The notes say orchid and stone fruit and I taste tea

In short

This is the commonest reason people stop exploring tea, and it is worth separating into its parts, because at least one of them is not about the drinker at all. Some of these notes are describing a real thing you have not yet learned to name; some are describing a real thing your brewing is currently hiding; and some are copy. Working through them in order is quicker than trying harder.

Likely causes, in order

Most likely first. Answer the question under each one before moving on — several of these look alike in the cup and are told apart only by what was done to the leaf.

1. 1. A descriptor is a comparison, and you are tasting one tea on its own

   Technique

   Check: Was there another tea in front of you at the same time, or was this the only cup?

   Fix: Brew two teas side by side and taste them alternately. Almost every tasting note is a contrast rather than an absolute measurement — 'malty' means malty compared with the teas it sits beside. In isolation a cup tends to register as simply 'tea', however carefully it is attended to. This is the single change that moves most people, and it costs nothing.

2. 2. The brew is strong enough to flatten its own detail

   Over-extraction

   Check: Is the cup noticeably drying, or bitter, or simply very intense — and would you describe it as powerful rather than as anything in particular?

   Fix: Brew it deliberately weaker than you normally would: less leaf, or a shorter steep, or cooler water for a delicate tea. Aromatic detail is the first thing lost as a cup gets stronger, and a great deal of 'I cannot find the notes' is a cup brewed past the point where the notes are still legible. A tea you can almost see through is a better place to look for a flavour than a tea you cannot see through at all.

3. 3. You are tasting it too hot

   Temperature

   Check: Do you drink the first mouthful as soon as it is poured?

   Fix: Let the cup drop to somewhere near body temperature and taste it again. Aromatic character is registered mostly through the nose rather than on the tongue, and a very hot liquid is both harder to hold in the mouth and delivers its aroma in a rush. Many teas only become describable on the way down to lukewarm — which is also why a tea that seemed plain can be interesting at the bottom of the cup.

4. 4. The word names a reference you have not met

   Technique

   Check: Do you know what the thing being named actually smells like — orchid, wet stone, dried longan, chestnut?

   Fix: Look the descriptor up rather than trying harder to detect it. TeaHQ's flavour vocabulary sets out what each word is pointing at, which sense it belongs to, and which other descriptor it is routinely confused with. 'Astringency' is not a taste and 'complex' is not a sensation at all, and a good deal of frustration here is caused by hunting on the tongue for something the nose or the sense of touch was reporting.

5. 5. Your water is suppressing the aromatic half of the tea

   Water chemistryInferred by TeaHQ, not established

   Check: Have you ever brewed this tea somewhere else and found it different — at a friend's house, on holiday, in a shop?

   Fix: Brew the same tea once with bottled low-mineral water and compare. Hard water is associated with a flatter, darker cup in which fine aromatics are much harder to find, and it is invisible because it is the same in every cup you have ever made at home. This is the cause most likely to be missed, because nothing about it feels like a variable.

6. 6. The notes are marketing copy

   Leaf qualityInferred by TeaHQ, not established

   Check: Are the descriptors unusually specific and unusually numerous — five or six named fruits on an inexpensive blend?

   Fix: Compare the note with what a second, independent source says about the same tea. Vendor tasting notes are promotional writing and are not held to any standard; a long list of precise fruits on a cheap tea is a stylistic choice rather than a report. Where TeaHQ records aroma notes it records what the catalogue can support, and where a tea has little aromatic character it is supposed to say so rather than reach for a flattering word.

When this cannot be fixed

Some of these notes will never appear, because they were not there. That is worth saying plainly: the assumption that a described flavour is always present and the drinker is always the limitation is what turns an ordinary gap in experience into a reason to give up. A palate does develop, and it develops fastest by comparison rather than by concentration — but a tea that tastes of pleasant tea and nothing more specific may simply be a tea that tastes of pleasant tea.

Related problems

Sharing a cause category, a tea type or a brewing method with this one.

• I cannot taste the difference between my expensive tea and my cheap one — Two teas at very different prices taste much the same in the cup, and the tasting notes on both packets describe things you cannot find.
• I think the famous tea I bought is not what it claims to be — A tea sold under a protected or famous place name — West Lake Longjing, Tongmu Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, a named pu-erh village, Anxi Tie Guan Yin — does not match its descriptions, and the price was suspiciously reasonable.
• My green tea tastes bitter — The cup is sharp and unpleasant, sometimes with a drying, mouth-puckering quality alongside the bitterness.
• My green tea tastes flat and looks dark in this house — A delicate green tea that tasted bright elsewhere comes out dull and heavy here, with a darker, browner liquor than it should have and none of its aroma.
• My matcha is harsh and I think it is a cooking grade — A matcha bought to drink is dull-coloured, gritty and aggressively bitter, and the tin says culinary, cooking or ingredient grade — or says nothing at all.

Sources