Are golden tips/buds a sure fire indicator of the quality of black tea?
In the cases of Jim Jun Mei and Dian Hong, is the amount of golden tips/buds a sure indicator of the quality of the tea? I’m starting to get more into these kinds of black teas but I’m not certain how to tell quality before steeping.
I can certainly tell that the one I’m drinking now is composed of fine, young buds and has a flavor to match. It just so happens that it also has a ton of golden buds/tips so I’m not sure if there is always a direct correlation or not?
That’s a hard question. In my experience I’ve found it usually means you’re likely to get the flavor profiles associated with golden tips/buds, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate to a quality tea. I’ve had horrible Dian Hongs. I stick to vendors I trust to ensure I get quality teas.
I was in Yunnan recently and I bought two top grade dianhongs—both are all tips. IMO it’s hard to tell how good a tea is without smelling and drinking it. Appearance only tells you so much!
How are they? Also, did you buy them directly from the producer or at a tea market/through a wholesaler?
They’re absolutely lovely, and also the first dianhongs I’d tried. I don’t even really like red tea! One was bought at retail level, and one from a wholesaler at a tea market that only sold different grades of dianhong. I bought 500g of the second one. Haven’t had any since I got back as I’ve been drinking the more expensive retail tribute grade. I don’t have enough to sell, but more than I can drink in several years, so I’ll probably give it away with orders!
I drink a LOT of tippy teas. I don’t find that percentage of tips correlates to higher quality. I have have tippy teas that simply weren’t good. Perhaps impacted by storage before they got to me, perhaps by poor processing, I don’t know. Tips generally translate to a certain flavor profile rather than an indicator of overall quality. I agree with Blodeuyn.
I would agree that tips tend to correspond with a certain flavor profile—this is true with sheng and shu pu erh too. If the tea is crap to start with, or as Nicole said, the processing/storage wasn’t right, tips won’t make a major difference.
High humidity absolutely ruins black tea, as I found out the hard way, but a little heat will drive that moisture off and get it back to where it was (almost)!
“Tips” are a part of tea grading. Generally, the highest ‘grade’ of leaf would be SFTGFOP which stands for Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe. It’s a bit of a mouthful, eh? It’s important to remember that just because SFTGFOP is the highest grade of leaf does NOT mean it’s necessarily the best quality as tea leaf grading has absolutely nothing to do with flavour – just appearance/condition. Though I do agree with what others have said that tips seem to impart a specific flavour upon a brewed cup.
Just a note in regard to leaf grading – it’s a broken system because there’s no one that holds growers (who generally determine their own leaf grades) accountable for how they’re grading. So two FOP teas, for example, might not look alike at all. Which is unfortunate.
Also, if you’re having troubles remembering the grading system – one of the tricks we learned in class to memorize it was the acronym “Far To Good For Ordinary People”.
Haha yes I was going to say that about the ’far too good.. ’ always makes me chuckle
I’ve noticed it a lot with Darjeeling, where lots of tea seems to get listed with as many letters as possible
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