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.