaves

Smooth- any superior tea with a pleasant, rounded taste

Tainted- an unpleasant flavor found in a flawed tea, 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 tea buds that give golden flecks to the processed tea leaf

Wiry- well-twisted tea leaves (as opposed to open pieces)

This list is not intended to be all-inclusive. However, it does give an overview to the many industry-specific words that are used daily in the fine tea trade.

Phyllis and Greg Sprout began their company, epicureanfoods.com, in July 1993.  They specialize in supplying hard-to-find gourmet foods, fine wines, gift baskets and other non-food gourmet items to discriminating customers across North America.  Their combined 50+ years in the fine food and fine wine businesses uniquely enable them to assess the wide variety of gourmet & specialty foods, fine wines and non-food gourmet items available on the market today.  They offer only those items that they deem to be superior to comparable competitive products and that represent superb value to the consumer.   They also have a thriving wholesale division of their company which services gourmet shops, gift shops and gift basket companies across North America.  They can be reached at phyllisandgreg@epicureanfoods.com.