Sorting and grading vs de-stemming
Two separation steps that between them produce almost every grade name a drinker will ever read, and neither is a quality judgement. Sorting separates finished leaf by size and density; de-stemming separates stem and coarse vein from the blade.
What is being compared
Why these get confused
Letters like FTGFOP are widely read as a quality ladder. They describe leaf size, wholeness and tip content within one manufacturer’s output, and they are not comparable between gardens, between countries or between manufacture types.
Point by point
| Aspect | Sorting and grading | De-stemming and de-veining |
|---|---|---|
| What it separates by | Size, density, colour and magnetic response, removing foreign matter. | Material type: blade against stem and coarse vein. |
| Output | Uniform tradeable lots, named by grade. | A standardised leaf material, and a stem fraction. |
| What happens to the offcut | Smaller fractions become lower grades and are sold as such. | The stem becomes its own product — kukicha in Japan, and the stem grades elsewhere. |
| Relation to quality | None directly. A grade name describes particle size, not how good the tea is. | None directly, though a bud-heavy tea has less stem to remove. |
| Where it is essential | Everywhere tea is traded by grade, which is most of the industry. | Matcha production, where stem in the mill changes the powder, and Japanese tea generally. |
| What a drinker sees | The grade code on an orthodox black tea. | The absence of stem — or its presence, in a tea sold for it. |
The short answer
Grade codes are the most misread information on a tea packet: they are the output of a sorting machine and describe particle size and appearance. A broken grade from a fine garden beats a whole-leaf grade from a poor one, and no grade name contains the information needed to tell them apart.
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