Tea tasting is an art – an organoleptic procedure – a skill that is honed through experience and not learnt through books.  On an average day, a tea taster would sample over 300 types of tea, and only the best are marked for purchase.

Tea tasting consists of three aspects – the leaf, the infusion and the liquor.

The dried tea leaf is first examined.  This is a visual inspection.  The taster looks for a twisted appearance in the leaf.  A twisted leaf indicates that the tea has been produced well.  It also provides an idea of how the tea has been plucked - whether new leaves have been picked or if the tea contains coarser old leaves.  The taster will also look at the colour of the leaf, and examine the sample for the presence or absence of stalk and fibre.

The tea is next brewed and strained.  The spent leaf that is retained in the strainer is known as the infusion.  A taster will smell an infusion and visually examine it as well.  The appearance of the infusion provides a very good indication of the characteristics of the brewed tea. 

In tea tasting parlance, the brewed tea is called the liquor.  When tasting, the liquor is sipped along with some air to aerate the tea.  This gives an idea of both the taste and the smell of the tea.   The liquor is then swirled in the mouth to provide contact with the different sensory regions of the tongue. 

When tasting the liquor the tea taster looks for a number of attributes.  He considers the strength of the tea and its pungency.  He will also consider the characteristics of the tea – the nuances in individual teas that differentiate them from one another.  Another aspect that is considered is the quality of the tea – whether it exhibits the characteristics of the region in which it is grown.  The flavour of the tea is also vital as it indicates how the tea has been shaped, by varying weather conditions.  The tea is also rated on its appearance.