Learning to taste tea
Three legs, each isolating a single variable, because tasting is a comparison skill rather than a vocabulary one. The point is not to acquire words for flavours but to set up pairs where only one thing differs, which is the only way the difference becomes noticeable.
Who this is for
Someone who can tell they like one tea more than another and cannot say why, and would like to be able to.
What you should come away with
You will be able to name what changed between two cups, which is the whole of tasting and the part no flavour wheel can give you.
Leg 1 · Blend, component, and something else entirely
Staying inside black tea so the category is not the variable. A blend, one of the things blended into it, and then a black tea made somewhere with a completely different character.
Starting point. Everything after this is measured against it.
Strong and straightforwardly malty, engineered so that milk and a short steep produce the same cup every morning. Judged as a single origin it is unremarkable; judged as a blend it is a piece of consistent engineering.
Why this step follows
The blend’s dominant component, on its own. The first useful step out of blends is usually meeting one of their parts.
Thick and malty with a firm astringent grip. The second flush is the one worth seeking: it carries a rounder, almost stewed-fruit sweetness under the malt that the first flush has not yet developed.
Why this step follows
Both black, and about as far apart as the category goes. Assam is forgiving and milk-friendly; Darjeeling asks for cooler water, a shorter steep and no milk, and rewards it with muscatel aroma.
Rounder and sweeter than the spring picking, with the muscatel note sitting over a light malt base. The comparison to muscat grapes is unusually literal for tea tasting language.
Leg 2 · The same plant, grown in the shade
One variable and one only. Shading changes the balance of what the leaf accumulates, and this pair is the clearest demonstration of it available.
Starting point. Everything after this is measured against it.
Vegetal and savoury at once. Brewed cool it leans sweet and broth-like; brewed hot it turns sharply astringent, which is the single most common way people decide they dislike green tea.
Why this step follows
Identical processing, opposite cultivation. Expect a much cooler brew, several times the leaf, and a thick savoury cup with no astringency.
Thick and almost broth-like, with very little astringency and a sweetness that arrives before anything else. The clearest teaching case in tea for what umami actually means in a cup.
Leg 3 · What roasting does, and what grinding does
Two more single changes. Roasted green tea against powdered green tea, both a long way from a plain steeped leaf and in opposite directions.
Starting point. Everything after this is measured against it.
Roasty and gently sweet with essentially no astringency — the Japanese green tea for people who dislike green tea, and a common evening choice for exactly that reason.
Why this step follows
Roasted and low in bitterness — the gentlest way into Japanese tea for anyone who found matcha harsh.
Intensely savoury and thick-textured, with a bitterness that is part of the design rather than a fault. Lower grades tip from savoury into flatly bitter, which is the main reason people conclude they dislike it.
Read alongside
- How to taste tea
Tasting is drinking with attention and a method. The method is unglamorous — compare two things, change one variable, write it down — and it develops judgement faster than any amount of reading.
- How to judge tea quality
Quality in tea is not one property and is not the same as price. Four things are worth assessing, three of them are free to check, and none of them is what the packet is likely to be talking about.
- The tea flavour wheel explained
Flavour wheels organise descriptors from broad families outward to specific terms. They are navigation aids rather than science, and their usefulness depends entirely on being coarse enough to be usable.