Glossary

Deliberately storing tea for years so it changes — a plan made before the tea is finished.

Only a minority of tea improves with keeping, and it does so because it was made to. Raw pu-erh, aged white tea and traditionally roasted oolong all age; green tea and most black tea simply fade. Ageing needs the right processing at the start — sun-drying for pu-erh, real roast for oolong — and often active maintenance afterwards, since aged oolong is re-roasted every few years.

What it is not: Not what happens to any tea left in a cupboard. A light oolong forgotten for five years is stale, not aged, and the difference was decided before it was packed.

Pressing tea into cakes, bricks or nests — originally for transport, now for ageing.

Compressed tea travelled the tea-horse road to Tibet for centuries because a cake survives a journey a basket of loose leaf does not. The discovery that it improved on the way is the origin of the modern pu-erh market. Pressing reduces air exposure, so a cake matures more slowly and more evenly than loose leaf of the same material.

What it is not: Not a quality signal, and not always good for ageing. Small formats like dragon balls expose far more surface than a cake and age more like loose leaf, which is the opposite of what buyers assume.

Crush, tear, curl — black tea manufacture that shreds the leaf into small uniform granules.

Developed in Assam in the early 1930s by William McKercher, and the reason teabags work commercially. Granules extract fast and almost completely, giving strength and colour in three minutes, which is what a bag, chai or milk tea needs. Most tea drunk in the world is made this way.

What it is not: Not the same as a teabag. CTC is a manufacturing method and a teabag is a format; CTC is sold loose and whole leaf is sold in bags. Blaming the bag for what the leaf grade did is the most common confusion in the subject.

Often confused with: Teabag tea

Microbial change driven by living bacteria and fungi, which happens only in dark tea.

Unlike oxidation, fermentation is biological: bacteria and fungi act on the leaf over weeks, months or decades. It is the defining mechanism of dark tea, by two routes — the controlled wet pile that makes shou pu-erh in weeks, and the slow natural ageing that changes sheng pu-erh over decades. Fu Zhuan takes a third route, cultivating one named fungus until golden specks are visible throughout the brick.

What it is not: It is not what happens to black tea. TeaHQ keeps `oxidationLevel` and `postFermentation` as separate fields precisely because the two are conflated everywhere else, and a tea can genuinely be both.

Often confused with: Oxidation

Applying heat to destroy the leaf's enzymes and halt oxidation.

The step that makes green tea green. Heat denatures the enzymes that would otherwise brown the leaf, and how the heat is applied is the biggest single variable in green tea: China pan-fires in a wok, which adds a toasted chestnut note; Japan steams, which preserves a marine and vegetal character. Oolong uses the same step to arrest oxidation part way.

Rough or unfinished tea — for pu-erh, the sun-dried loose leaf before compression.

Every pu-erh cake starts as maocha, and it is drunk loose throughout Yunnan. Tasting maocha against a cake pressed from the same material is the clearest way to understand what compression does: the loose leaf is brighter and more immediate, and it ages faster and less evenly because far more surface is exposed.

Black tea manufacture in which the leaf is twisted and rolled rather than cut.

The older of the two black-tea routes. Rolling ruptures enough cells for oxidation while leaving the leaf largely intact, so extraction is gradual and incomplete in any one steep — which is exactly what allows a garden, a flush and a leaf grade to be tasted at all. It is slower, lower-yielding and more skill-dependent than the alternative.

What it is not: Not automatically the quality tier. A poor orthodox tea is not better than a well-made CTC because of the machinery — they are tools for different jobs.

Often confused with: CTC

The enzymatic browning that happens when ruptured tea leaf meets air — the process that separates green tea from black.

When tea leaf is bruised or rolled, its cells break and enzymes inside meet oxygen. Over a few hours the leaf browns and its flavour compounds transform, which is why black tea is dark and malty and green tea is not. Every category is defined by how far this is allowed to go and how it is stopped: green tea halts it within hours by applying heat, oolong arrests it part way, black tea lets it run to completion, and white tea neither encourages nor prevents it.

What it is not: It is not fermentation. Nothing is alive and no microorganism is involved — it is a chemical reaction driven by the leaf's own enzymes. Black tea is described as fermented constantly, including by producers, and it is wrong.

Often confused with: Fermentation

Fixing tea by tumbling it in a heated wok, the Chinese method of stopping oxidation.

Direct contact with hot metal both halts oxidation and adds flavour, which is where Longjing's toasted chestnut note comes from. For Longjing the leaf is also pressed flat against the wok wall in the same operation, so shaping and fixing happen together — among the most skill-dependent steps in Chinese tea.

What it is not: Not roasting. Pan-firing is a fixing step performed on fresh leaf within hours of picking; roasting is applied to finished tea, often months later.

Often confused with: Roasting

Applying heat to finished tea to develop flavour, most importantly in oolong.

A second dial, independent of oxidation, and the reason two oolongs from the same cultivar can taste nothing alike. Traditional charcoal roasting runs in several sessions over months with weeks of rest between, which lets the character migrate inward and integrate; a single long roast at the same total energy tastes harsh and superficial.

