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Tea Terms
Agony of the leaves: Unfolding of the leaves in boiling water.
Aroma: Also known as nose or fragrance, it is actually the odor of both the
infused leaf and the tea liquor itself. Most analogies are to flowery essences or fruits, e.g., a peach-like smell to some oolongs.
Astringency: That quality of the liquor that gives a bite, or puckeryness, to the liquor.
Baggy: A residue or stain that results from unlined hessian bags.
Bakey: Unpleasant taste caused by firing leaf at too high a temperature and removing too much moisture, not as strong as "burnt".
Biscuity: Pleasant characteristic often associated with Assam teas.
Bite: Not a taste but the astringent puckeriness that gives black tea its refreshing quality.
Bitter: An unpleasant biting taste, frequently resulting from oversteeping or allowing teas to remain too long in the liquor.
Black: A dark brownish-black appearance of the leaf, a desirable characteristic of a fully fermented leaf.
Blackish: Typical of carefully sorted CTC (cut-tear-curl) tea leaves; refers to leaf's appearance.
Bloom: Sheen or luster on black leaf as a result of minimal handling and sorting.
Body: Viscosity, the strength of the liquor combined with its weight on the tongue; body may be "full", "light", etc.
Bold: Large leaf or sometimes pieces of leaf too big for a grade, outsized.
Brassy: Unpleasant tang or brass-like metallic taste caused by underwithering.
Bright: Sparkling liquor characteristic of all fine teas; also describes taste opposite of "dull".
Brisk: Lively, not flat, and a true characteristic of well-manufactured teas.
Brown: An indication of overly harsh treatment of CTC-type teas; a brown appearance.
Burnt: Extreme over-firing.
Character: An attractive taste quality of high-grown teas.
Chesty: Resinous odor or taste imparted by uncured wood or inferior packing materials in a tea chest.
Chunky: A very large albeit broken-leaf tea.
Clean: Tea leaf that is free of extraneous matter; particularly fiber, dust, twigs or similar particles.
Coarse: Harsh taste; quite undesirable.
Colory: Depth of color and strength.
Common: A very indistinctly flavored liquor that is thin, light, plain, lacking in color or body; or, in reference to tea leaf, poor quality.
Complex: The harmonious mélange of various flavors characteristic of the very finest teas.
Creaming up: The occasional bubbly residue that comes to the surface of some black teas, especially Assams, harmless, and indeed desirable.
Creepy: Typical characteristic of O.P. teas which are larger-grade and broken-leaf teas; a crimped, creepy appearance.
CTC (Cut, Tear, Curl): A process of tea which is done by machine and results in tea leaves which are cut but still very full of flavor.
Curly: Different than wiry, this refers to the appearance of a whole-leaf grade of teas, i.e. O.P.
Dry: Over fired, but not burnt.
Dull: Leaf without sheen, i.e., "bloom".
Earthy: Used to describe an earthy flavor which can be either natural from the region where the tea is grown or the result of storage in too damp an area.
Empty: A tea characteristic of liquor without substance, fullness, body.
Even: A grade of tea that has leaves which are uniformly even or nearly even in size.
Flaky: Poorly made leaf that is flat, open and easily broken.
Flat: Soft, rather flabby-bodied tea lacking "bite" and "briskness".
Flavor: Relatively rare but always sought after, usually most evident in teas of slow growth at high elevations.
Fruity: Piquant quality characteristic of good oolongs, some Keemuns, etc.
Gone off: Tea that's been spoiled by improper storage or packing or is simply past its prime and is stale.
Grainy: Primary grades of well-made CTC teas.
Gray: Color caused by too much abrasion during the sorting process.
Green: Refers to under-fermentation of black tea or else leaves from immature bushes whose liquor often is raw or light; can also be caused by poor rolling; (not to be confused with greenish teas, first flush tea or with green tea properly so called).
Hard: Very pungent brew.
Harsh: Very rough-tasting, underwithered tea.
Heavy: Thick, strong, colory liquor with limited briskness to its taste.
Lacking: A liquor without body, one that is neutral or without any strong characteristics.
