My plan was to write weekly blog posts… but then I started playing Magic: The Gathering and got a little distracted from blog writing. I’m working on some reviews that I’ll post in the near future; but until then, join me in lamenting the lack of tea in Magic cards. So far, I have only found SIX cards with tea referenced in the image or text.
In Magic’s 31 years (that’s 27,000+ unique cards, for those wondering), there has been a Three Kingdoms themed set and multiple Japanese-inspired cyber-punk themed sets. Yet, still, so few tea references. Are you telling me that Kamigawans don’t drink tea? Do better WotC! In any case, if you need your fix, it looks like Black Lotus Tea Co. sells MTG-themed tea blends. A real Mox Ruby is going for about $46,875/ounce, but you can probably get theirs for cheaper.
Update 07/25/24: I found tea references in the new Redwall-inspired Bloomburrow set!
One of my favorite posts on my old blog was a flavor lexicon that I created in July 2017. At the time I was drowning in 8g samples and looking for ways to quantify my tasting experience. I had seen a few flavor wheels posted on r/tea and decided to try building my own lexicon for writing tasting notes. I also remember a lot of discussions at the time about White2Tea’s policy of releasing teas with the least useful descriptions possible. (Love you, Paul.) This made me think about the utility of tasting notes, generally, and how my perceptions were shaped by vendors’ descriptions and other customers’ reviews.
Existing research shows that humans recognize ten broad categories of aroma: (1) floral, (2) woody/resinous, (3) fruity (non-citrus), (4) putrid/decayed, (5) chemical, (6) minty, (7) sweet, (8) burnt/smokey, (9) pungent/sulfidic, and (10) citrusy (Castro et al. 2013; see also Gutiérrez et al. 2018). These clusters categorize the 144 monomolecular odors commonly studied by sensory researchers (as opposed to real-life odor mixtures, Thomas-Danguin et al. 2014). A study specifically on tea found that trained tasters could identify 31 unique flavors in 138 green tea samples (Lee and Chambers 2006). These were categorized as “green” flavors (e.g., asparagus, celery, green beans), “brown” flavors (e.g., ashy/sooty, baking spices, nutty, tobacco), and a third miscellaneous category that included “almond, animalic, grain, musty/new leather, mint, seaweed, [and] straw-like” flavors.
My lexicon included 160 flavor descriptors and was created by summarizing the reviews of the highest rated unflavored loose-leaf teas on Steepster. I identified the top 50 black, oolong, green, white, or puerh teas by average “Steepster score” (as of July 2017), then added 20 more teas from only the oolong, green, and white tea categories to balance the sample. (Any teas with less than 5 descriptors were excluded.) Among these 70 teas, the average number of reviews per tea was 37.8 and the average number of flavor descriptors per tea was 20.0. The final sample included 24 black teas (34%), 15 oolong teas (21%), 15 green and white teas (21%), and 16 puerh teas (23%).
(Note: I think that this approach produced a comprehensive, if not exhaustive, list of common flavor descriptors. If I was to redo it now, I would sample the 10-15 highest rated teas from each tea type and, obviously, would not combine green tea and white tea into one category. I’m not sure why I originally did it that way.)
After excluding duplicates, I was left with 187 descriptors. About 11% of descriptors appeared in reviews in all four tea type categories, 24% appeared in three, 30% appeared in two, and 35% appeared in only one. For example, “sugarcane” or “vanilla” appeared in reviews of black, oolong, green/white, and puerh teas, whereas “seaweed” and “fresh cut grass” only appeared in reviews of green/white teas and “resin” and “wet moss” only appeared in reviews of puerh teas. It doesn’t actually matter how these descriptors were categorized by Steepster users (the lexicon does not group descriptors by tea type), so long as they are representative of the range of flavors that reviewers perceived.
I then removed words describing tastes (i.e., sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami) and textures (e.g., astringent, smooth, thick) and consolidated synonyms (e.g., “cacao” was combined with “cocoa”). I filled out the list with select descriptors (italicized in the table) from the lexicons of the International Tea Masters Association, Specialty Coffee Association of America, and Court of Master Sommeliers. Finally, I organized the final 160 flavor descriptors into 23 minor and 13 major categories. I based these categories on those used in existing lexicons and on how I’d written my own tasting notes.
Here is the final lexicon in table form (click to download):
This was a fun project and, when I was a new tea drinker especially, it helped me develop a language for discussing and reviewing tea. Revisiting it in 2024, I think about how my approach to tea has changed over the last seven years. For example, I am now more interested in aspects like texture, finish, body sensation, etc. Flavor and aroma still matter to me, but my tea sessions are less focused on those aspects and my tasting notes are much less precise. (It has been at least five years since I actually used this lexicon, mainly because the descriptors are too specific.) I also used to approach the tea hobby as an analytical project (as if there was an objective truth to uncover), but have since come to enjoy the subjectivity of tea. I have a much greater appreciation for how my experience varies session-to-session and how my experiences will naturally differ from yours.
There is also the question of utility: My friend recently reminded me of the time we sampled a green tea described as having “notes of custard and dill.” (A) No, it didn’t. (B) Did we really need such specific descriptions? I notice this especially in vendor’s videos; although I tend to view those as entertainment, rather than educational. (Don loves giving excruciatingly specific tasting notes. Glen and Lamu are a good example of vendors who keep things more general.) Most people do consider descriptions while shopping for tea (I certainly do), but are we just setting ourselves up for disappointment when the tea tastes like basil not dill? Or is it all in the same family, so who cares?
When I introduce someone to “fancy” tea, I try to stay light on the details. I might prompt them with a major category (“this tea tastes earthy to me”), but then I let them describe the tea however they experience it (“this tastes like what I ‘d expect the forest floor to taste like”). I find that this approach is less overwhelming and more rewarding for everyone involved.
A final thought: In the past few years there have been calls to “decolonize” the wine lexicon, especially now that wine is produced in more places and by more people. Language is an important part of culture and politics and the Euro-eccentric language used in the wine industry is inherently biased towards European/American tastes. A 2023 SevenFifty article described the issue thusly:
De Leon points out that in the London-based Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) diploma tasting grid, there are nuances elucidated by qualifiers when it comes to apples, and most instructors will differentiate between green and red apple varieties. “But when you start talking about fruits that come from anywhere in the tropics, it’s just ‘tropical fruit’ or ‘mango,'” he says. “I grew up with four kinds of mangoes [in Manila] and each one is different. That’s what I mean when I say it’s time to decolonize. We need to get out of that practice, because the centricity of it solely falls on the European palate.”
Some industry groupshave made progress toward this goal. The Chenin Blanc Association, for example, redesigned its aroma wheel in 2022 by translating it into three local dialects and changing references to better suit the South African palate. An example of this in tea might be KyaraZen’s flavor wheel, which is organized according to the I Ching and the wuxing (“five elements”). It also includes translations of common words and detailed definitions for each of its 89 flavor descriptors. Compare my English-language lexicon (based on English-language, majority-American, reviews) and their Chinese-language lexicon and you will see the very real difference that language can make.
That’s it for today. You can find me here, Instagram, and Discord.
I'm just here for the tea. 