Whole leaf grade
Whole leaf is the top tier of the four-band structure, the one part of the system that stays stable even when the letters inside each band differ. It splits again internally into two different kinds of grading, one tracking tip content and the other tracking the leaf itself.
What it is
The pieces of leaf that remain largest after sorting, sifted through the widest mesh. Within whole leaf, the FOP family (FOP through SFTGFOP) is graded on tip content, how much of the pale, downy bud tip a plucking carries, while FP and OP are graded on the leaf itself instead: OP by leaf size once the bud has opened, FP by how the leaf is rolled. Two different reasons that leaf-graded pair sits beside each other, not a shared lesser pluck.
Where you meet it
On the packaging of most premium loose-leaf black tea, especially Darjeeling and Assam, where the whole-leaf letters (FOP, TGFOP, SFTGFOP and the rest) are the grade most likely to be printed on the tin.
How to read it
Read a whole-leaf grade name as two pieces of information stacked together, tip content for the FOP family and leaf character for FP and OP, rather than one single quality scale running from best to worst.
A common mistake
Reading the whole ladder as one ranking from SFTGFOP down to OP, with OP simply the weakest grade. OP is a different pluck by a different rule, not the bottom of the same one.
Sources
- orthodox black tea divides into 'leaf' grades and 'broken' leaf grades; leaf grades are the larger pieces left after the broken grades are sifted out. Pettigrew & Richardson, Tea Classified (2008)
- there is no international standard for particle size in a grade, and grade names are an approximate indication of leaf size and manufacturing method. Willson & Clifford, eds., Tea: Cultivation to Consumption (Chapman & Hall, 1992)