Persistence
How long anything is still happening after the swallow — the plainest finish measure.
Persistence is simply duration: whether the cup stops when it is swallowed or continues for another half minute. It is the one finish property that needs no tradition-specific vocabulary and no mechanism to describe, which is why TeaHQ carries it as a numeric axis on every sensory profile alongside astringency, bitterness, sweetness, umami and body. It is worth naming separately from the Chinese finish categories rather than folding them together: a tea can have a long finish with nothing in it, and huigan is a claim about what returns rather than about how long anything lasts. Persistence tends to track material quality and to survive brewing mistakes better than aroma does, which makes it a useful thing to check when comparing two teas of the same style.
Which sense this is
Finish and throat. What happens after swallowing. Includes evaluative categories from Chinese tea assessment that have no equivalent term in European sensory language.
Sensory primitive. A single sensation that can be isolated and trained on, independently of what the tea reminds anyone of.
Where it comes from
- Observed, cause unsettled
Consistently associated with material quality across styles and not reducible to any single measurable property TeaHQ can name.
Reliably observed and not explained. Recorded as unexplained rather than given a mechanism it has not earned.
Not to be confused with
- Huigan (Finish and throat) — A Chinese evaluative category: the sweetness that arrives after the swallow, following bitterness rather than replacing it.
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.