How to Do a Tea Tasting at Home: Flights, Method and Teas to Try

Start small: Miller suggests one or two teas at first, building to six or eight, because “It doesn’t take much to exhaust your senses.”

Wine sommeliers taste vertically and horizontally, and our tasters borrowed both ideas. A horizontal tasting compares different gardens from the same season; a vertical tasting compares different sections or cultivars of the same garden. In September 2021 our tasters ran a vertical of another kind: one Assam, Mangalam Gold Summer Black, oxidized for four different times. Their sheets ran from “The flavors in this cup are muted” at 2 hours 30 minutes to “Let’s launch this!” at 3 hours 30 minutes. Three flights to start with:

• Three seasons: Castleton Spring Chinary Black beside Castleton Summer Muscatel Black, both from one garden, with an autumn tea such as Jungpana Autumn Chinary Black. Watch the liquor move from bright gold to amber to dark amber. Our guides to first flush vs second flush and autumn flush tea explain what changes.
• Two regions: a floral Darjeeling beside a malty summer Assam such as Halmari Summer Black, whose card reads malt, date palm and yellow raisins. This one shows contrast rather than quality: professionals judge an Assam against other Assams, since setting it against a Darjeeling is, in Miller’s words, “apples and oranges.”
• One plant, different types: a green, a white and a black tea, to taste what processing does to the same leaf. Start with Types of tea: a beginner’s guide.

One tea, three steeps

You can also taste a single tea against itself. In March 2022 our tasters steeped a fresh Badamtam Moonlight Spring White three times: the first steep gave white lilies, raw mango and muskmelon; the second vine peach, green apple and flowers; and the third, poured over ice, floral and fruity notes with green mango. Avishek thought the first cup looked “almost like white wine,” Gomden said “Champagne,” and the color debate ran on through every steep.

1. Weigh 2.5 g of each tea onto a white card, label it, and note the dry leaf and its aroma.
2. Heat fresh water. When the teas are close in type, use one temperature and one time for all of them: for the three-season Darjeeling flight, 90°C (194°F) and 4 minutes sits within the range for spring, summer and autumn teas alike. When they are not, as with Darjeeling against Assam, brew each at its own best (90–95°C for a summer Darjeeling, 95–100°C, or 203–212°F, for Assam).
3. Pour 6 to 8 oz (about 180 to 240 ml) over each, the same volume every time, and start the timer as you pour the first cup.
4. Strain in the order you poured, then work through leaf, color, aroma, slurp and finish, cup by cup.
5. Taste plain first. Our tasters treat single-estate teas as “self drinking,” best without milk, sugar, honey or lemon. If a strong Assam is meant for milk, taste a second cup with a splash after.
6. Taste again as the cups cool; some teas open up, others fall away. Pick a favorite and say why in one sentence.

For an everyday cup, our 4S will do: Smell the leaves, Steep gently, Sip and “taste every note,” Savor.