How to catalog or classify tea?

I'm thinking about writing a little tea database to keep track of what I buy, where I buy it, and what I like and don't like.

I ran into a little snag. I am not sure how best to categorize the various teas?

I think I more or less understand the basic "types" (red/black, green, oolong, white, etc.).

I am not sure about specific teas or varieties. Many vendors sell generic types like Earl Grey, Gunpowder, Irish Breakfast, etc. I believe most of these are blends or more than one tea and most vendors sell more than one type of Earl Grey.

My basic question is how to best categorize each tea so that I am comparing apples to apples?

My current plan is to have a "Purchases" table. It would have one entry for each tea I purchase. Some of the fields it would contain include:

Name of the tea (from the vendor) Vendor Product number Date Amount Cost Type (black, green, etc.)

I would then have a a "Brews" table with one entry for each pot I brew. It would have fields like:

Date Tea (link to Purchases table) Amount of tea Amount of water Temperature Time Rating Comments

Is this a good start?

The next step would be to compare simlar teas. Or does it even make any sense to compare an Earl Grey from different vendors?

Reply to
Prof Wonmug
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This is the best way to prove you dont like tea. Forget the spreadsheet and let your subconscious do the categorizing. Youll find for some reason youll like one tea over another. One day youll like a tea you that you didnt before. Enjoying tea is independent of determination. We have guys show up preaching the gospel of differentiation then disappear when they get bored. The mental notes come from experience. You need to build an internal reference point. Trust your instinct, forget the database. I go to tea tastings because they dont cost me anything extra. I have more fun trying to find one of my teas. For a long time I had an organized cuppard. I still have one more or less.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy

I'm a bit of an anal-retentive type who loves to categorize things too, and I've tried to do this sort of tea database from time to time. I'm so A-R that it's probably the reason I avoid tea blends (with a few exceptions). It's a fun exercise and very satisfying.

I also empathize with the "don't categorize to death what should be a near-spiritual experience." If you pay too much attention to putting something in a niche, you're also limiting what you'll experience from the tea. You'll taste what you are expecting to taste and be less open to the unexpected or to subtle nuances. The vendor with the highest quality tea I've ever tasted in fact refuses to name his teas

-- he'll just present us with a tasting of a half-dozen greener oolongs, never saying if it's a ti kuan yin varietal or something different. He wants the taste to speak for itself. I understand this was a common approach to tea sales in China before Western customers demanded fancy names and concrete classifications.

If you want to go ahead with the tea classifications, consider doing type (green, white, red (black), yellow, aged [pu-erh, liu-an, etc], tisanes, and "other" or "flavored") and also doing shape (bags, fannings, CTC, twisted, rolled, display, cake). You could use the official classifications that are most useful for non-Chinese teas (STGFOP and such) if you want. And you should DEFINITELY keep entries for different vendor's varieties of the same tea, or even different grades of the same tea from the same vendor -- you'll find huge variation!

Have fun!

-Charles

Reply to
Iggy

Get the Upton's catalogue. Look at how THEY categorize things.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I'm glad I'm not the only one ;-)

I try to stay balanced.

I've read through the archives and several people have made good suggestions.

My plan is to record the brewing parameters for each pot with a rating plus comments. One program option will be "surprise me". The program will choose a tea from whatever I have available and, based on past pots and ratings, suggest a set of brewing parameters.

I have learned from following this group to try very different parameters from what I might try on my own. It might choose a lot of leaf and a very short steep time or less leaf and longer steep at a lower temperature.

The program would keep track of what I like and try to calculate ranges of parameters that are the sweet spot for each tea.

I would not buy from this vendor. I find this arrogant. I have no problem with him offering this as an option, but when he gets to refusing information, he has forgotten who the customer is. ;-)

Thanks

Reply to
Prof Wonmug

OK, thanks

Reply to
Prof Wonmug

I thought I was speaking to a Prof. Sorry for the erudiction. Add all the columns you want to a spreadsheet or the fields to a database not ONE will tell you what the next tea will taste like. If you are worried how the current tea taste compared to another you need a sharp pencil with a big eraser not a computer. Learn the grammar difference between you're and your. You and Prof WonMug use the same News Server EasyNews and Client Forte. You both should consider Google Groups. Its free. I recommended one additional field for you, location.

