Is there one 'best' way to sort and categorize tea? Many have tried, but few, I argue, have succeeded. Considering the number of cultivars, tea-producing regions, and production methods, there's more information about a given tea than can be displayed succinctly. Every tea seller has to consider a problem so fundamental that it cannot be ignored: How to list and organize a catalog of teas? 

I'm looking at a few examples of systems to organize and sell tea, and some of the trends happening right now. Few, if any, global standards exist in the world of tea, but attempts have been made to create them at different times. There is a long tradition of people trying to think through this problem, makeshift solutions that have either been partially adopted or first embraced and later set aside. These changes reflect how people value different kinds of information in different times and contexts.

Information is always presented for the benefit of the customer. It is the answer to often unvocalized questions — questions about origin, quality, and meaning. However, the questions that tea drinkers have asked about their leaves have changed over time, and with it, the kinds of information that tea sellers have offered.

Right now, we exist at an interesting inflection point. Seeing tea sellers label their teas only by cultivar (or, god forbid, only calling them 'Black Tea') can be disheartening. Having two examples of a cultivar, each from different producers, and calling them both the same name feels like a disservice to the individual producers.

I argue that a nuanced approach — incorporating geographic origin, production method, and attention to individual character — will help tea sellers find tea drinkers and help drinkers make better choices.

Chen Chuan

China, 1979. Chen Chuan 陳椽 felt frustrated by the confusion outside China over different types. Foreigners, he pointed out, could not distinguish between Red Tea (Hong Cha) and Black Tea (Hei Cha), selling both as Black Tea. He reasoned in a 1979 essay that since China essentially invented all the types of tea, China should establish universal rules for classification. He proposed six categories of tea: white, green, yellow, blue, red, and black.

This color-based system is familiar to anyone who drinks tea today, but sharp-eyed readers will have a few questions, such as why Puer Cha is not included as a category. Chen, thinking in terms of his production-method system, thought Puer could easily be slotted within his existing categories. Sheng Puer, he reasoned, was similar enough to Green Tea, while Shu Puer, he said, was essentially Hei Cha (Dark Tea).

What about Qing Cha, or 'Blue' tea? This word describes the many varieties we today class together as Wu Long (or, to use the antiquated Wade-Giles romanization system, 'Oolong'). Chen thought referring to everything from Anxi Tieguanyin to Dancong varietals to Wuyi Yancha as 'Wu Long' was a categorization error. In his understanding, Wu Long was a specific type fitting into the larger category of 'Blue.' Our view today of the category/species relationship of the different types of Wu Longs is flipped from his, providing an interesting glimpse into the recent past.

The British System

London, 1800s. About a century before Chen Chuan, the British developed a system for labeling tea. For a market primarily consuming Hong Cha (Black Tea) with milk and sugar, there is little need to designate a cultivar or type. Instead, they used a system popularized by Thomas Lipton (yes, that Lipton) that addressed the information that British drinkers actually did want: the quality and intactness of the leaf.

Terms like 'Orange Pekoe,' 'Flowery,' 'Broken,' and 'Fannings' originate in this system, which presented a hierarchy with bud-heavy leaf compositions at the top and broken, larger leaves near the bottom. It categorizes the material that filled tea bags by different grades of 'Fannings' and 'Dust.'

For the East India Company, shipments of tea were often labeled with phrases like "Congou but middling, little on the pekoe side", "Twankay but middling, brightish leaf, curled and speckled", and ‘Hyson Skin middling good, brightish leaf." 

What you can notice here is the inclusion of descriptors on quality, appearance, and grade. By the time it reached consumers, these descriptions would be flattened to simpler descriptions, but before that could happen, the leaves would pass through evaluators who would assign value according to their judgements on taste and aroma. Their judgements were subject to criticism and accusations of corruption — one person wrote "I understand the officers of the Company call teas by almost any name they think proper; that their classification is an arbitrary classification."

(For more on this, I recommend Matthew Mauger's article "“To Rub the Nose in the Tea”: Smell, Taste, and the Assessment of Quality in Early Nineteenth-Century Tea Retail", which can be found in this collection.)

