There was a recent post talking about physical characteristics of tea. I added some comments on dry leaf. Indian teas are OP,BOP,CTC,FINES which also applies to Ceylon and Africa. Not too much to get excited about. The real physical variety in tea comes from China. I can say in general I don't see any two Chinese teas that look the same. Even the popular Dong Ding nugget style has the variety in size with some lumpy round, some marble like. I remember one post I did describing the compression into a small seed shape with no descernable leaf texture. I tried some tea this morning where I wondered how they did it. It looks as thin as pencil lead with seam down the middle. You can say what you want about Chinese duplication but they don't copy each other when they make tea. There must be some traditional craftmanship and skill left. I think what makes Chinese teas look so physically interesting is because they are still working with leaf. The pencil lead tea looks just like any BOP in the pot so there is no guarantee of dry to wet beauty. I like a Dong Ding that forms its own echo system in the pot.
Jim
PS Notice I left out Japan. Steamed leaf is steamed leaf.