Read Your Tea Leaves

I love to learn about tea. Not just reading about it, but listening to the story that the tea tells. A good deal of information can be learned from studying your tea leaves.

Everything from what mistakes were made in the processing to what cultivar was used can be deduced just from looking at the leaves.

For example, looking at a green tea and seeing bits of brown in the leaves would indicate improper manufacturing techniques. For the most part this is done by looking at the leaves after they have been infused and have fully opened up therefore simply giving reason to the good and bad flavors of the tea. Consistency in size shape and color is very important as well as looking for defects such as brown holes in the leaves.

Now, just because a tea looks nice to the eye does not mean that it tastes good, but learning what to look for can determine what good tasting tea looks like. Now, I am no expert. I am still learning how to read tea leaves, but I do know certain parallels between looks and taste. Remember, most of the flavor is written in the leaves. Certain things like post processed aging are hard to tell simply by the looks of the leaves, but all you have to do is use your other senses and you will be able to tell that that tea has been aging. Learn how to use your senses and you will be able to read the story your tea tells.

Part 1: White Tea

Now according to almost everything I have read prior to about a week ago, white tea is simply just picked and dried. Now this is true, but what they don’t tell you which I learned from reading the leaves of certain white teas, is that white tea and specifically white peony is sometimes heavily and often times unevenly oxidized. I double checked this idea and sure enough, white tea is processed with the intention of being oxidized over a period of a few days.

In fact, according to Hong who is reading a tea processing book in Chinese (oh man I sooooooo wish I could read Chinese characters!) white teas are supposed to be oxidized as much as baozhong oolong tea. All you have to do is look at the leaves and notice that half of them are almost black in color. The book, "China the Homeland of Tea," says that all white tea is semi-fermented and honestly most whites really taste like it. There is a certain wafting sweet yet very off flavor that accompanies these teas. I have a hunch that this might be a quality brought on my improper processing or a flavor that is gained post-processing.

The first thing to notice is the color and consistency in color. Inconsistency in color means inconsistency in flavor. If one leaf is oxidized to a certain level and another leaf is oxidized to a different level, right there are two different flavors in the same tea. Another thing to look for is the evenness of oxidation through out the leaf. If one part of the leaf is one color and the other half is another color, this means unevenness in taste.

One thing you will often notice in white peony for example is that there are often 4 or 5 different colored leaves in one batch. You will notice tan colored leaves, light green, black, brown and white. The white is from the downy buds which have that white down when they are growing and are the reason for the name white tea.

As for the other colors, those are just colors given by the processing. Now you may be thinking that this could mean complexity. Well, one of the most evenly colored and shaped teas I have ever had was also one of the most complex. You don’t have to worry about inconsistency so much with silver needle. The most important question is what the best flavored and ideal color of leaf is.

Another thing to look for is consistency in size and shape. If it is a full leaf tea, but you find some broken leaves, this could mean a variety of things. First off, it steeps unevenly. Secondly, it usually brings unwanted oxidation and destroys the method in which ideal oxidation is achieved. Any broken bits of leaves that are not full are absolutely defects.

I cupped some white peony recently!

This one is actually a fairly good grade. There were lots of buds and only some second leaves. Keep in mind that this is actually better quality than most white peony in the United States. In the first cup (top left), it is all the dark oxidized leaves. The Bottom left is all buds. The other three are all not separated. These are all from the same tea and all tasted differently.

This is to show the incredible inconsistency in this tea. Here are the cupping notes:
1. (top left) Spicy, with a rancid honey taste and not very vegetal. This one I really didn't like!
2. (bottom left) The most mellow. Mild melon taste and a little buttery.
3. (top right) bean sprout and ferment sweetness
4. (middle) Similar but less sweet
5. (bottom right) Similar to the other 2 a tad more funky and off than the other 2. Hopefully you can see from the picture how inconsistent this tea is.

My thoughts about white tea have changed over the last couple of months. I realize now how delicate these teas are and hard they are to process correctly.

White teas are also incredibly hard to keep fresh, simply because they don't. Last spring I bought some white peony and by the end of the week it was starting to show its age. With that said, I know there are some excellent white teas to be found out there. I have had some good ones, but I will keep searching until I find the most even one and the lightest oxidation as possible.

Tea Processing

Jaime has been talking a lot lately about the processing involved with coffee. It is interesting to apply this to Tea.

Essentially when you roast coffee, you are bringing out the flavor; making it palatable. When you get to a certain point however, you start to kill the flavors by bringing the oils to the surface and scorching them. When you do this with a very flavorful coffee you are simply scorching the flavor, but when you do this with a less flavorful coffee you create a taste with the roast, simply because the bean has little inherent flavor.

Now the question I am posing in regards to tea is this: Does processing a tea, whether withering, oxidation, or firing, impart bad flavors, take away flavors, or add additional pleasant flavors without killing the flavors inherent in the tea leaf?

Is it only certain processes such as heavy firing that impart or take away flavors in an extreme way? Do they shorten the life of the tea?

Obviously the flavor is heavily affected by the processing and the degree to which it is taken, but at what point are you taking away from the flavor or manipulating it to a point where it has become less desirable?

This is a hard question to answer, because there are so many different tastes and opinions on what tastes good. This is a way in which tea is different than coffee. Tea is steeped in so much tradition and ages of thought, that it is hard to say exactly what is good and bad from an objective stand point.

When you take an opinion however, you could be simply ruling out a whole different world of taste different than yours. If you processed all the different varietals from the different places that fine quality tea is grown into white tea, would get the “true flavor” of the tea leaf, or would you just get a single expression of that tea?

Processing tea is an art and a science, as is coffee roasting, so is it my job as a taster to judge and simply express my opinion and expression by selecting teas that I like?

Is my job to choose teas based on the criteria for that single type of tea?

As a tea server is my job to serve tea in a way I think is correct or is my job to serve tea as a way of expressing the taste of the person to whom I am serving?

I think the key to understanding the flavor in tea, is what type of processing is done as opposed to how much is done. The taste of green tea is dependent on the way it is processed, but also on the varietal used.

The main difference in taste regarding tea processing can be highlighted in the difference between Japanese and Chinese green tea. The Longjing green tea is the same varietal as the green tea in Japan, but they are processed very differently. Longjing is pan fired; whereas Japanese greens are typically steamed. Japanese green teas are usually very fresh, grassy, and sometimes sweet, whereas Longjing is more fruity, nutty and a much smoother flavor overall.

The best teas that I have ever tried are Oolongs. They are processed just enough to bring out the flavor without changing it too drastically. Oolongs are very specific and often complicated in processing.

The truth though is that white, green, yellow, and Oolong teas all have their specific tastes and are all good in their own right. Black and Pu-erh teas usually have their fair share of flaws because they are processed so heavily. Because of this they have created a certain taste based on their flaw, much like coffee that is too darkly roasted or coffee that is fermented in processing the green bean.

-Silas