The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea - Michael Harney [6]
5. TASTING THE TEA
Finally, take a sip. Professional tea tasters don’t just drink the tea, they slurp it the way one might slurp hot soup. The point is not to cool the tea, but to aerate it, to allow more of the aromas to drift up to the olfactory region—the nose—to smell the tea as well as to taste it. If you find the tea is too hot, wait a few minutes more. The tea should be warm but not scalding.
Pull sharply on the tea, inhaling quickly through your mouth to run it between your lips and teeth. Don’t be afraid to slurp really loudly; on tea-buying trips in Asia, I’ve impressed tea brokers there that I slurp as noisily as they do, if not more so. It’s not a competition; they just don’t expect Westerners to know how to do this. Once you have the aerated tea in your mouth, swish it around with your tongue and cheeks to give every last taste bud a chance to try it out.
Body
Now assess the weight of the tea: Does it feel thin like water or thick like cream? “Body” refers to a tea’s heft or weight, how much substance or texture it has. White teas and Chinese green teas are very light, feeling almost like water. Thicker Japanese green teas often feel brothy, a little like chicken soup with their greater heft. Some oolongs are actually called “creamy” for the way they coat your mouth like heavy cream. Black teas have a different kind of heft: Their body is often described as brisk or astringent, for the way they dry up the mouth.
A tea’s body is also among the best indicators of brew strength. While a poorly brewed tea will still release plenty of aromas, its body will suffer. Does the tea feel thin or wan? Even the lightest teas should have a little texture; a thin tea probably needs more time to brew and may also need a pinch more dry leaves. Alternatively, does it taste bitter and make your mouth pucker? Then the tea may be overbrewed. With many British Legacy Teas, this strength is normal, but the bulk of the teas in this book should taste mellow, rounded, and balanced.
Flavors
Once you have established the tea’s aromas and body, at long last you can begin to tease out its flavors. Using the chart as a point of departure, ask yourself what else the tea tastes like: spinach? mangoes? Keep tasting: Like great wines, the teas will change their flavors the longer you hold them in your mouth. The flavors will also evolve as the tea cools and, in some instances, as with puerhs and oolongs, as you rebrew the leaves. You may find more flavors than the ones I have included in the tea charts; note them down. After you’ve swallowed the tea, see how long you can continue to taste it. The final mark of a great tea is how long its flavor endures in the mouth after you’ve swallowed. This endurance is called a tea’s “finish,” or “aftertaste,” and for some teas it can last as long as ten to fifteen minutes.
That’s all there is to it. In many entries, I have augmented these charts with background information to deepen your knowledge of the teas. For more on the chemistry and history, I strongly encourage you to consult the appendixes. All you really need to do to become a tea connoisseur is to taste a lot of tea. Now you know how. Let’s go taste the finest teas the world has to offer.
WHITE TEAS
1. Yin Zhen
2. Bai Mei
3. Ceylon Silver Tips
4. Bai Mu Dan
Something of a tabula rasa of the tea world, white teas offer an ideal starting point for an aspiring tea connoisseur. Barely processed, light, and refined, they present one of the purest expressions of the tea plant. They are not exactly white—the tea buds grow to a bright green color, fade to silver, and brew to a pale yellow. The liquor yields not only the lightest color, but also the leanest body of all