What qualities should a good tea exhibit? What distinguishes one grade tea from another? Many black tea producers utilize India’s “alphabet soup” nomenclature as a uniform grading system for their products; is there a similar grading system in Chinese tea production?
Seven Cups Tea Forum » FAQ
Quality and Grading
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Posted 1 year ago #
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There is not a similar grading system for Chinese teas, and there is unlikely for there to ever be one. An agency of the Chinese is setting up standards for Chinese tea, but I think these standards will not be very meaningful to the average consumer. There are books in Chinese that discuss the characteristics of the better known teas, but these books are pretty thick. Some teas, Longjing for example, could take up 10 or 15 pages. There are over 50,000 producers in China. There is an old Chinese saying that says, 'you can study tea for a lifetime and not learn all of the names. Different teas have completely different criteria for quality, and even still, there may be disputes between tea masters. Even the grading system for black tea, even though there is one, is not an honest indicator of what you are buying. Tea is a very subjective substance and has resisted tenaciously being turned into a commodity.
AustinPosted 1 year ago #
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