What it is not: Not visible in the dry leaf as reliably as people assume. Roast level shows in the cup and in how long a tea needs to rest, not in how dark the leaf looks.

Grinding tencha into matcha between slow-turning granite wheels.

A granite mill turns at around thirty revolutions a minute and produces roughly forty grams of powder an hour, which is the main reason good matcha is expensive. The slow speed keeps the leaf cool; friction heat degrades aroma and dulls the colour, which is why faster industrial milling produces a visibly khaki rather than jade powder from identical leaf.

Drying leaf in sunlight at low temperature, leaving it capable of changing in storage.

The step that makes pu-erh possible. Machine drying takes leaf to a temperature that finishes it — enzymes denatured, surface microorganisms killed, chemically stable. Sun-drying does neither completely, so the leaf keeps the capacity that decades of storage act on. A cake made from machine-finished maocha will not age the way a sun-dried one does, whatever the wrapper says.

What it is not: Not a romantic or merely traditional detail. It is functional, and it is invisible to a buyer — which is why sellers who state their drying method are worth preferring.

Shaded leaf that has been steamed, dried and de-stemmed but never rolled — matcha before milling.

Tencha is the input to matcha. Because it is never rolled, its cell structure stays intact and it mills cleanly into a fine powder. It can be steeped as a delicate green tea and rarely is outside Japan.

What it is not: Not a cheaper substitute for matcha. Grinding it at home rarely works, because domestic grinders generate heat that slow granite mills avoid, and heat dulls both colour and aroma.

The controlled microbial fermentation that turns raw pu-erh into ripe pu-erh in weeks.

Developed at the Kunming and Menghai factories in the early 1970s to imitate decades of natural ageing. Damp leaf is piled under controlled heat and humidity for several weeks while a mixed microbial population transforms it. Ripe pu-erh is therefore younger than most people drinking it.

What it is not: Not an ancient technique, and any 'traditional recipe' claim about shou pu-erh is false by construction — the process is barely fifty years old.

The drying, mouth-puckering sensation from polyphenols binding to proteins in saliva.

Astringency is a tactile sensation rather than a taste — it is what makes the mouth feel dry and slightly rough, the same effect an unripe persimmon or a tannic red wine produces. It comes from polyphenols binding proteins in saliva, and it is raised by leaf grade, agitation and long steeping.

What it is not: It is not bitterness, and conflating them makes troubleshooting advice actively wrong. Bitterness is a taste from over-extraction and heat; astringency is a texture from polyphenols. They have different causes and different fixes, which is why TeaHQ scores them on separate axes.

Often confused with: Bitterness

The returning sweetness that arrives seconds after swallowing, especially in pu-erh.

Literally 'returning sweetness'. Bitterness arrives first and then recedes, and a sweetness rises in its place after a few seconds. It is the property young sheng pu-erh is judged on, and the reason a genuinely bitter tea like Lao Ban Zhang commands the price it does — the bitterness is the entry fee for what follows.

What it is not: Not an aftertaste in the ordinary sense, which is simply flavour persisting. Hui gan is a change of sensation over time, and a tea can have a long aftertaste and no hui gan at all.

A word used loosely for tea polyphenols, and used precisely it does not describe most of what tea contains.

In wine and oak, tannins are a specific class of large polyphenols. Tea's astringency comes mostly from catechins, which are smaller and chemically distinct, and true condensed tannins are a minor component. The word survives in tea writing because it describes the sensation people recognise.

What it is not: Not a precise description of tea chemistry, and not a synonym for astringency — one is a compound class, the other a sensation. TeaHQ prefers the sensory term because it is the one that can be tasted and checked.

Often confused with: Catechins

Savouriness — the broth-like taste from amino acids, above all L-theanine.

The fifth basic taste, and the defining quality of shaded Japanese green tea. Shading raises amino acid content and suppresses catechins, which is why gyokuro and high-grade matcha taste sweet and savoury rather than astringent. Brewing temperature decides whether you get it: amino acids extract readily in cool water and catechins need heat, which is why gyokuro is brewed at 50–60 °C.

What it is not: Not a synonym for 'good'. It is one register among several, and plenty of excellent tea has none of it — a Wuyi rock tea is not deficient for tasting mineral rather than savoury.

Grown from cuttings of a single parent plant rather than from seed.

Clonal planting gives genetic uniformity and therefore consistency batch to batch, which is why most modern estates use it. Seed-grown gardens produce a mixed population where no two plants are quite alike, which costs consistency and can add complexity. Darjeeling's shift to clonal AV2 is the main reason its first flush tastes different now from thirty years ago.

What it is not: Not a quality signal in either direction. Clonal is more consistent; seed-grown is more variable, which is a fault in a commodity tea and sometimes a virtue in a speciality one.

A named, deliberately propagated variety of the tea plant, selected and reproduced from cuttings rather than grown from seed.

