Understanding tea flavours

"If I say fresh tasting, would anyone know what it means?"

nope, but if it says stale tasting, i surely would avoid it.

You mean like 新鲜 (xin xian)? I'm not exactly sure at what you are getting at when you describe a tea as "fresh". You mean like when the first spring teas are released it has the xian flavor?

That's not one of the flavors of tea that I've heard referred to. If anything they usually call it 香(xiang).

鮮 is often used in conjunction with the word 活, which together, when describing tea, means that the tea is "lively". 鮮 can also be used in conjunction with 甜, meaning "lively and sweet". These are usually associated with green tea, although nowadays you also hear it being used for dry stored puerh. It's rare to hear somebody say 鮮 on its own to describe a tea though, because 鮮 is really a taste on its own

-- it's what MSG in food will make the food taste like. It's what a good chicken stock tastes like. 鮮 as an adjective for tea is, IMO, more a description of its feeling than its taste. A cooked puerh is never going to be 鮮活. The same is true for a roasted tieguanyin. A pre-ming Longjing or a well stored 10 year old puerh though can definitely be that. I think to translate into English, "light and lively" might be better, if slightly cumbersome.

MarshalN

The only time I have ever heard xian is in reference with xin xian which just means fresh. Yes, it's usually with green tea that has just been released or picked or something. Actually describing any flavor or part of the tea, I have not heard before. Kinda strange.

On May 6, 2:53 pm, juliantai wrote:

ok, so are you tasting pure L-theanine ? any tea has more than 1 component...

Xinxian is something you would use to describe the condition of the tea, but unlikely for a description of the taste of the liquid. Somebody can say the longjing is very xinxian because it is freshly picked, with accompanying implication that the tea (liquid) itself is fresh and lively. Of course, they are related in the sense that an old, stale longjing is unlikely going to be xianhuo, but an aged, properly dry stored sheng puerh can indeed be xianhuo (lively) without being xinxian (fresh as in fresh off the plant). So, while one term contains, at least partially, the meaning of another, it doesn't work in both directions.

MarshalN

The generally recognised English term for this taste ascribed to L- theanine in Japanese green tea is "brothy", though before we discovered what the Japanese called it we used "maritime" to describe its distinct savoriness. Raw tuna or sushi quality is close to it. This taste in general is known as "umami" and recently has been added to the four classic gustatory (taste) sensations (sweet, salt, acid & bitter), along with metallic. Astringent is not considered a taste (except by tea tasters) as it is considered strictly to be a tactile stimulus - of loss in slickness of the buccal mucosa. Nor yet is "fresh" a taste, although (and particularly to a tea enthusiast) it is an essential component and in teaman's parlance could be termed "alive" or (for black teas at least) "point".

Nigel at Teacraft

Thanks, Nigel et all. That is REALLY useful :) I quite like fresh, alive, savory, reminiscent of MSG (that is what the Chinese call it, because they take so much MSG).

Another question is this mystery of tea. For green tea, caffeine tastes bitter, while catechins taste astringent. But together, they create something else -neither bitter nor astringent (good green tea shouldn't taste like that). It seems to be all lost in my taste buds? Have you come across anything that describes it? It might really be well a complex experience that defies words ...

and

Speaking as a chemist who's worked occasionally in food sciences, I'd make a clear distinction between molecules and experiences. Even the simplest cases (salt tastes salty) can fall apart under some physiological conditions. As with the other senses, personal state, cultural training and expectations play a major role. (How else could one explain how Americans like American food?)

Professional tasters in tea, wine and other foods and drinks, perfume designers, visual artists, musicians and choreographers (among many others) evolve ad-hoc languages to communicate their common experience. These typically do not convey much to outsiders, but are testably precise between experts. In few if any cases is the underlying physical/chemical/optical/? state of the observed system sufficient to predict accurately each user's response, given current levels of understanding of cognitive psychology.

IMO, for most of us,learning a little food science is useful (beyond just mind games) insofar as it guides personally effective choices in buying, brewing, sharing and describing.

-DM

...

What do you think of "Miracle Fruit", said to make sour, bitter foods taste sweet and delicious?

It depends on what you mean by taste. L-theanine has a tremendous effect on the experience of holding the tea liquor in your mouth. Try this experiment: Brew a harsh CTC tea. Take a sip and mark well what it feels like in your mouth and what it tastes like. Then add a bit of L-theanine powder to the liquor. Take another sip. It's inconceivable that you won't notice a difference.

/Lew

I think L-theanine actually counteracts astringency in tea.