Today

I mention these two systems because they utilize different data sets for different purposes; diverse drinkers search for diverse information. A lover of Chinese teas will want to know whether their tea is a Hong Cha or Wu Long before purchasing, but this information may be less important to someone who already assumes that the Sri Lankan or Indian breakfast blends they love are composed of Black Tea. Chen Chuan's system meant to correct ambiguities in how the processing of tea types were understood, while the British systems hoped to standardize imports by quality and kind. In all cases, the information provided about tea reflects and responds to the questions that drinkers ask.

This brings us to the (mostly online) world of buying teas today. Today, more teas are available than ever, and with it, sellers are offering more kinds of information about their products than ever before.

The primary set of information that I see emphasized today is the cultivar. This is smart because cultivars also tend to come with various regular associations—some are only grown in certain areas, and others tend to be processed according to regular recipes. None of this information is upfront on product listings and catalogs, however. Drinkers may wonder what makes the Tie Guan Yin from one vendor different from another.

A few general possibilities exist

- Location — perhaps one is Anxi Tie Guan Yin, and the other is Muzha.
- Roast or oxidation.
- Year or season.

It is good to be specific when discussing these variables. Tea drinkers want to know where their leaves were grown, how they were produced, and how long they have been aging because these are the variables that affect the flavor of their brew. It's not just about learning or education—a good drinker should be able to say, "I like tea X from region Y" as shorthand for profiles and experiences they seek in tea.

Creativity Helps Clarity

Recently, I had an experience that changed how I thought about the problem.

This might be a familiar problem for you: my favorite leaves tasted completely different from one growing year and the next. I brought out both for side-by-side tastings and confirmed my fears. Those notes and aromas that were crystal clear one year ago became subdued and withdrawn. Bold and robust notes came to the forefront, when they were foundational and minimal in the previous year.

There are many reasons why this happens; perhaps the changing climate affected the crop, perhaps different workers were responsible for production on a given day. But when a customer emails asking why their favorite tea is 'off,' it challenges the claim that it's the 'same' tea. This made me reconsider my stance on creative names. Originally, I thought that creative names existed only for marketing. There is an element of that, but it only tells part of the story.

The market is changing. A search for 'Fuding Baicha' reveals dozens of potential vendors from whom you can purchase. An English name distinguishes one unique instance of tea from another. A quick look at today's market shows sellers using various creative names already.

•  English concepts that gesture towards flavor and experience, such as 'Lumberjack' or 'Sea Captian'. 
• Romanized names that translate from the origin language ('Eastern Beauty' is a good example).
• Physical descriptions of the leaf or liquor ('Dark Potion' or 'Gold Threads')

There are better and worse ways to do this. Let's make up a name now — imagine a bag in your hands labeled 'Strawberry Stinger.' If this name were the only information given, most drinkers would be nonplussed. Is it a pure leaf tea, an herbal blend, or an artificial strawberry-flavored abomination? Where did it come from? When was it made? These kinds of names raise questions—questions that most people won't even bother seeking the answers to (they go elsewhere).

Imagine an alternative scenario: a bag labeled with "Strawberry Stinger," "Nannuoshan Sheng Puer," and "Spring 2024". It's a much different communication.

In this case, the creative name serves the overall communication; it supports and emphasizes. This same name applied to 2024 Nannuoshan Sheng Peur attempts to express what is otherwise ineffable; the shifting sands of experience as dictated by terroir, age, season, & storage. By knowing all the above information and being given a creative name, drinkers can have a clearer understanding that they are drinking THIS Nannuoshan Shengpu, which is different from THAT Nannuoshan Shengpu.

For 19th century British drinkers, they were selling tea based on quality of pluck and a few descriptive adjectives for quality. For many Chinese teas in the 20th century, the labeling is on type and cultivar. Right now, we see lot of places giving very little, and other places giving all the information they have. What I want to see is tea coming with more information (cultivar, year, pluck, region, elevation) as well as some creative name that distinguishes it from the dozens of other teas produced in the same area. Something that feels specific and personal. The challenge lies not just in preserving the heritage and specificity of tea but also in adapting to the evolving demands of tea drinkers worldwide.

Let's keep this conversation going. Feel free to reach out through email.