‘Fruity Tea’ may mean a sweet fruit fragrance in tea to you, but for a professional tea taster, it means ‘unpleasant overripe taste’. And the tea may either be rejected or disposed of at a lower rate in the market.

This and many other terms describing the liquor of tea around the world by professionals have been listed in Global Tea Digest 2016 (GTD), the latest edition from the house of Global Tea Brokers, auctioneers and tea tasters.

“The terminologies used to describe dry leaf, infused leaf and liquor are as fascinating as the tea beverage, and so we have listed them in GTD,” Rajesh Gupta, GTD compiler and publisher, told BusinessLine .

The terms are often fascinating and almost antonymous to their original usage.

‘New tea’ is not very welcome, as the liquor has not had sufficient time to mellow.

‘Nose tea’ means the liquor is fragrant and ‘malty’ is a desirable characteristic. ‘Biscutty’ is also a pleasant character in the liquor. But ‘bouquet’ refers to superlative flavour.

‘Burn’ is fully fired but ‘burnt’ means the tea was subjected to extreme high temperature and so has lost its high value. In between is ‘dry tea’, where the liquor is ‘slightly high-fired’. ‘Fully fired’ means slightly over-fired.

‘Muscatel’ is again a desirable character, especially in Darjeeling tea — its grapy taste is reminiscent of vineyards.

Green tea must be pale but other teas looking pale means lack of colour.

Pungent is not always unwelcome because it is an ideal combination of briskness, brightness, strength and flavour.

Self-drinking liquor is palatable in itself, not requiring blending.

And, when you are tired, you can gulp down some tea, but a ‘tired’ liquor is flat, uninspiring tea.

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