Tea-Blending as a Fine Art

by Joseph M. Walsh

MASTICATING OR CHEWING.

An approximate estimate of a Tea may also be formed by chewing or masticating the leaves, a good tea being easily recognized by the rapid manner in which the leaves are dissolved on slight mastication. If the Tea be young and the leaves tender, they become quickly reduced to a pasty consistency and very juicy, but if old and inferior they will be found difficult to chew, tough, and yielding little or no sap, according to its age and inferiority.

INFUSING OR DRAWING

Is, after all is said, the most satisfactory and reliable a method of testing or appraising a Tea at its true value, this being the manner adopted by all expert dealers and brokers in Tea. For this method a number of small cups, scales and a half-dime weight are necessary, together with a clean kettle of freshly distilled or filtered water, briskly boiling, and poured on the leaves, after which they are allowed to infuse from three to five minutes before smelling and tasting. The water used must in all cases be as soft and pure as can be obtained, boiled briskly and used only at the boiling point, that is, it must boil, but not overboil, as if allowed to do so for even a few minutes, it will not extract in its entirety the full strength or flavor of the Tea.

As the value of a Tea commercially depends principally upon the weight and flavor of the infusion as well as in the aroma imparted to it by the volatile oil which it contains, so the intrinsic value of a Tea is based principally on the amount of extract which it yields on infusion in addition to the quantity of the theine and tannin contained therein. Again, the taste for a particular variety of Tea being an acquired and not a natural one, it follows that persons accustomed to a certain variety or flavor in Tea want that particular kind and will not be satisfied with any other even if better or higher-priced. This fact being admitted it becomes essential to the success of the Tea dealer to study and learn the tastes and preferences of his patrons in order to cater satisfactorily to them. To illustrate he may be selling his trade a heavy-bodied Amoy Oolong or dark-leaved Foochow and suddenly change off to a fine Formosa or Congou. In such a case his customers will be very apt to find fault with the latter, no matter how fine they may be. It therefore becomes essential to the success of the dealer to pay particular attention to the quality and standard of the Teas he is purchasing, as there is no article which he handles that will attract trade or retain it longer than a good Tea at a legitimate price, such a Tea creating more comment in a district than any other article used at table and to such an extent that if the customers once lose confidence in either the ability or honesty of the dealer in supplying them they will be repelled rather than attracted, it being next to impossible to draw them back again once they leave through any mistake of the dealer in his selection. Poor or badly selected Teas will drive more customers away from a store in a week than can be made in a year, so that it will not pay the dealer to make any serious error in the selection of his Teas, such mistake proving fatal to the holding or increasing of his Tea trade as well as for other articles. It is therefore much better and more profitable in the end to handle only good Teas on fair and legitimate margin than to sell poor inferior and unsatisfactory Teas at a larger margin of profit.

A dealer with any ambition to increase or even retain his Tea trade should no more attempt to handle poor, inferior, dusty, musty or damaged Teas than a butcher has to sell tainted meats or a baker to give his customers sour bread. The offense may not at first seem as objectionable, but the final verdict of his customers will be the same in each case, and the positive manner in which they will eventually manifest their opinion will be to quit dealing with him altogether. Good, clean, pure and sweet-drawing Teas can always be purchased at a few cents per pound above the price of the dusty, musty, mousey, woody, herby, grassy, smoky, or sour and trashy Teas now flooding the market. So that by the mistaken policy of trying to save a few cents per pound extra the seed is sown for the final ruin of the dealer himself in addition to casting discredit on the use of Tea as an article of diet. While on the other hand, if the dealer makes a small but necessary sacrifice for the sake of future gain and reputation by selling only Tea that is Tea, and content himself with a fair but legitimate profit, satisfaction will be given to his customers, his Tea trade fostered and extended, and the consumption of this most important food auxiliary increased throughout the country.

GRADING OF TEAS.

Black Teas, such as Oolongs and Congous, are graded as “Firsts,” “Seconds,” “Thirds,” “Fourths” and some times “Fifths,” denoting the respective pickings and grading in the order named. They are usually divided into “chops”—quantities bearing the brand or “chop-mark” of the grower or packer—and which are again sub-divided into “Lines,” “Marks” and “Numbers,” the latter rarely exceeding fifty packages. The term “chop” meaning in Chinese “contract,” which in the Tea trade is applied to a quantity of Tea frequently composed of the product of different gardens or districts and afterwards mixed together and made uniform before packing and forwarding to the shipping ports.

Green Teas are graded as Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, the former being applied to the choicest kinds, No. 2 to choice, No. 3 to medium, and 4 to the common grades.