Body
How much the liquor weighs in the mouth, independent of how strong it tastes.
Body is the felt weight and volume of the liquor — whether it fills the mouth or sits in the middle of it. It is not the same as strength: a heavily brewed Darjeeling can taste intense and still feel light, and a well-made aged sheng can feel dense while tasting mild. It is not the same as flavour intensity either, which is why the two are separate numeric axes on TeaHQ's sensory profile. Body tracks dissolved solids and, in practice, leaf maturity, variety and processing: assamica material and older leaf give more of it than young sinensis buds do. It is the axis most affected by how much leaf goes into the pot, which makes it the easiest thing on this page to change deliberately.
Which sense this is
Mouthfeel. Felt rather than tasted or smelled: texture, weight, viscosity, and the drying grip of astringency, which is a physical effect in the mouth rather than a flavour.
Sensory primitive. A single sensation that can be isolated and trained on, independently of what the tea reminds anyone of.
Where it comes from
- Cultivar or terroir
Assamica material and more mature leaf generally give a heavier cup than small-leaf sinensis buds picked young, which is one reason var. assamica dominates the categories drunk with milk.
Attributed to the plant material or the place it grew.
Types: type-black-tea.
- Brewing variable
Leaf-to-water ratio moves body more directly than any other brewing lever. A cup that tastes right and feels hollow usually needs more leaf and a shorter steep rather than a longer one.
Produced at the drinker's end, by a brewing choice or a brewing error.
Not to be confused with
- Thinness (Mouthfeel) — Not enough liquor in the mouth — a mouthfeel fault, and usually a brewing one.
What gets said that is not right
That body and strength are the same thing. Strength is how much flavour is in the cup; body is how much the cup weighs in the mouth, and a tea can have plenty of one and little of the other.
Nearby
A tasting note is a comparison, not a measurement. Where the route from leaf to sensation is established it is labelled as such above; where it is not, the page says so rather than supplying a mechanism the descriptor has not earned. See the rest of the vocabulary for how the axes divide up.