Ceylon FPEK?

It probably means Flowery Pekoe. But I don't believe these gradings are very standardized.

Jon

"Lars I. Mehlum" skrev i melding news:kicOc.1134$ snipped-for-privacy@juliett.dax.net...

the tea in

small curled up

broken bits of

That's what I thought too. But I've never seen a FP like this. Anyway, it's an eastern quality season Uva from the Uva Highlands estate, and it's very good!

Lars (Bergen, Norway)

The Ceylon grades are mostly BOP, FBOP, OP. I've never seen any that looked like CTC. I recently got a FBOPF where the leaf looks like a long extremely thin half white half black twist making a very sexy leaf. Back in the early eighties I got some Ceylon called Lovers Leap. I just came across it again. I don't know the xlands source. It is the perfect tea for non tea drinkers. The perfect evening tea for the rest of us. You simply can't wrong with any commercial brand Ceylon especially produced for the middle east or Russia.

Jim

Upton is advertising a Ceylon CTC.

That's some hot tea!

I would have guessed that over the decades I would have seen a CTC Ceylon first in a commercial brand. You see CTC all the time in Indian teas but that process I haven't seen in other tea producing countries which still use sieving. Hopefully our resident tea industry expert can shed some light on this subject. Ceylon has the same problem as India with Darjeeling. There is a Ceylon trademark making it authentic. Otherwise just shipped and packaged in Ceylon. So I went to my favorite Arabic market and they no longer carry my tasty commercial Ceylon. New young owners bought the business of the old owner and they understand me better. But I did get my first Iranian tea called Nemooneh. It says Produced and Packaged in Iran so I guess that means homegrown at the outrageous price of $4.50/500g. I picked up some goat for a curry and injera bread for sopping up the stew.

Jim

There is a small amount of CTC production in Sri Lanka/Ceylon. I believe I've read that about 6 per cent is CTC. But a huge amount of the "orthodox" black tea is made into small particles, i.e. BOP, BOPF and Dust, by the Rotorvane process.

Jon

"Space Cowboy" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

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Sri Lanka produce a lot of CTC teas. In domestic market CTC tea is the most popular one because local people like strong, robust cup.

Jim already mention about some grades BOP, FBOP and OP. Actually BOP is not a orthodox grade, this grading system is for CTC tea- BOP(Broken Orange Pekoe) This BOP teas are granular teas.

Ripon Vienna,VA

Are you saying companies without the "seal of authenticity" are importing tea to Sri Lanka just to package and export?

But, is it good? I finally found one (1) local shop that carries Ceylon tea. It's Alwazah (Swan) brand and it's acceptable at $4.29/500g; it's not nearly as good as some other I've had at $5.99 but nobody here carries it.

I'll describe the grades you'll see on commercial Ceylon packaging. With the Ceylon seal you also get a grade lettering. BOPF is fannings, BOP irregular indistinguishable broken, FBOP small leaf, OP the largest leaf. With seemingly little CTC and commercial BOP at around $5/500g it is still cheaper than most Indian CTC.

Jim

Yup look for the "CEYLON TEA Symbol of Quality" to be absolutely sure. It can be absent but so strong it discourages attempted ripoffs. Ahmad doesn't use the seal because of their name. You'll find lots of Ceylon commercial brands to choose from. I'm partial to the larger Arabic Ceylon 1/2k tins like Alwazah and Royal World (no seal) compared to the smaller 100g Russian tins. For about $5 you can get Alwazah 450g FBOP1 in a tin with the seal of approval. Ahmad, Sadaf(no seal), Alghazaleen are mostly paper with occasional tins. I got a fantastic 450g colorful Akbar Brothers Russian tin with a hinged lid and snap hook. It is similar to their Alghazaleen tin. The closest to Iranian Nemooneh is Turkish Caykur. I don't do comparisons because the cup I'm drinking always seems to taste just fine. The Caykur is bold the Nemooneh mellow. AFAIK any tea grown in the middle east is pesticide free (? the Koran and something similar to Jewish kosher).

Jim

As I just wrote, about 6 per cent of the Ceylon tea production is of the CTC type. Meaning that 94 per cent is "orthodox".

local people like strong, robust cup.

It's not that simple. A lot of the "orthodox" tea (namely that processed with the Rotorvane machine) is made into small particles which gives a strong, robust tea with comparably less flavour. But this is not CTC tea.

for CTC tea- BOP(Broken Orange Pekoe).

This is wrong. BOP (Broken Orange Pekoe) has been used as a grade in orthodox manucfacturing for a very long time, even though it is nowadays also used for CTC teas. In Sri Lanka a BOP tea is usually "orthodox" Rotorvane-processed. However, due to market demand the BOP teas from Sri Lanka/Ceylon nowadays consist of much smaller particles than before, making them difficult to distinguish from BOPF (Fannings) and even Dust.

Jon (Oslo, Norway)

Dear Jon:

I didn't disagree that Sri Lanka produce more Orthodox compare to CTC. Sri Lankan tea industry is export oriented whether Indian tea industry is local market oriented. Though both of the countries export their very best teas to the foreign country. Interesting part is all South Asian country export tea and also import tea from each other for cost effectiveness. India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka- all this countries export their good teas and import less quality(mainly CTC) teas from each other. Sri Lanka's last three years CTC production jumped in every year- CTC cumulative production during 2003-2004= 2,082,020Kg. They are also increasing their Orthodox teas. Sri Lankan people prefer CTC or dust more then orthodox the reason is- cultural, more robust and strong taste. I am from that region and have been traveled all this countries. I have seen this. Sri Lanka is trying to reduce their dependency from imported teas for local market, that's why their CTC production is jumping every other year. The whole South Asian tea culture is- they like CTC kind of tea. In India some people like to blend CTC and Orthodox Darjeeling.

First of all, their is no standardized grading system. In south Asia BOP always graded as CTC tea. In this point, I know what I am talking about. The Orthodox grading start from SFTGFOP1 China to OP1 or OP. But BOP is a widely used CTC grading around South Asian tea growing countries. Orthodox tea can never give the same strong, robust cup compare to CTC (BOP or dust etc.) I am not saying CTC is better then Orthodox. I am trying to explain, the reality and South Asian tea culture.

I am from Bangladesh and I was close to tea growing community, this year in January2004 I was in Kolkata for some research about tea and last year I was in Colombo- I never heard or seen BOP has been used as Orthodox grading.

Ripon Vienna,VA

I asked my supplier, and he answered that FPEK is indeed FP, i.e. Flowery Pekoe. In the quality season, it seems that some factory managers goes for a fast and hard rolling programme and then shortening the fermentation process. The aim is to capture as most of the wanted flavour as possible.

The hard rolling can explain the appearance of my tea.

Lars (Bergen, Norway)

Here is a U(gly)RL

that suggests you and the embedded auteur are both correct. What I've seen as BOP in commercial brands is from mechanized Rotorvane ie broken irregular and indistinguishable. Any labeling for BP is definitely broken leaf. I just haven't seen any BOP that would even suggest a byproduct of CTC. Any packaging simply states CTC and not CTC BOP. Probably CTC uses the leaf more efficently to produce granulation than BOP but that cost still isn't any cheaper on the shelves comparatively. I'd probably buy a CTC over BOP all things being equal. The Taj Mahal CTC Assam blend taste couldn't be accomplished using BOP. In the summer for instant tea use CTC and tap water. The granulation falls to the bottom, add ice and you drink off the top.

Jim

This url indicates Ceylon grading

most of which I've seen in commercial brands even including the suffixes. I've even got BOP SP and can't tell the difference with BOP.