Glossary

Tea carries more vocabulary than almost anything else people drink, and most of it arrives without explanation: on a packet, in a vendor's description, halfway through a brewing guide. This is the word list. Each term is defined in a sentence and links to wherever it is explained in full.

A

Aging: The deliberate, slow transformation of tea after it leaves the factory, most consequential for puerh, where the drinker's own storage becomes part of the process.
Alkalinity: Water's capacity to neutralise acid, driven mostly by dissolved bicarbonate, which shapes brewed tea's colour and catechin content more directly than its starting pH does.
Astringency: The dry, puckering sensation a tea leaves on the tongue, often mistaken for bitterness.
Autumnal: The autumn picking on Indian and Nepali estates, darker and softer than the spring and summer flushes and the cheapest of the three.

B

Bai Hao Yinzhen: The top grade of Fujian white tea, made only from unopened buds with no leaf at all.
Bai Mudan: A Fujian white tea picked to a bud-plus-two-leaves standard, giving it more body and flavour than Silver Needle at a lower price.
Bi Luo Chun: A spiral-rolled Chinese green tea from Jiangsu known for an intense fruity-floral fragrance, from bushes traditionally interplanted with fruit trees.
Bitterness: One of the five basic tastes, structural in small amounts and usually a sign of over-brewing in large ones.
Body: How much a tea's liquor seems to weigh and coat the mouth, a texture judgment independent of flavour intensity.
Broken grade: The tier below whole leaf, sifted from the larger grades into smaller, faster-brewing particles.
Broken Mixed Fannings: A mixed fannings grade combining particles from more than one broken grade.
Broken Orange Pekoe: The best-known broken orthodox grade, sifted smaller than whole-leaf FOP and OP for a faster, stronger brew.
Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings: The most commonly used orthodox grade for teabag packing, one step below the broken grades.
Broken Orange Pekoe One: A finer cut of Broken Orange Pekoe, marked with a trailing 1 to signal the top of that grade.
Broken Pekoe Fannings: A fannings grade sifted from Broken Pekoe leaf, coarser than BOPF.
Broken Pekoe Souchong: The coarsest of the broken orthodox grades, sifted from Pekoe Souchong leaf.
Bruising: The deliberate breaking of a leaf's cell walls that lets its enzymes meet the air and starts oxidation.

C

Cha chong: A small clay figurine kept on the tea tray and fed leftover tea, which darkens its surface over years of use.
Cha Hai: A small pitcher the finished tea is poured into before the cups, so that everybody gets the same tea.
Cha He: A shallow dish that holds the dry leaf for inspection before it goes into the pot.
Cha Pan: A slatted tea tray with a reservoir underneath, letting water be poured freely over the teaware without a mess.
Chasen: A whisk carved from a single piece of bamboo into dozens of fine prongs, the tool used to properly suspend whisked matcha.
Chashaku: A slender bamboo scoop used to measure matcha powder from its container into the bowl.
Chawan: A wide clay bowl for matcha, the vessel that both prepares and serves the tea since whisked matcha is never poured elsewhere.
Chloramine: A more stable chlorine-ammonia water disinfectant that lingers in a glass or kettle far longer than plain chlorine and is harder to filter out.
Chlorine: A volatile water disinfectant that fades quickly and is the milder of the two common causes of chemical-tasting tap water.
CTC: Crush, tear and curl: the machine method that produces the small, fast-brewing particles a teabag is built around.

D

Da Hong Pao: The best-known Wuyi rock oolong, almost always a blend of varietals rather than leaf from the famous original mother trees.
Dancong: Phoenix Dancong, an aroma-driven Guangdong oolong organised into dozens of named fragrance types describing what the tea is meant to evoke.
Dark tea: Heicha, a family of Chinese and Korean post-fermented teas that shares puerh's post-fermentation step but differs from it in cultivar, region and microbial profile.
De-enzyming: The heat that halts oxidation by denaturing a leaf's enzymes, fixing its colour before it is rolled or dried.
Dragon Well: Dragon Well, a flat, pan-fired Chinese green tea from China's West Lake region, prized for its sweet, chestnut character and a price that can swing tenfold by hillside.
Drying: The final moisture-removal step that stabilises tea for storage, distinct from the withering and fixing that come earlier in the chain.
Dust: The smallest graded particle size, one step below fannings, deliberately produced for the fastest and strongest infusion.

