Tasting
Tealytics asks you to rate thirteen things about every infusion. This section says what each of them actually is, how to tell the ones that get confused apart, and what to change in the brew when one of them is too high.
What it is
Three tiers. The thirteen axis pages are the reference: one sensation each, what causes it, which teas show it and how to move it up or down. The method pages are about the act of tasting rather than the vocabulary, and they are where the sensory science lives so it is argued once instead of repeated thirteen times. The problem pages start from what went wrong in your cup and route you to the explanation.
What it gets confused with
The eight of thirteen that are not taste at all. Only sweetness, bitterness and umami happen on your tongue. Five more are aroma, reaching you up the back of the throat while you drink, and four are mouthfeel, which is texture. That is not a technicality: it is why holding your nose changes almost everything about a cup, and why the fastest way to improve your palate is to work out which system a sensation is arriving on.
What people get wrong
Rating an axis you cannot yet separate from its neighbour. Bitterness and astringency are the pair that matters most, and a taster who scores them together is putting noise into every tea they log. Start with those two, use the discrimination test on the bitter or astringent page, and the rest gets easier.
