Tea description

[aet]

Although by science / research proved (as discussed in other topic ) , we might be able to sense only 3 tastes , but combination of those with various intensity , gives a larger spectrum as mixing 3 different colors and creating different shades or even different color altogether ( like mix of blue & yellow ) .
I suppose there is some standard taste chart set ( some wheel I've seen on various forums ) to express the taste by "assigned" key words. Yet , I do not posses knowledge of those and I believe I'm not the only one. So when it comes to the taste and smell description ( and they are connected ) , I use my personal experience ( from life ) to do so.

Examples:

wet leaves in the forest after the rain - once we had some pressed huang pian which were partially Guangzhou storage. HP have usually those sweet notes , sometimes fruity , honey but also can have sort of medicinal notes ( which could be mix of sweet & sour taste ) , it may also have the cardboard ( which could be mix of bitter & sour ? ) which mostly appears in shu version. Sometimes also can have slight earthy notes and that was the combo we had in our HP back then. When pouring hot water on that , the aroma reminded me the times we use to go as children with father to the forest pickup some mushrooms and I was raking the wet leaves in order to find some mushrooms hiding under. Same resembles when I ride my MTB in forest after rain and tires slicing trough the mud covered by those fallen wet leaves. ...and I could go on ))
I'm sure there is some 1 or 2 keywords adequate to this aroma / taste , but I just don't know them and I do not expect regular tea drinker to know that either , so I don't feel to learn and use those at the first place. But I do believe, that many of us have walked trough the forest after rain though.


The scent of fresh melting snow in early spring - that's what I remember from childhood when eating snow. Similar notes resembled later when coming back from mountains on snowboard trough the narrow path and the bottom of the hill snow was already melting so had to walk in slushy melted snow . That snow aroma blended with pine trees aroma is exactly what I smell in Ya Bao

I understand when people say " oh this vendor just exaggerating with notes " and I agree that some do. Not only vendors. Just look at the steepster. Specially beginners who want to "fit in club of cool guys" trying to add any possible tasting tag to the tea they reviewing.

And yes, no vendor will tell about his tea is just mediocre , I did few times on budget drinker and it was just like I didn't have to bother to put it on shop at the first place ;-D ...nobody buy it.

When you have one tea in 2 different qualities and so the prices , the worst thing you can do is , that the lower quality you describe as lower quality ( describe its downsides compare to the first one ) . I'm sure I still have that kind of description on some products ( like when have Gushu and Xia Shu of the same garden, or spring versus autmn for example ) .
Buyer naturally want's the best for him / her self so anything with "negative" sound is omitted from attention at very beginning. So I do not blame vendors ( and I probably use some of that technique my self ) when characteristic like dry sensation is replaced with persimmon or banana skin to sound more gentle and attractive ( for some people of course ).
I think I even criticize it on my blog somewhere , but in time I came to the conclusion that this might be a necessary marketing vocabulary for driving the sales.

At the end of the day , you ..as a internet tea buyer , can rely only on pictures and description before decide spend your $ for sample. Trusted vendor option is other topic.

Anyway, please feel free to throw some other descriptions below . Good / bad ones, ridiculous or very funny ones.

Once customer ( US ) sent me a sample of shu . I tasted cardboard but he tasted baked cornflakes ...I don't know , never tried that thing.

[Bok]

Probably US cornflakes taste like cardboard.

[LeoFox]

Probably US cornflakes taste like cardboard.

Yes they do

[Ethan Kurland]

Probably US cornflakes taste like cardboard.

Yes they do

Trader Joe's cornflakes have some decent, non-sugary flavor. (Not as much as Hahne, a German brand that seem quite healthful.)

[OCTO]

At least Malaysian cornflakes taste like conflakes... hahaha....

[polezaivsani]

Yes, @aet, the wet leaves in a forest after a rain is a scene I can totally relate to. Maybe we could fill in some details as to the specimens making up the flora, density and humidity. I frequent teas that taste like this scenery, but without the rain, maybe the teas that have this quality toned down couple steps.

A trope I reach for a lot when drinking older not overly roasted if at all wulongs is a wooden cabinet or a wardrobe filled with old fabrics and miscellany pertinent to the tea, a leather handbag, bunch of grapefruits (fresh, not of same age as other items), etc. Or maybe a casket of sandal wood waxed with beeswax. I've seen this scenes mentioned by others couple (at least once) times so that we could found a secular topic just for this or that description .