E

Earthy: A heavy, low aroma of wet forest floor and damp wood, wanted in aged puerh and a warning sign of poor storage when it slides toward mould.

F

Fairness pitcher: A small pitcher the finished tea is poured into before the cups, so that everybody gets the same tea.
Fannings: The small flat particles sifted out below the broken grades, one step above dust.
Fermentation: The microbial process that ripens puerh and heicha after production, distinct from the enzymatic oxidation that shapes every other tea type.
Fine Dust: A finer dust grade, sifted smaller than Pekoe Dust or Red Dust.
Fines: The small flat particles sifted out below the broken grades, one step above dust.
Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: An exceptionally high-tip grade of FOP, one step below SFTGFOP on the orthodox whole-leaf ladder.
Fired: A label word that can mean either the kill-green heat that stops oxidation or a separate finishing roast applied afterwards, and rarely says which.
Firing: A label word that can mean either the kill-green heat that stops oxidation or a separate finishing roast applied afterwards, and rarely says which.
First Flush: The first picking of the year on Darjeeling, Assam and Nepali estates, taken as the bushes break winter dormancy.
Fixation: The heat that halts oxidation by denaturing a leaf's enzymes, fixing its colour before it is rolled or dried.
Floral: An aroma of orchid, jasmine or osmanthus that mostly comes from the leaf itself rather than from anything added to it.
Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe: A broken orthodox grade combining tip content with a smaller, sifted particle size.
Flowery Orange Pekoe: Tea made from the end bud and first leaves of a shoot, rolled with tip, the base grade of the orthodox whole-leaf tip ladder.
Flowery Pekoe: A whole-leaf grade defined by how the leaf is rolled rather than by tip content or pluck size.
Fruity: An aroma spanning fresh citrus through stone fruit to the dried fruit and raisin notes of an aged or heavily oxidised tea.

G

GABA Oolong: Oolong processed under nitrogen instead of oxygen to build up gamma-aminobutyric acid, giving it a tangy, dried-fruit character unlike a conventional oolong.
Gaiwan: A three-piece lidded bowl and saucer that is China's most common brewing vessel, using the lid itself to hold back the leaf while pouring.
Genmaicha: Japanese green tea, usually bancha or sencha, blended with roasted and partly popped brown rice for a toasty cup low in astringency.
Golden Broken Orange Pekoe: A broken orthodox grade carrying golden tip, one step below GFBOP.
Golden Dust: A dust grade carrying visible golden tip fragments despite its small particle size.
Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe: The tippiest of the broken orthodox grades, a broken-leaf counterpart to GFOP.
Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: FOP with golden tips, the grade above plain FOP on the orthodox whole-leaf ladder.
Gong Dao Bei: A small pitcher the finished tea is poured into before the cups, so that everybody gets the same tea.
Green Snail Spring: A spiral-rolled Chinese green tea from Jiangsu known for an intense fruity-floral fragrance, from bushes traditionally interplanted with fruit trees.
Gyokuro: A shaded Japanese green tea, covered from sunlight for three or more weeks before picking to build a deeply savoury, sweet character.

H

Hardness: The dissolved calcium and magnesium in water, which pulls less flavour from tea leaf and darkens the liquor as it rises.
Heicha: Heicha, a family of Chinese and Korean post-fermented teas that shares puerh's post-fermentation step but differs from it in cultivar, region and microbial profile.
Herbal infusion: An infusion of any plant other than Camellia sinensis, such as chamomile or hibiscus, which is not tea in the botanical sense.
Hojicha: Japanese green tea roasted until its chlorophyll is gone and the Maillard reaction takes over, tasting of toasted grain rather than green tea.
Hongcha: The Chinese term for what English calls black tea, literally red tea, named for the colour of the liquor rather than the dry leaf.
Houhin: A small, handleless Japanese teapot built for the low brewing temperatures gyokuro and top-grade sencha need.

I

Ichibancha: Japan's first picking of the year, the harvest behind most of the country's fine sencha and gyokuro.
Iron Goddess: An Anxi oolong sold in two very different styles, a lightly oxidised jade-green version and a heavily roasted amber one, sharing only their cultivar and leaf form.

K

Keemun: A small-leaf Anhui black tea prized for a wine-like, faintly floral aroma the trade calls Keemun aroma, and a classic base for English Breakfast blends.
Kill-green: The heat that halts oxidation by denaturing a leaf's enzymes, fixing its colour before it is rolled or dried.
Kyusu: A Japanese teapot with its handle set at ninety degrees to the spout, which lets it be poured and emptied with one hand.

