Tea Glossary
Bakey: characteristic due to black tea being over-fired and too much moisture
being removed.
Biscuity: a pleasant aroma often used to describe quality Assams.
Bright: a characteristic associated with good color, generally a sign of a quality tea.
Brisk: denotes a live quality associated with pungency. Also characteristic of a quality tea.
Clouding: may occur when tea is chilled, due to particulates in tea. Not necessarily an indication of the quality of the tea.
Common: a plain, thin liquor with no distinct flavor characteristics.
Dull: refers to the liquid’s color, the opposite of bright. May also denote lack of briskness.
Flat: applies to tea that is no longer fresh-tastes like it sounds.
Full: describes a good combination of color and strength.
Hard: a pungent liquor related to greenness, accompanied by a harsh, bitter quality.
Harsh: describes a tea that has been underwithered, resulting in a rough liquor.
Light: liquor that lacks color and strength. Often the tea will lack body and aroma as well.
Malty: a desirable quality commonly found in Assam teas.
Metallic: a sharp, coppery flavor found in some black teas.
Muscat: a flavor and aroma characteristic of fine Darjeelings, often associated with black currants.
Pungent: a bitter, harsh, or rough characteristic that is felt along the gums rather than tasted on the tongue.
Smoky: a characteristic flavor and aroma of some Chinese teas, especially Lapsang Souchong. Undesirable in other teas.
Stale: faded aroma and dead taste due to excessive age.
Thin: light liquor lacking any desirable characteristics.
Toasty: describes the aroma of a fine Keemun and other highly fired teas.
Weedy: grassy or haylike taste related to underwithering.
Winy: relates to the aging of tea, which normally does not enhance flavor.
Tea Grading
D: dust. Not good in your house or your tea. In tea bags the large surface area
of the particles makes for rapid infusion for a strong darkly colored liquor but not the best taste.
FNGS: fannings. Somewhat larger pieces than dust, same problem.
BOP: broken orange pekoe. Bet you thought orange pekoe was a type of tea. Nope. Refers to much larger pieces of broken leaves, and may be quite good if original leaf was of good quality.
OP: orange pekoe. Whole leaf teas, which may or may not result from the plucking of the second leaf, rather than the first two leaves and the bud. Slower to infuse than broken leaf and may be excellent if other quality factors are present.
FOP: flowery orange pekoe. Indicates the presence of the flower leaf, or first open leaf. Usually a good thing if other quality factors are present.
G: golden. This term may appear before one of the previous designations and refers to presence of yellowish pieces of the leaf bud in sufficient quantity to be easily seen. Another good indicator of quality.
T: tippy. This indicates a substantial presence of the whole leaf bud, which may be greenish, black, silver or golden depending on the origin of the tea, processing technique, etc.
The above grading terms refer to black teas only, and while interesting, and perhaps even useful, their presence on a given tea indicates some effort at quality but is no guarantee of good taste. Good taste is subjective, and besides- we have all known pedigreed dogs that were culls, right?
Source: Tea Basics by Rasmussen and Rhinehart
