Flavour and sensory vocabulary

A tactile sensation, not a taste: polyphenols binding salivary proteins so the mouth stops feeling lubricated.

A taste, detected on the tongue, and the most frequently misfiled word in tea writing.

How much the liquor weighs in the mouth, independent of how strong it tastes.

The soup-like weight of a high-amino-acid green tea — a mouthfeel, and the companion of umami rather than the same thing.

A verdict about a tea rather than a sensation in it — recorded here so it can be told apart from the sensations.

A taste that is usually a fault in tea, and occasionally a producer's intention.

A taste, and in tea usually a faint one — most of what reads as sweet is aroma.

How the liquor moves in the mouth — silky, oily, thin or rough — as distinct from how much of it there seems to be.

The savoury taste that Japanese green tea is built around, and that Western flavour wheels leave out.

A Chinese evaluative category for what a tea does in the throat after swallowing — depth, coolness, and how far down it is felt.

A Chinese evaluative category: the sweetness that arrives after the swallow, following bitterness rather than replacing it.

How long anything is still happening after the swallow — the plainest finish measure.

The evaluative category specific to Wuyi rock oolong: the quality attributed to tea grown on the cliffs rather than around them.

The defining aroma of good oolong in Chinese tasting language, and the single most-used floral note in this catalogue.

Jasmine, rose and osmanthus — the three flowers that are put into tea, as opposed to the flowers tea is compared to.

The broad intrinsic floral band — gardenia, honeysuckle, lilac, lily, blossom — that the leaf produces without anything being added to it.

The small band of berry, lychee, coconut and tamarind notes — uncommon, and specific.

Peel and zest rather than juice — the high, sharp band, and the one most often added from outside the leaf.

Longan, date and raisin — the dark, concentrated sweetness of aged and heavily oxidised tea, and a Chinese descriptor with no English equivalent.

The cool, watery, faintly green band that marks fresh light oolong and good white tea.

The grape-like character of Darjeeling second flush — a named quality with a commercial value and a contested cause.

Apricot, peach, plum, pear and apple — the temperate fruit band, and the commonest fruit note in oxidised tea.

A specific green note — woody, watery and faintly sweet — that sits apart from grass and from wood.

Steamed spinach, green beans, peas and sweet corn — the correct character of steamed Japanese green tea, and a hair's breadth from a fault.

Cut-grass green — the smell of the fresh leaf surviving into the cup, and the marker of a green tea that is actually fresh.

Dried grass rather than fresh — the signature of white tea, and of green tea that has aged.

Dried and wild herbs, moss, and the 'medicinal' note — a band that means something specific in Chinese tea writing.

Chestnut above all — the standard descriptor for good pan-fired Chinese green tea, plus the nut band around it.

The defining note of Assam and of orthodox black tea — and the descriptor with more surface spellings in this catalogue than any other.

Toast, rice, popcorn and warm bread — Maillard chemistry, and the clearest case in this vocabulary of a note with a known cause.

Cooked-sugar notes from light caramel to dark treacle, plus the specific 'rock sugar' descriptor of Chinese tasting language.

Dry cocoa powder rather than chocolate bar — a marker of Yunnan black tea and of some well-aged shou.

The dairy band — and a case where an aroma word is routinely confused with a mouthfeel one.

The most-used note in the catalogue by a wide margin, and in one famous case a note with a named referent.

The signature of Yunnan black tea — roasted sweet potato, a single vivid descriptor with no substitute.

Char and charcoal from heat applied to the leaf itself — not smoke, and not scorching either.

Smoke from actual burning material — deliberate in Lapsang Souchong and in Tibetan brick tea, accidental everywhere else.

The cool, penetrating note of aged sheng — partly an aroma and partly a physical cooling sensation, which is why it is hard to place.

Pine, resin, sandalwood and cedar — aromatic wood rather than plain wood, and a different thing from the wood band.

Cinnamon and cassia above all — a small band in unflavoured tea, and one where the cultivar name is a trap.

The band that runs from green stem to old dry timber — and one of the words on the standard defect list that is usually not a defect here.

Damp forest floor and mushroom — the correct character of shou pu-erh and aged sheng, and the one most often confused with a storage fault.

Nori and sea air — the aroma that accompanies umami in shaded Japanese green tea, and a different thing from the taste it travels with.

Wet stone and slate — a widely used descriptor for something that has no smell, which is worth being honest about.

The dry aged band — leather, cured tobacco leaf, old paper — that marks long-stored dark and black tea.

A genuine wet-piling fault in shou pu-erh — not, as vendor copy sometimes has it, a characteristic of the style.

A verdict about absence: the aromatics are gone and nothing has replaced them. Not a sensation, and still a fault.

The smell of a tea stored damp — distinct from the earthy character of a properly aged one, and the distinction is not academic.

Burnt rather than roasted: an acrid, ashy edge from leaf that met too much heat too fast.

The dull, cooked, slightly sulphurous note of green tea made with water that was too hot or left too long.

Not enough liquor in the mouth — a mouthfeel fault, and usually a brewing one.