Tea evaluation is a professional skill, but for ordinary people, it's not necessary to master it fully. Gaining expertise in recognizing tea requires long-term experience and exposure to a large number of samples, which cannot be achieved quickly. However, there are some general rules that can help you filter out distractions using the method of elimination, allowing you to learn and compare within a more standardized set of samples.
Before Brewing
1. **Inspect Dry Leaves (Overall):** Neat and uniform appearance with minimal broken pieces or impurities indicates high quality; uneven size and color with obvious blending suggests lower quality.
2. **Inspect Dry Leaves (Individual):** Tight and compact with a lustrous sheen and natural color indicates high quality; loose and dull without vitality, or overly bright and unnatural colors, indicates lower quality. Color is a difficult aspect to judge, as many inferior teas can appear more vibrant than genuine high-quality teas. For example, fake Longjing tea from West Lake often has a vivid green color, while authentic Longjing is a mix of yellow and green, less eye-catching. However, upon closer inspection, the natural and pleasing color of the authentic tea stands out compared to the overly bright and unnatural colors of the imitations.
3. **Smell Dry Aroma:** Pure and strong aroma indicates high quality; presence of odd smells or a faint, inconsistent aroma suggests lower quality. However, it's important to note that not all good teas have a strong aroma, especially aged teas, where the dry leaves may not emit much scent. Here, the distinction lies between a faint aroma and an inconsistent or erratic one. In short, the tea can be subtle in its aroma, but it should not be erratic.
Brewing
1. **Inspect Lid:** If using a Gaiwan, during the initial rinse, observe the foam. Minimal foam that dissipates quickly and a lid free from impurities indicates high quality; excessive foam that does not disperse and impurities on the lid indicate lower quality. Good tea is handled carefully throughout its production and storage process, which makes sense, right?
2. **Smell Lid:** The absence of unpleasant odors when hot and a strong, pure aroma that persists after cooling down indicates high quality; the presence of sour, Astringent, burnt, or other off-flavors and a fleeting aroma indicates lower quality.
Tasting
1. **Taste the Tea:** The taste of tea is rich and varied, hard to describe comprehensively, but one common factor is the degree of harmony between the tea and water. As a friend of tea would say, “This tea makes the water taste better,” this is the simplest yet most challenging requirement. If the tea truly pleases your palate, it must be of high quality!
2. **Aftertaste:** The real test begins once the tea goes down your throat. Smooth passage and a lingering aroma in the mouth and nose, along with strong salivation and a sweet aftertaste, indicate high quality; a prickly sensation in the throat, a weaker aroma compared to when in the mouth, a dryness on the tongue, and a plastic-like stickiness in the mouth indicate multiple issues with the tea, such as coarse raw materials, inadequate processing, or improper storage conditions.
3. **Inspect Liquor Color:** Clear and transparent indicates high quality; cloudy and murky indicates lower quality. However, some teas have abundant downy hair, which can appear cloudy but is actually a sign of high quality. Distinguish between downy hair and impurities.
4. **Inspect Changes in Liquor Color:** With normal brewing techniques, the changes in the liquor color during the tasting process can reveal the quality of the tea. Stable color gradually fading over time indicates high quality; rapid decline in color and poor endurance indicates lower quality. Be cautious of teas that show sudden changes in quality, as they might be products of over-engineered processing to mask inferior raw material.
After Tasting
**Inspect Leaf Bottom:** The leaf bottom is like a woman's skin, revealing no secrets. This is a very deep subject, but here are a few simple points.
1. **Flexibility:** High-quality leaf bottoms should spread out naturally, be soft, and have elasticity. Stiffness or excessive tenderness is not ideal. Gently rub the leaves with your hand; if they do not easily crumble, they are of better quality than those that break apart easily.
2. **Color Uniformity:** A uniform color across the leaf bottom indicates high quality; mottled coloring, or uneven shades, is a cause for concern. Look out for burnt red spots on the leaves, which indicate poor processing. In the case of Oolong tea, the “green leaves with red borders” should be uniform and natural, with little variation among the leaves.
3. **Luster:** After draining the moisture from the leaf bottom and letting it air-dry for a few minutes, leaves that maintain their luster are of higher quality than those that quickly become dry. This is similar to the skin's ability to retain moisture.
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