The term tea tasting is very self-explanatory. Professional tasters taste a sample of tea to evaluate its qualities before exporting it to other countries. Another reason these people take joy in sampling the tea is that once in while they discover new taste and new flavor in the same kind of tea. Hard work but is very exciting. Professional tea tasters often refer to this process as tea cupping. It generally means a loud slurp of tea when sampling.
Photo courtesy of Pocanoche
How you can sample tea like pros?
However, sampling tea isn’t just reserved for professionals; anyone can try this at home to find out different tastes of tea. This can be a fun activity if you want your guests to try figure out the type of tea they are sampling. The teas should be somewhat similar so it’s going a fun challenge.
Anyway, before you can start sampling tea, you would need several equipments like: 5-6 white cups, teaspoon, small scale to weight the tea, and a kettle for hot water. White cups are preferred because you don’t only want to taste the tea, you want to observe the color and the texture of the leaves after brewed.
What to do?
First, line up the cups and the tea in 2 rows. If you have difficulty remembering the names of the tea, you can write the names on index cards and place them under the cups. The teas are often kind of similar in taste, so putting the names down can help you out a bit.
Before adding anything to the cup, you should keep in mind to add tea and water 1 cup at a time. After finish tasting the 1st cup, then you can add tea and water to the 2nd cup and repeat the whole process again.
Then you add 1 to 2 teaspoons of tea into each up. But keep in mind that the quantity must be the same for all the cups. If you use 1 teaspoon for the first cups, use 1 teaspoon for all of the cups.
The reason is that different quantity can affect the taste. Thus, this will defeat the whole purpose of finding the quality and special characteristics of seemingly similar teas.
After the tea, you can water to each cup. You also should keep the amount of water consistent in all of the cups. Let the tea brew for 3-4 minutes.
How you can take notes?
You can take notes on your personal tea cupping for future use. This can come very handy if your friends happen to ask you to help them shopping for teas, you will know exactly how some of different types of tea tastes like.
After the tea is brewed, you take a big mouthful of tea so all parts of your mouth is submerged in tea. Then you gradually swallow it while noticing different flavors of the tea begin to emerge at different parts of your tongue.
You can make some notes on this. Although most people aren’t professional tea tasters, you can still kind of distinguish the difference in the tastes of different teas. Often people can taste a cup of tea twice to further evaluate any hidden characteristics that they missed from the first taste. But too much tea tasting can actually wear out your taste buds. So limit yourself to 1-2 taste per cup and 4-5 types of teas.
If you do tea cupping often, you can collect tremendous information on different kinds of tea. So next time you go shopping for tea, you don’t have to take the sellers’ words for the taste of any tea. You already know what you want, go for it…
Tea terms to describe the taste…
Here are some of the terminologies often used by professional tea tasters. We think that you might be interested in these to help you in your own personal tea tasting experience.
Common: tea tastes like flavored water, nothing stands out
Flat: lack of freshness
Dull: often refer to the color of the tea. The tea is cloudy.
Light: lack of strength and bright color
Full: nice fragrance, pleasant taste, and beautiful color
Metallic: the fragrance and taste similar to heated metals (often refer to black teas)
Heavy: full-bodied and strong tea
Weedy: fragrance and taste like grass after the rain (often refer to green teas)
Pungent: bitter and harsh taste
Tea Trading: China’s first trade
Tea was first discovered and cultivated in China. It was a new beverage but gradually became very popular.
Photo courtesy of Dmitri Chertousov
When China decided to begin trading with other countries, it was the only supplier. This was a great advantage to a soon-to-be a very profitable business. In historical documents, the first trades were made between the Chinese and the Portuguese in 16th century. But tea trading was still new and the Chinese government was very hesitant.
By 18th century, the trading was more open. England became China’s first prominent trading partner.
During this time, middle men for the trading were needed. So the jobs as middle-men were very desirable. Also they were also extremely profitable! Peaceful trading between China and Britain didn’t last long. The trading was unbalanced. There was more tea into England than wool into China.
To make the tea trades balanced, Britain exported Indian opium to China. This seems to be the trigger of Opium war between England and China. Some historians noted that Opium War wasn’t about addiction. It was about tea.
Tea trading: America brought back their own tea. Tea was brought to America by British East India Company. In 1773, the Boston tea party broke out due to high tea tax imposed on Americans. America’s revolution began.
When Americans won back their independence, they built their own ships to transport tea from Canton, China back to America. Americans’ ships were larger and faster and the East India Company’s ships. They also made the trips to Canton and back in 1/2 time of England’s ships.
China was no longer the only supplier
Trading became a booming market. Western countries were in fierce competition for the 1st harvest of tea in China.
Any ship that brought back the 1st harvest and the freshest tea leaves was awarded generously. The buyers were eager, the seller were even more anxious. The tea leaves were picked carefully to obtain more high-quality tea. The bidding started right after the early morning tea-tasting. To keep the freshness, tea were shipped shortly after bidding. The tea products often were placed on shelves the next morning.
Keep in mind that the fresher the leaves, the higher the price. Don’t want China to monopolize in tea trading, other Asian countries started to cultivate tea plants. By 19th century, tea plants were grown in Japan, Sri Lanka, and India. China was no longer the only supplier for this natural and wonderful drink.
India became China’s competition as a tea supplier
To decrease its dependency on China for tea, England tried to cultivate tea in India. India has tropical climate, perfect for tea growing. Growing Camellia Sinensis (or Chinese Camellia) was not as successful in India. India climate is different from China’s.
Soil in India is not suitable for Chinese Camellia. But Camellia Assam tea plant flourishes on Indian soil.
Charles Bruce was the pioneer in establishing tea trading with Assam tea in early 19th century. Assam tea plants were grown in Darjeeling, Dooars, and Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka). India became a prominent supplier of tea. Tea trading was shared between China and India. Although tea was introduced to India by British, tea is now still a popular drink in India.
How tea began to spread to the rest of the world
Almost 2 centuries later, tea plants are cultivated in many countries. To name a few prominent places: Japan, Sri Lanka, Kenya, South Africa, Vietnam, Brazil… Tea trading now is global to satisfy the growing love for this healthy and wonderful drink.
What you need for Tuna tea sandwiches?
Photo courtesy of avlxyz
* Mayonnaise
* Lemon juice
* A can of tuna (packed in water)
* Capers
* A loaf of white or wheat bread (or both for a nice presentation)
How to make these tea sandwiches?
1) Drain the can of tuna (assume the tuna is already cooked). If you want, you can heat it up a bit.
2) Place the tuna into a clean bowl. Add the mayonnaise, capers, lemon juices, a bit of pepper or salt (or both). Smash it into small bits. Try it regularly to make sure the taste is just right.
3) Take the loaf of bread, cut it into thin slice (tips: 1 day-old bread is firmer and easier to cut). Remove the edges.
4) Spread a thin layer of tuna mixture onto each slice. You can cut sandwiches diagonally to make triangle tea sandwiches. These sandwiches can be perfect your tea party. They are just like sea food but are presented in a more elegant way.
Enjoy,