What are the 4 main grades of tea?

Tea Grading and Sorting Explained

There are 4 basic groups in orthodox production: Leaf, Broken, Fannings and Dust. These categories specify and indicate the different leaf sizes and associated strengths.

What are the 4 classifications of tea?

They are 4 main varieties of tea: White Tea, Green Tea, Oolong Tea, and Black Tea. Black tea is historically the most common in the western world, but green tea is rapidly gaining lost ground.

What are the four main grades of black tea?

Black Tea Grades: The Basics

There are typically 4 main grades, based on flush, leaf size, and method of processing. They are Orange Pekoe (OP), Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP), fannings, and dustings. Orange Pekoe consists of full leaves, with no tips or buds.

What is the best grade of tea?

The highest grade, is Gyokuro (“Pearl Dew”). This tea is very labor-intensive, and is shade-grown, with the tea bushes shaded from direct sunlight 20 days before harvest. It is made only with the first flush leaf and its special processing results in a tea with a sweet, mild flavor and fresh, flowery-green aroma.

What does Pekoe mean in tea?

Well, pekoe is actually pronounced 'pek-ho' and is derived from a word for a special kind of Chinese tea, meaning white downy hair referring to the down-like hairs on the tea leaves that are the youngest and smallest on the plant.

Tea grades, Tea types of CTC

What is a high grade tea?

Touch: In general, high-quality dried tea leaves should feel how they look: smooth, whole and sturdy. It should also have a slight heft in your hands; if your tea feels feather-light, it may be an indication that it was over-dried or is getting old.

How many grades are there in tea?

Tea Grading and Sorting Explained

There are 4 basic groups in orthodox production: Leaf, Broken, Fannings and Dust.

What is difference between orthodox and CTC tea?

Orthodox teas are loose tea leaves produced using the traditional style (plucking, withering, rolling, oxidation and drying). CTC Black Tea requires more advanced methods starting from putting the leaves inside a cylindrical roller. This style includes cutting, tearing and curling.

What is the highest grade black tea?

What is the highest grade of black tea? “Pekoe” which is the highest grade of tea is also classified further into other tea grades. The further classification is dependent on how many adjacent young leaves were picked. There might be one, two or none of the adjacent leaves picked.

What are the main types of tea?

However, based on the type of tea leaves picked and the level of oxidation or processing, tea is classified into five main types: Black, Green, Oolong, White, and Pu-erh. Black tea is the most common type of tea accounting for up to 85% of total tea consumption in the western world.

How are tea classified name them?

The most important classification is by the manufacturing process, resulting in the three categories of fermented (black), unfermented (green), and semifermented (oolong or pouchong). Green tea is usually produced from the China plant and is grown mostly in Japan, China, and to some extent Malaysia and Indonesia.

How many types of tea are there?

There are over 3000 varieties of tea, each with its own specific characteristics. The naming and growing of teas is in many ways similar to wine.

What is BOP grade tea?

When crushed to make bagged teas, the tea is referred to as “broken”, as in “broken orange pekoe” (BOP). These lower grades include fannings and dust, which are tiny remnants created in the sorting and crushing processes. Orange pekoe is referred to as “OP”.

How is tea grade done?

At the last process of making black tea, leaves are separated according to the particle size using sieves, and then tea is cleaned by removing the dust. This process is called grading. In China, black tea is classified from No 1 to No 6, and they are reflected in the price.

What is black CTC tea?

Crush, tear, curl (CTC) is a method of processing black tea in which the leaves are passed through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of sharp teeth that crush, tear, and curl the tea into small, hard pellets. This tea is mostly consumed by adding milk and sugar.

What does Red Label tea mean?

Sometimes its red colour suggests a strong brew, but frequently its taste is harsh, with an almost metallic taste - no suggestion of real flavour. Or it comes out so weak that one is obliged to lift the bag out of the pot and press it with a spoon to extract a drink that resembles tea.

How many types of CTC tea are there?

CTC Tea Varieties

Tippy golden flowery broken orange pekoe grade one. Broken souchong. Broken pekoe souchong. Broken orange pekoe.

Is Earl GREY tea the same as orange pekoe?

Earl Grey is a black tea, so it usually has a bold flavor. Unlike orange pekoe (which is a tea grade named for the Dutch royal House of Orange-Nassau rather than the fruit or the color orange), Earl Grey has a citrusy flavor. Earl Grey's citrusy taste is due to the addition of natural or synthetic bergamot oil.

What is golden tip tea?

Flavour Profile

Golden tips tea is a rare tea grown at altitude of 6000 feet near Adams peak in Sri Lanka. They get their name from the reddish variety of the Camellia Sinensis tea plant. Golden scissors are used to pick the buds in the morning before they unfurl in the heat of the sun.

What kind of tea is Earl GREY?

Earl Grey is one of the most recognized flavored teas in the world. This quintessentially British tea is typically a black tea base flavored with oil from the rind of bergamot orange, a citrus fruit with the appearance and flavor somewhere between an orange and a lemon with a little grapefruit and lime thrown in.

Is Ceylon tea the same as orange pekoe?

“Orange Pekoe” is a term used to grade the size and quality of dried black tea leaves. “Ceylon” is the previous name of the country from where it is grown, now Sri Lanka, a small island in the Indian Ocean.

What are the two major varieties of tea?

There are two major varieties used for tea Camellia sinensis var. sinensis and Camellia sinensis var. assamica.

What is the most common type of tea?

Black TEA. Black teas are perhaps the most common on the market.