Looking at the tools we use here, the topic becomes particularly pertinent to the motto stated in the header of this place—it has all to do with knowledge and friends. Empires scaling up teas onto industrial scales will come up with dry objective metrics (e.g. OP,...) to convey some meaning to a broad population of drinkers. That outreach comes at a prices though, as they can't talk about smells of mixed forest after a rain, it's to peculiar a thing to be understood by a huge market. Guess flavor wheels are like that too, objective and boring if meaningful to a degree for a wider population.

Closer knit communities like this here can afford to discuss shades of cardboard flavors spreading knowledge while having fun doing it. A lovely endeavor.

While writing it down I recalled another example that I'm trying to phase out—the stone fruit taste that's frequently seen in young sheng puers, I used to associate that with the taste of apricot seeds. Later trying to figure out the chemical compound responsible for it I found that eating the latter usually is bad idea. One picture off of the vocabulary for me.

Can't leave without bestowing deepest admiration for vendors who can point blank put up a 'A mediocre tea, but the farmer's my friend and I'm helping him out' sign. First one I stumble upon, I'd try to allot a budget for the chutzpah alone. Hat tip to you, @aet, for being more honest than most.

[Ethan Kurland]

First, thanks for such an entertaining, well-written post.

I respond only to the last reference of almost no vendors willing to list a mediocre tea as being such.

People who make wholesale purchases are influenced as retail buyers might be. Decisions to buy are not always rational. If someone visits a tea producer/farmer, then eats w/ them etc., teas sampled there will probably taste better than they would in other circumstances. It would be a bit cold-hearted to say, "Oh, that tastes delicious now, but I will let you know after I sample again when I am not enjoying your hospitality."

Sometimes there is rationale tied to all of a vendor's business that leads to the purchase of leaves that will be listed as better than they are. A vendor who leads tours of tea farms for profit has a good reason to buy tea of those farms that graciously welcome & indulge groups of tourists visiting w/ their ?s, needs, etc. "Oh, now we will tour a farm that produces tea of average quality so you can have traveled thousands of miles to buy ordinary products at their source. Isn't that exciting?"

[debunix]

wet leaves in the forest after the rain - once we had some pressed huang pian which were partially Guangzhou storage. HP have usually those sweet notes , sometimes fruity , honey but also can have sort of medicinal notes ( which could be mix of sweet & sour taste ) , it may also have the cardboard ( which could be mix of bitter & sour ? ) which mostly appears in shu version. Sometimes also can have slight earthy notes and that was the combo we had in our HP back then. When pouring hot water on that , the aroma reminded me the times we use to go as children with father to the forest pickup some mushrooms and I was raking the wet leaves in order to find some mushrooms hiding under. Same resembles when I ride my MTB in forest after rain and tires slicing trough the mud covered by those fallen wet leaves. ...and I could go on ))
I'm sure there is some 1 or 2 keywords adequate to this aroma / taste , but I just don't know them and I do not expect regular tea drinker to know that either , so I don't feel to learn and use those at the first place. But I do believe, that many of us have walked trough the forest after rain though.

This for me is the note of humus, the damp of the floor of an old forest, deep with decomposed needles/leaves/bark and rich with fungus. It's fermentation plus earth plus age and deliciously drinkable when a bit of plum or sharp herb or bit of caramel sweetness raises it up just a little bit.

Humus
In classical soil science, humus is the dark organic matter in soil that is formed by the decomposition of plant and animal matter. It is a kind of soil organic matter. It is rich in nutrients and retains moisture in the soil. Humus is the Latin word for "earth" or "ground". --wikipedia

Some lovely puerh and liu bao feels like this:


Ancient Groves Trail - 25 by debunix, on Flickr

Another lovely flavor I struggle to describe is like this:


In the grass by debunix, on Flickr

Summer meadow, drying grass, still flowers and herbs green amidst the grass, mellow like newly dried fresh hay and straw, still with sweet notes from the flowers in bloom.

This is something I seek in 'green' or light-roasted oolongs. It is often found in teas that Victoria describes as buttery, but is more a matter of the same tea having both qualities and not quite the same thing in my mind.

[GaoShan]

Another lovely flavor I struggle to describe is like this:


In the grass by debunix, on Flickr

Summer meadow, drying grass, still flowers and herbs green amidst the grass, mellow like newly dried fresh hay and straw, still with sweet notes from the flowers in bloom.

This is something I seek in 'green' or light-roasted oolongs. It is often found in teas that Victoria describes as buttery, but is more a matter of the same tea having both qualities and not quite the same thing in my mind.

