How to describe a tea has been a difficult troublesome subject for me!
Tasting note is supposed to be factual within reason, but for the most part, it is personal and objective.
China has slowing established a set of tasting notes as a standard for tea grading since the 50's, matured by the 70's, refined in the 80's. This standard is still in use in academic research institutions and large factories. Since privatization of state own tea factories across the country in late 90's, the practise of this grading standard is no longer practiced strictly.
When describing tea using this set of vocabularies, quality is measured by a scaled variation 1-10, it's mechanical and boring. My brain is trained to measure tea in this set boring way, hence my tea review notes are unattractive, colorless.
I love to read wine or whiskey reviews because I love the life and movement the writers put into them, it's the experience that captivate the buyer, some times it's factual, some times not, but no matter what, the writings promoted the product, attracted buyers, like it or not, that's another story.
I wish I could combine both the Chinese rating elements and the fantasy selling scheme to promote my teas, they deserve the recognition, and the readers deserve the opportunity to get to know them. Live is too precious, behold the luxury of out standing teas, it's important to have best friends and great lover, so is having great teas! Trying out many teas is like dating many people when you are young, do you wish to keep dating for the rest of your life? At one point, you might want to stick with the good one right? Looks like the topic got side tracked, time to close it off.
Have a good night all!
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4 comments:
It's an interesting subject. For Western-style reviews there really do seem to be a clear range of common review styles, most either keeping it brief or else very detailed in a standard way. Those describe brewing approach, list flavor aspects, often more or less drawing on a standard list of those, describe feel, aspects transition, etc. It's nice when someone can successfully bring in subjective descriptions, somehow capture what the experience means to them, through stories or unusual comparisons.
Agree with John about capturing a story or experience. Your blog is full of examples of this. They've helped me choose teas in the past.
I think you are quite skilled at helping others understand what *they* taste in tea, while they drink with you. More than just flavor, you address texture and other factors. It's helped me be a more critical consumer.
I have such a tea obsession that I've even started doing tea riddles haha. I found some really good ones I can share here: Tea Riddles
I appreciate John.It's a wonderful story.teasolution
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