Jim

PS If you meet me > On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:05:55 -0700 (PDT), Space Cowboy

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Actually, Stephen (the proprietor of Spring Cottage Tea House in Richmond B.C.) is anything but arrogant. It's not really a case of withholding information, since most of the teas in question are from small batches on tiny farms (including a farm in Fujian owned by his wife's parents, which produces the most amazing silver needle) and his stock thus varies constantly. For him it's just more accurate to say "here's a really good green oolong to try" than to slap an arbitrary marketing title on it like "Green Dragon Spring #3" that the farmer would never have called it.

When I see web sites or catalogs with a dozen types of long chings with labels like "Imperial Dragon Well", "Superior Dragon Well", "Fine Grade Dragon Well" and "Dragon Well #1", they don't mean much to me -- I'd rather just taste them all and decide for myself, which is exactly the experience Stephen provides for me.

Reply to
Iggy

I completely agree!

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

Ive been to enough puer tastings this year to say I dont think it absolutely necessary to know the pedigree of the shu or sheng which includes aging. The last time I was in SF Chinatown I got teas from about ten different jars at an apothecary. I didnt bother noting the labels. I was able to sort them out at home using my Chinese tea book I got on the trip and my own stock. I also really dont need to know the Darjeeling and Assam estates my local tea shoppe sells. However I wouldnt be happy to see a vendor sell an expensive white tea that turned out to be SowMee. Just be aware if you buy Oriental Beauty from Taiwan it could be anybodys bug eaten crop and not the original spittle Darjeeling like version favored by one Queen of England.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Really? It sounds like you are saying that my way is invalid.

I accept that this is what works for you. It doesn't work very well for me. I do better with hard data. Is it OK if we have different styles?

And part of the enjoyment for me is trying to tease out what those reasons might be.

Sure. I understand that there might not be any absolute answers and that they might change over time, but the exercise still has value for me.

I accept that this is how you see it and what works for you. Can you accept that more of an engineering approach works better for me?

I'm actually willing to try your way, especially if I am not put down for mine or told that it's invalid. Are you willing to try mine?

Was I preaching? I intended to ask some questions. I feel like I got preached at. Projection?

This is how I do that.

Goodness. Did you have a bad experience as a child with an abusive database?

Reply to
Prof Wonmug

Look, we all get your concept... tons of folks have made the exact same claims and comments. It never works. It's fundamentally not how tea works, and never has in it's entire history. You are not some new exception that will crack the code. No one here is pissing in your cornflakes, it's just reality... and one we've all seen and been told we are wrong about and that we'll surely be shown... it hasn't happened.

There are too many variables in tea to do what you claim. To try to claim otherwise is foolish. It isn't science, it isn't repeatable. Each batch of tea is different, each growing season is too, harvest days even are different. The water, the heating method and vessel and cup, the list goes on and on. Best of luck in your endeavors, no one here is interested in this approach (AFAIK) so you won't get much guidance or help, but if it is a personal need then scratch it and enjoy it. Just understand we aren't really interested in your results or work. Most of us here enjoy tea. No more, no less.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

Wow. What is it about a simple suggestion to collect data that is so upsetting to you?

What do you call it? Do you eve read your own posts?

Please tell me where I said that anyone was wrong about anything? I merely asked a question about how go about collecting data. You afre the one telling me that I am wrong and then blaming me. What is so threatening to you about collecting data?

And now the name-calling...

Well, there are commercial labs all over the world that do just that. Now, I'm not comparing myself to them. I'm just making the point that collecting data is never futile. At the very least, it will show that the problem is more complex that thought.

Really. I thought you said that "tons of folks have made the exact same claims and comments...". I don't know how many people are in a ton, but cetainly more than zero. ;-)

Certainly not from you or Space Cowboy.

I love it that you speak for everyone. Who annointed you?

Reply to
Prof Wonmug

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