Learn tea
Where to start, and what to read next. The paths put TeaHQ's reference pages in teaching order, and the atlas shows the ideas that are easier to see than to read.
Learning paths
- Tea 101Beginner
From the plant to a cup you can describe, in the order the ideas depend on each other.
- Brew betterBeginner
Six controls, in the order that changes the cup most, and what to do when it goes wrong.
- Learn to tasteEnthusiast
From telling bitterness from astringency to running a controlled comparison.
- Understand productionEnthusiast
What each stage of manufacture does, and why order is the whole story.
- MatchaEnthusiast
From a shaded field to a bowl, and to what the current market does and does not mean.
- Tea historyEnthusiast
From origins to the modern global trade, keeping legend and record apart.
- Tea professionalProfessional
Evaluation, grading, sourcing and blending: the working knowledge of the trade.
The atlas
- One leaf, six routes
How freshly plucked Camellia sinensis becomes each of the six tea categories, one representative route for each.
- The shoot, and what a plucking standard takes
The parts of a tea shoot, and how the common plucking descriptions map onto them.
- Where the colour comes from: catechins under oxidation
A simplified map of how the leaf's catechins become the pigments of oolong, black and dark tea.
- Six controls on a cup
What changing each brewing variable tends to change, without false numbers.
- The TeaHQ sensory map
TeaHQ's own vocabulary, sorted by which sense does the work, so that taste, smell and touch stop being one word.
- Matcha: from shaded bush to bowl
The route from a shaded field through tencha to a bowl of usucha or koicha, with the step that makes it matcha marked.
- Four representative routes from grower to drinker
Who handles tea on the way to a cup, and which stages each route skips.
- What the Japanese Tea GI requires, step by step
The three stages that must happen in Japan under GI No. 179, and what the registration leaves open.
- What each word on a tea label is actually about
Grade, cultivar, style, place and flush answer different questions, and none of them is a measure of quality.
- Reading a tea bag's material claim
What common bag claims establish, and what each leaves unanswered, without figures from any study.
Prefer to learn by drinking? Journeys walk through teas one step at a time.