Leafy: Those teas whose leaves are large or long in size.
Light: "Flaky", but also a tea that is light in weight and lacking density.
Make: Well-made tea true to its grade; also poorly-made tea true to its grade.
Malty: A subtle underlying flavor often characteristic of Assam.
Mature: Not flat or bitter.
Metallic: A sharp coppery taste.
Muddy: Dull or opaque liquor without lightness.
Muscatel: A muscat-grape-like taste used to characterize the finest Darjeelings.
Mushy: Tea with a high moisture content as a result of its packaging or storage.
Musty: Moldy smell or taste resulting from poor storage or packing; or mildew-affected tea; (not a defect in Pu-Erh!)
Neat: A grade of tea with a good make and size.
Nose: Aroma or smell of the dry leaf.
Orange Pekoe: Refers to the larger of the two leaves of a tea plant; the orange refers to the orangish or golden color of the leaf when plucked. As a tea blend, however, orange pekoe is a misnomer but has come to mean a pleasant everyday tea.
Ordinaire: A term, patterned after that of the wine industry, to describe a good, predictable tea suitable for daily drinking; ordinary table tea.
Pekoe: From the Chinese word pa-ko, or "white down", to describe the wispy hairs found on fine leaves. Tea has a leaf bud and two larger leaves; the largest of these two leaves is referred to as pekoe. Pekoe tea, however, is actually a misnomer and used for a common blend of pleasant but undistinctive taste.
Peak: The high point of tasting experience when, some instants after the liquor enters the mouth, its body, flavor and astringency make themselves fully felt. Greens and oolongs do not peak, but stand immediately and fully revealed.
Plain: A brew that is clean tasting but without major characteristics to make it lively.
Pointy: A liquor is said to "have point" if it shows some desirable property - for example, briskness or fine fragrance.
Powdery: Fine light tea dust.
Pungent: Astringent; what gives a tea its bite; good combination of strength, brightness and briskness.
Quality: Used to describe the cup of liquor's most wanted characteristics.
Ragged: Badly manufactured and graded tea that is uneven.
Self-drinking: Any tea with sufficient aroma, flavor, body and color to stand alone and in no need of blending for improvement.
Shotty: Well-made Gunpowder green tea; sometimes also applied to black teas.
Stalk and Fiber: Plant residues which are generally included in lower-grade teas but should be at a minimum in higher grade teas; reflects sloppy or indifferent sorting.
Soft: The opposite of brisk; inefficient firing or fermentation causes this lack of liveliness.
Stewed: Oversteeped tea leaves which have turned bitter; also can refer to leaves that have been poorly fired at low temperatures and insufficient air flow, resulting in a brew with a bitter taste.
Strength: Substantive characteristic of a cup of tea.
Sweaty: Poor tea with unpleasant taste.
Taint: Flavor or taste in tea that is foreign, i.e., oil, food, etc., that results from being stored next to such foods or products.
Tarry: An aroma of smokiness associated with Lapsang Souchong or some Russian Caravan-style teas; scent derives from being smoked over wood or charcoal. (If it smells like rubber do not buy it.)
Thick: Brew with rich color and taste and strength.
Thin: Opposite of thick; lacking color, taste, and having a thin or light liquor. Lacking body or color or both.
Tip: Literally the tip of the youngest leaves, which is a true sign of good picking.
Tippy: Generous amount of white or golden tip, i.e. budding leaf.
Uneven or mixed: Leaves which show various colors.
Weedy: May be applied to thin, cabbagy black teas; nonpejoratively, a green tea may be called weedy if it has a not-unpleasant vegetative aroma and flavor, varying from simple herbaceousness to scents of new-mown hay.
Well-twisted: Fully withered, leaf of whole-leaf grades which is tightly rolled length-wise.
Winey: Usually descriptive of a mellow quality fine Darjeelings or Keemuns acquire with six months to a year or more of age; more rarely used to describe over-fermented tea.
Woody: Same as weedy.
from The Tea Lover's Companion by James Norwood Pratt with Diana Rosen, c. 1996
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