Learn to taste

1. 1. Separate the senses

   Taste, smell and touch need different words and have different fixes.

   • The five things a tongue reports, and where each comes from in tea
   • Astringency is something you feel, not something you taste
   • Aroma against flavour, and why most of what you call taste is smell

2. 2. Compare two teas

   Differences are far easier to perceive than absolutes.

   • Running a side-by-side tasting that tells you something
   • Reading the leaf: dry, wet, and the empty cup
   • Compare any two teas

3. 3. Recognise faults

   A fault is not a flavour note, and telling them apart is a skill.

   • Reading processing faults in the cup
   • Building a tasting vocabulary that is yours rather than borrowed

4. 4. Test yourself

   Blind conditions show what you can actually perceive, as opposed to expect.

   • Blind tasting: what it controls for, how to run one, and what it can show
   • Why two competent tasters disagree about the same cup
   • How professional tea tasting differs from drinking tea

All learning paths and diagrams