L

Lapsang Souchong: A Wuyi black tea sold as two different products under one name, an unsmoked original and the pine-smoked version most people outside China know.
Longjing: Dragon Well, a flat, pan-fired Chinese green tea from China's West Lake region, prized for its sweet, chestnut character and a price that can swing tenfold by hillside.
LTP: The Lawrie Tea Processor, a rotating hammer-mill machine used as an alternative to CTC rollers for breaking down withered leaf.

M

Matcha: Shade-grown Japanese green tea leaf, ground into a fine powder and whisked directly into water rather than steeped and strained.
Men huang: A slow, non-enzymatic smothering step unique to yellow tea, done after kill-green to mellow the leaf without the oxidation that shapes an oolong.
Mineral: A cool, stony finish tasters converge on describing as wet stone or flint, most prized in Wuyi rock oolong as rock rhyme (yan yun).
Minerals: The dissolved solids in brewing water, a figure tea books quote inconsistently because a cheap TDS pen cannot tell which minerals are actually present.
Mingqian: Chinese green tea picked before the early-April Qingming solar term, the most expensive and bud-heavy picking window of the year.
Mouthfeel: The texture side of tasting, covering body, smoothness, astringency and mineral, detected by touch rather than by the taste buds.

N

Nibancha: Japan's second picking, taken in early summer, brisker and more astringent than ichibancha and the backbone of everyday Japanese tea.

O

Oolong: Partially oxidised tea, sitting between green and black, with the widest range of finished character of any tea type.
Orange Fannings: A fannings grade sifted from Orange Pekoe leaf, finer than any broken grade.
Orange Pekoe: Long, pointed whole leaves harvested once the end bud has opened into leaf, rarely carrying tip.
Orthodox: The traditional manufacturing route that keeps the leaf as whole as possible, using a rolling machine rather than a cutting or crushing one.
Oxidation: The enzymatic browning that darkens a bruised tea leaf and separates green tea from black.

P

Pan-fired: The Chinese default kill-green method for green tea, using a heated pan or wok in place of steam.
Pekoe Dust: The coarsest of the named dust grades, one step below fannings by particle size.
Pekoe Fannings: The most commonly used CTC grade for teabag packing, sold with a trailing 1 to mark the top cut.
Plucking: The harvesting of shoots from the tea bush, where the shoot's maturity and the season it is taken in fix the leaf chemistry every later step has to work with.
Pre-Guyu: Chinese green tea picked between the Qingming and Guyu solar terms, trading a little of pre-Qingming's delicacy for a much better price.
Pre-Qingming: Chinese green tea picked before the early-April Qingming solar term, the most expensive and bud-heavy picking window of the year.

R

Raw puerh: Raw puerh: sun-dried Yunnan leaf compressed and aged over years, starting bitter and astringent and mellowing slowly through storage.
Red Dust: A dust grade named for the reddish colour of its small, fast-brewing particles.
Ripe puerh: Ripe puerh: leaf fast-fermented for weeks through a wet-piling process that fast-forwards the mellow, earthy character raw puerh takes decades to reach.
Roasted: An aroma running from light toast through roasted nuts to charcoal and smoke, the one tasting axis a maker controls directly rather than one the leaf simply arrives with.
Roasting: A finishing heat applied to already-made tea, from a light touch that adds a layer of flavour to a heavy char that can bury the tea underneath it.
Rotorvane: A continuous machine that lightly crushes withered leaf, often used before rolling in orthodox manufacture or before a CTC line.