I'm drawn to this flavour profile in greener oolongs as well, though I like "garden with fruit trees nearby" even more. I love tropical fruit, stonefruit, and florals in my oolongs. I gravitate to these notes in black tea, though I also go for flavours that remind me of jam or pastries. Strangely enough, I like these notes even more in tea than I do in food.

"Pine forest in winter" is a good description of the few Ya Bao I've had.

I think customers know that if there are two similar teas on a vendor's website and one is substantially more expensive than the other, that one will be of better quality. There's nothing wrong with having daily drinker teas, but you're right that customers probably want to avoid something they know will be mediocre. That does put vendors in an awkward position when describing their budget offerings. How do you moderate customer expectations while still making the tea appealing enough to purchase?

[Ethan Kurland]

I think customers know that if there are two similar teas on a vendor's website and one is substantially more expensive than the other, that one will be of better quality. There's nothing wrong with having daily drinker teas, but you're right that customers probably want to avoid something they know will be mediocre. That does put vendors in an awkward position when describing their budget offerings. How do you moderate customer expectations while still making the tea appealing enough to purchase?

How wonderfully written & excellently composed, giving your ideas & adding perspective to the beautiful photographs & words of debunix! Thanks.

I remind everyone that a big difference in price does not = a big difference in quality much of the time. Members often write this yet often ignore what they know when it comes to purchasing. I am not thinking about the difference between average tea & the best & close to the best tea; I am thinking about the differences between teas that are all far above average quality tea: high quality, very high quality, & the highest quality.
Gaoshan that I drink & sell for 40 cents a gram (high quality) is better than what one usually finds in shops or by buying online w/o guidance. It is good enough to keep one happy, if reading about better tea is avoided. Tempted by what we read or allured into buying better tea by having tried it, we can find ourselves paying 2 X more or > 2 X more for tea that is better, but by the numbers, how much better?
Calling the least expensive gaoshan, a best-value-for-$ selection, may have been crass, but I did it for a while, because I thought people new to goashan should sort of work their way through grades of quality. However, who the hell am I? (Of course, we are entitled to opinions & individual perspectives, but.....). For years half of the gaoshan that I drank was this cheaper one, as I tried to keep my palate somewhat humble & sensible. (I stopped this practice about a year ago.)
To get away from the concept of daily drinker vs. special occasion tea, I've resorted to counting the amount of infusions & have been searching for "objective" remarks to guide potential buyers fairly. However, sometimes when I look at what I wrote about teas in my list of what I sell, I often delete. I wish it was as simple as saying what is often said about some yixing pots, the details speak to its worth or at least what it sells for (how it is valued).
I've rambled. I suppose what I am saying is that phrases like "daily drinker", "good value".... may connote mediocrity while many of us have no mediocre teas in our homes. Our cheaper teas may be significantly better than average, but we can lose our bearings. Drink some Harney & Sons flavored black tea (or whatever you used to treasure) & find yourself wondering who you can give the tin of it to. You will know you have moved beyond mediocrity.

[GaoShan]

I suppose what I am saying is that phrases like "daily drinker", "good value".... may connote mediocrity while many of us have no mediocre teas in our homes. Our cheaper teas may be significantly better than average, but we can lose our bearings. Drink some Harney & Sons flavored black tea (or whatever you used to treasure) & find yourself wondering who you can give the tin of it to. You will know you have moved beyond mediocrity.

Unfortunately, I still have lots of mediocre tea that isn't improving with age, but I agree that our standards inevitably get higher the more (and better) tea we drink. I remember loving Teavana's Monkey Picked Oolong, which I would probably not enjoy nearly as much now. There's definitely a correlation between price and quality, though it's much easier to find expensive mediocre tea than more affordable above-average tea. I still think the idea of daily drinkers is useful, as I sometimes want something I can drink without much thought. Also, if I want to enjoy tea that costs over $1 per gram occasionally, I also need to drink tea that costs substantially less to even things out. I'm lucky that the teas I like are relatively affordable.

[aet]

Another factor which is omitted by big vendors selling puerh tea ( especially young shengs ) , is the taste profile changes during the aging time. I had to start to add taste review date on teas to be more precise in that matter. Although KM storage is not aggressive but you will find big difference in taste after 2-3 years already in shengs. Mostly is the flowery notes with sharp astringency ,turn to fruitiness and softer in taste.
I can't see possible for vendor offering like 500 shengs , to go and drink trough it every year or two