“How do I train my tea palate?” or in a broader context, “how do I become a better tea drinker”. New and often experienced tea drinkers frequently ask these questions.
The answer given is often simple: drink a lot of different teas.
This statement while true is incomplete. You could drink a million teas and learn nothing, such as what we have previously discussed here and here. To write fanciful descriptions and identify obscure notes is as much an exercise in creative writing as it is in drinking.
Unless your aim is to impress your friends with your descriptive prowess and extensive vocabulary, I reckon most people’s idea of ‘training your palate’ is simply to be able to tell good tea from not-so-good ones.
What is Good Tea?
Most of the developed world would have no problem finding tea, at least if you are not particular about the quality. Boxes line the shelves of supermarkets, leaving the consumer spoilt for choice. Of course readers of this blog aren’t particularly enamored with teas of that quality.
If you had a choice and 100 teas and only 1 stomach, you would have to make a choice of which are the best few to consume.
On the other hand, if all I have to drink is summer Assam black tea, I might just bear with it, add liberal amounts of milk, or switch to coffee.
In short, whether a tea is good or bad depends on the comparison.
Comparison with your memory
Many people make the mistake of benchmarking against their memory.
“Oh, I’ve had better. The Longjing I had in Hangzhou 3 years ago, nothing compares to it.”
Yes, nostalgia is awesome isn’t it?
Besides that, you also have to factor in the setting where you had it- on vacation, everything tastes better. Or your palates had not been jaded then; just like as a child, before cynicism sets it, everything looks more wonderful.
So, how do I train my tea palate?
After this long preamble, how does this training take place?
Two words: comparative tasting.
I am fortunate to have a tea mentor. Often I would go to him with some teas I bought in China and ask for his opinion.
He would then find a similar tea or two from his stash and brew them up.
Using identical utensils and brewing methods[1], he would make the teas and we would taste together. The relative merits and flaws of the tea become evident.
It is pointless to say a tea is good or bad on its own. As long as it is well-stored and decently processed, in the absence of competition, most teas are ‘good tea’. It is in the face of comparison that discernment is required.
Exercises to help you train your palates
Here are some exercises you can try to train your palates. When tasting, do read this and this for a better idea on what to look out for.
The main challenge though, is finding the teas, especially in markets where choices are limited.
Quality
This is the hardest to assess but one way is to buy two teas of the same variety of different prices from the same vendor.
That is absolutely correct. But if it comes from the same vendor, if you eliminate variables like year of production, area of production and season, the vendor would have to justify selling one tea at a higher price than the other. Otherwise who would buy the more expensive tea? If you eliminate other variables, the only justification is the grade of tea.
In practice, this is usually available only for the more widely produced varieties like Tieguanyin and Longjing. Unless it is a specialists shop, and even so, you don’t expect to see various grades for teas such as Shui Jin Gui and Bai Ji Guan.
Tieguanyin on the other hand is fairly commonplace.
Where available, this is a good way to discern the difference in quality.
Harvest Season
Spring teas make up approximately 70% of the specialty Chinese tea market and are easier to find. The rest though, could be more challenging.
There are exercises you can try that are easier to find:
i) Spring vs autumn Tieguanyin.
Autumn teas are not as popular but autumn Tieguanyin is favored for its fragrance.
ii) Spring vs winter Taiwan High Mountain Teas
Lovers of Taiwanese High Mountain Teas often like a brisk sweetness and this is even more evident in winter teas. Supply of winter Taiwan High Mountain teas are more readily available in the market compared with others.
Cultivar
The impact of cultivar on teas is often neglected but significant. This is especially evident in oolong teas and compared with the 2 above, it is not readily available.
For instance you can choose 2 Wuyi Yancha, most likely Shuixian and Rougui to compare the impact of cultivar.
Tieguanyin, Huang Jin Gui and the Sezhongs (Benshan, Maoxie, Qilan etc.) is another exercise.
Or Phoenix Dancong, though variety is not as readily available as the other 2, how the various aroma types compare with each other.
Others
There are other exercises that you can try- terroir, production styles and so forth but these are just some to get you started.
Learning to discern is an integral part of training your tea palate and the best way to do so is by comparative tasting. You can even try to take it a step further with blind tasting- i.e. the types of teas are not disclosed- to prevent hype and preconceived notions from influence your palate.
See here for more articles related to tea appreciation.
[1] Since we were most frequently comparing Oolong or Puer, my friend used the colloquially termed ‘bad brewing method’ (恶泡法): very high tea leaves to brewing ratio ~ 10g per 110cc, boiling water and 2-3 minutes infusion time. This is meant to reveal the flaws of the tea.
