The four grades of Orthodox
black tea are: 1. Flowery Orange Pekoe (the small leaf next to the bud). 2. Orange Pekoe (the second leaf next to the bud). 3. Pekoe (the third leaf next to the bud). and 4. Souchong (the fourth leaf next to the bud).
TGFOP (Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe) is the highest grade of Orthodox Assam, hand processed in small quantities at the finest plantations. It contains roughly one-quarter tips. The joke among tea aficionados is that TGFOB stands for “Too good for ordinary people.” TGFOB fetches top prices in the Arab world. It is drunk “pure” without milk. Bottom of the barrel are the Fannings and Dust. This is the tea that go into tea bags. Tea Dust is also what is boiled in milk and spices to create Indian street chai, which is a whole different cuppa altogether.
The word “pekoe,” used in grading black teas, comes from the Chinese word meaning “silver-haired.” This refers to the silvery down found on especially young tea-leaves. “Orange Pekoe” is neither flavored with oranges nor especially orange-colored.
“Orange” probably comes from the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange. (The Dutch played a major role in bringing tea to the West, and the Dutch East India Company was the first large tea trading company in Europe.) So Orange Pekoe tea is a fancy grade of black tea, as indicated by the reference to Dutch nobility and the fact that it contains particularly young tea-leaves
CTC tea: a dark fully oxidized tea that give a strong dark brew and has a rich malty taste.
CTC TEA: At the start of the 20th century when tea drinking caught on in the UK, British tea companies started experiments in Assam and the CTC method invented and used to the increase volume of tea. CTC is the acronym for Crush, Tear & Curl. It describes the factory process used to make the tea which is similar to that of orthodox tea manufacture but instead of the leaves being rolled as a final stage, they are passed through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of small sharp “teeth” that Crush, Tear, and Curl the leaf into tiny little balls.
CTC tea gives double the cuppage for the same weight as orthodox. For example one Kg. of CTC tea yields around 500 cups compared to 250 cups from Orthodox. The quality of Orthodox however is better than CTC as the coarse leaf is discarded at the time of manufacture by shifting.
Pekoe nowadays simply denotes the size of the tea particle. The smaller the particle size the quicker and stronger the brew. Large whole leaf teas tend to brew slower and lighter, and have more subtle flavours than small leaf teas.
black tea are: 1. Flowery Orange Pekoe (the small leaf next to the bud). 2. Orange Pekoe (the second leaf next to the bud). 3. Pekoe (the third leaf next to the bud). and 4. Souchong (the fourth leaf next to the bud).
TGFOP (Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe) is the highest grade of Orthodox Assam, hand processed in small quantities at the finest plantations. It contains roughly one-quarter tips. The joke among tea aficionados is that TGFOB stands for “Too good for ordinary people.” TGFOB fetches top prices in the Arab world. It is drunk “pure” without milk. Bottom of the barrel are the Fannings and Dust. This is the tea that go into tea bags. Tea Dust is also what is boiled in milk and spices to create Indian street chai, which is a whole different cuppa altogether.
The word “pekoe,” used in grading black teas, comes from the Chinese word meaning “silver-haired.” This refers to the silvery down found on especially young tea-leaves. “Orange Pekoe” is neither flavored with oranges nor especially orange-colored.
“Orange” probably comes from the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange. (The Dutch played a major role in bringing tea to the West, and the Dutch East India Company was the first large tea trading company in Europe.) So Orange Pekoe tea is a fancy grade of black tea, as indicated by the reference to Dutch nobility and the fact that it contains particularly young tea-leaves
CTC tea: a dark fully oxidized tea that give a strong dark brew and has a rich malty taste.
CTC TEA: At the start of the 20th century when tea drinking caught on in the UK, British tea companies started experiments in Assam and the CTC method invented and used to the increase volume of tea. CTC is the acronym for Crush, Tear & Curl. It describes the factory process used to make the tea which is similar to that of orthodox tea manufacture but instead of the leaves being rolled as a final stage, they are passed through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of small sharp “teeth” that Crush, Tear, and Curl the leaf into tiny little balls.
CTC tea gives double the cuppage for the same weight as orthodox. For example one Kg. of CTC tea yields around 500 cups compared to 250 cups from Orthodox. The quality of Orthodox however is better than CTC as the coarse leaf is discarded at the time of manufacture by shifting.
Pekoe nowadays simply denotes the size of the tea particle. The smaller the particle size the quicker and stronger the brew. Large whole leaf teas tend to brew slower and lighter, and have more subtle flavours than small leaf teas.