All tea is Camellia sinensis, but the plant has been selectively bred for centuries into named cultivars with distinct characteristics. Yabukita dominates Japanese production; Qing Xin makes Taiwanese high-mountain oolong; Bai Ye Yi Hao is an albino mutant behind Anji Bai Cha. Because a cultivar is propagated from cuttings, every plant is genetically identical to the parent — which is what makes the character reproducible.

What it is not: Not the same as a botanical variety. `var. sinensis` and `var. assamica` are varieties — a level above cultivar — and most named cultivars sit inside one of them.

Often confused with: Variety

The season's earliest picking, when amino acid content is highest and the leaf is most tender.

Winter dormancy concentrates amino acids in the plant, so the first shoots of spring are the sweetest and least astringent of the year. Japan sells this as shincha, China as pre-Qingming tea picked before early April. Both command large premiums and both are genuinely perishable — the character is what fades first.

What it is not: Not simply 'fresh'. Any tea can be fresh; first harvest is a specific point in the growing year, and the premium is for the plant's condition rather than for how recently it was packed.

Often confused with: Fresh tea

A harvest — one round of new growth picked from the bush.

Tea plants push out new shoots several times a season, and each round is a flush. In Darjeeling the first flush is picked in March and the second in May, and they produce teas so different that treating them as one product is misleading. The word carries most weight where seasons are pronounced; in equatorial Kenya, where there is no dormant winter, it means much less.

What it is not: Not a quality ranking. First flush is not better than second — they are different teas, and the second flush is the rounder and more forgiving of the two.

Often confused with: Grade

Covering tea plants for weeks before harvest to change the leaf's chemistry.

Reducing sunlight for two to four weeks before picking makes the plant produce more chlorophyll and more amino acids while suppressing catechins. The result is darker, sweeter and more savoury leaf with less astringency. It is the single variable behind gyokuro, kabusecha and matcha alike, and it is expensive because it costs yield.

The claim that a place — its soil, altitude, climate and aspect — leaves a detectable signature in the cup.

Borrowed from wine, and better supported in some tea categories than others. Wuyi rock tea's mineral character is attributed to weathered cliff soil; Taiwanese high-mountain oolong's thickness and long finish are attributed to altitude and cold nights. Both are widely accepted and neither is easy to isolate from cultivar and processing, which travel with the place.

What it is not: Not a guarantee, and not a substitute for processing. A famous origin badly made is worse than an ordinary origin made well, and the most expensive designations — zheng yan, Lao Ban Zhang — are also the most counterfeited precisely because the claim is unverifiable in the cup.

A term used by drinkers for the bodily sensation some teas produce beyond flavour — warmth, alertness, a settled feeling.

Cha qi is discussed most in pu-erh and aged oolong circles, where it describes an effect drinkers report as distinct from taste. TeaHQ records that the term is used and what it is used to describe, and takes no position on what causes it. That is deliberate: any physiological explanation would be a health claim, and this catalogue holds those in a layer that has not been reviewed.

What it is not: Not a measurable property, not a grading criterion, and not something TeaHQ makes any claim about. Where a seller prices a tea on cha qi, they are pricing a subjective report.

A brewing approach using a lot of leaf in a small vessel for very short, repeated infusions.

Gongfu means skill acquired through effort, and as a brewing method it means roughly 5–7 g per 100 ml with first steeps under fifteen seconds, repeated six to fifteen times. The point is the arc: the tea changes across the session, and each infusion is different. It suits teas with something to reveal over time — oolong, pu-erh, high-grade Chinese leaf — and adds nothing to a breakfast blend.

What it is not: Not a superior method, and not a scaled version of western brewing. 5 g for 20 seconds and 3 g for 3 minutes are different extractions, not different sizes of the same one, and parameters never transfer between them.

One steep of a small amount of leaf in a large volume, for several minutes.

Roughly 1–1.5 g per 100 ml for two to four minutes, giving one cup. It shows a tea's overall character as a single average, which suits everyday drinking, blends, and anything drunk with milk. It is not a degraded form of gongfu — for a breakfast blend it is simply the right tool.

A lidded bowl with a saucer, used as a brewing vessel throughout China.

Three pieces — bowl, lid and saucer — used together as a small teapot: the lid holds the leaf back while the tea is poured off. Typically 100–150 ml, porcelain and non-porous, which means it absorbs nothing and tells the truth about whatever is brewed in it. It is the cheapest serious tea vessel there is and the sensible first purchase.

What it is not: Not a lesser version of a clay pot. A yixing pot absorbs oils and must be kept to one category of tea; a gaiwan can brew anything, which makes it the more useful vessel while you are still finding out what you like.

Often confused with: Yixing teapot

A classification of leaf size, appearance or picking date — never directly of quality.

Grading systems differ by country and describe different things. Indian codes like FTGFOP describe leaf size and tip content. Chinese white tea grades describe what was picked — bud only, bud and leaf, mature leaf. Korean grades describe the picking date. None of them measures how the tea tastes.

What it is not: Not a quality score, and the assumption that a higher grade is a better tea inverts in at least one place: the cheapest white grade, Shou Mei, ages better than the expensive ones.