S

Second Flush: The prized early-summer picking on Indian and Nepali estates, source of Darjeeling's muscatel note and Assam's malt.
Sencha: Japan's everyday steamed green tea, making up roughly seventy percent of all Japanese tea production.
Shaping: The step that rolls, twists or presses pliable leaf into its finished form, which controls how fast water reaches it and how the tea ages.
Shaqing: The heat that halts oxidation by denaturing a leaf's enzymes, fixing its colour before it is rolled or dried.
Sheng: Raw puerh: sun-dried Yunnan leaf compressed and aged over years, starting bitter and astringent and mellowing slowly through storage.
Sheng cha: Raw puerh: sun-dried Yunnan leaf compressed and aged over years, starting bitter and astringent and mellowing slowly through storage.
Shiboridashi: The smallest Japanese brewing vessel, a handleless lidded bowl with a pinched, grooved lip that catches the leaf as it pours.
Shincha: Japan's first picking of the year, the harvest behind most of the country's fine sencha and gyokuro.
Shou: Ripe puerh: leaf fast-fermented for weeks through a wet-piling process that fast-forwards the mellow, earthy character raw puerh takes decades to reach.
Shou cha: Ripe puerh: leaf fast-fermented for weeks through a wet-piling process that fast-forwards the mellow, earthy character raw puerh takes decades to reach.
Silver Needle: The top grade of Fujian white tea, made only from unopened buds with no leaf at all.
Smoothness: A mouthfeel describing the absence of rough edges in a cup, judged separately from how much the liquor weighs.
Sorting: Grading finished leaf by size and quality, the step that produces the broken, fannings and dust grades sold alongside whole leaf.
Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: The finest tier of the tip-graded orthodox whole-leaf ladder, one step above FTGFOP.
Spicy: A warm, dry aroma of cinnamon, clove or cardamom rather than any actual chilli heat, since unflavoured tea contains nothing that produces a burn.
Steamed: The Japanese default kill-green method for green tea, using steam in place of a dry pan or wok.
Super Fine Dust: The finest of the named dust grades, the smallest particle size the system gives a name.
Super Red Dust: A finer cut of Red Dust, sifted smaller still.
Sweetness: A taste that in tea usually arrives after the swallow rather than up front, despite the leaf containing almost no sugar.

T

Tea bowl: A wide clay bowl for matcha, the vessel that both prepares and serves the tea since whisked matcha is never poured elsewhere.
Tea pet: A small clay figurine kept on the tea tray and fed leftover tea, which darkens its surface over years of use.
Tetsubin: A Japanese cast-iron kettle for heating water over a flame, with a bare uncoated interior, often confused with the enamel-lined tetsukyusu it resembles.
Third Flush: The autumn picking on Indian and Nepali estates, darker and softer than the spring and summer flushes and the cheapest of the three.
Tie Guan Yin: An Anxi oolong sold in two very different styles, a lightly oxidised jade-green version and a heavily roasted amber one, sharing only their cultivar and leaf form.
Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: FOP with a large proportion of golden tip, the grade below FTGFOP on the orthodox whole-leaf ladder.
Tisane: An infusion of any plant other than Camellia sinensis, such as chamomile or hibiscus, which is not tea in the botanical sense.

U

Umami: The savoury, brothy taste that comes mostly from theanine and is strongest in shaded Japanese teas.

V

Vegetal: A green-tea aroma running from fresh-cut grass and peas to overcooked, sulphurous greens, where the first is a quality and the second is usually a brewing mistake.

W

Wet-piling: A weeks-long controlled microbial pile that turns sun-dried leaf into ripe (shou) puerh, the one process in tea where fermentation is the accurate word.
White Peony: A Fujian white tea picked to a bud-plus-two-leaves standard, giving it more body and flavour than Silver Needle at a lower price.
Whole leaf grade: The largest-particle tier of the grading system, the leaf left over once the broken grades have been sifted out.
Withering: The controlled loss of moisture that softens a fresh leaf for handling and starts the chemical changes later steps build on.
Wo dui: A weeks-long controlled microbial pile that turns sun-dried leaf into ripe (shou) puerh, the one process in tea where fermentation is the accurate word.
Wuyi rock: Rock oolong from China's Wuyi mountains, defined by yan yun, a mineral rock-resonance quality tied to how close its garden sits to the protected core zone.

Y

Yancha: Rock oolong from China's Wuyi mountains, defined by yan yun, a mineral rock-resonance quality tied to how close its garden sits to the protected core zone.
Yellow tea: A rare Chinese tea type distinguished by men huan, a slow sealed-yellowing step after kill-green that mellows the leaf beyond what green tea achieves.
Yellowing: A slow, non-enzymatic smothering step unique to yellow tea, done after kill-green to mellow the leaf without the oxidation that shapes an oolong.
Yixing teapot: An unglazed stoneware pot from Yixing, China, made from zisha clay porous enough to measurably change a tea's flavour over repeated use.
Yuqian: Chinese green tea picked between the Qingming and Guyu solar terms, trading a little of pre-Qingming's delicacy for a much better price.
Yuzamashi: A wide, shallow bowl used to cool boiled water down to the low temperatures Japanese green tea needs.

Z

Zisha: An unglazed stoneware pot from Yixing, China, made from zisha clay porous enough to measurably change a tea's flavour over repeated use.