How do I know a tea is poor quality?

I don’t quite understand determining tea quality by the look. Why not just taste the stuff? Of course, you will need to have tried enough tea to recognize what characteristics should be there (or which characteristics that you want to be there).

With regards to blacks, lower quality teas tend to bring nothing but astringency, and – if you are really unlucky – you get prechewed chewing tobacco flavor (nasty).

I’m not very experienced with oolongs, but I have noticed that bagged oolong has a tendency to express nothing but an overwhelming ricy flavor (much like rice krispies).

I don’t know greens or flavored teas well enough to comment on what you might expect.

Hope this helps, but what should help more is trying a bunch of teas.

Edit I looked at your profile and it looks like you have tried quite a few teas.

For your puer, after brewing the leaves, take a picture and post here. It should be obvious if the leaves were healthy or unhealthy, and if they were stored poorly or not. Also, about the flavor, the proof is in the cuppa!! If it tastes bad to you, then it is bad quality. If you like it, who cares who thinks it is good or bad!!!

did you buy this off ebay?

I bought it off Amazon.com. But these tins appear to be available from other sources.

Ok someone posted an excerpt from Harney & Sons but I don’t see it now. I found the free sampling of the Kindle version of the book as suggested. I was reading about poor quality teas containing bits of stalk. The tikuanyin seems to fit that description. I’ll post a photo if I figure out how. I already tossed the pu erh!

This is a massive topic but here are some general guidelines- also I think I answered it in the reverse (i.e. how do i know a tea is good quality)

1) Dry Leaves (a.k.a. before brewing):
i) Moisture content- most teas should be brittle and in some cases powdery as well because moisture content of well-produced tea is between 4%-10% (depending on the type of tea).
ii) Does it look sturdy (oolong should) or tender (green tea)
iii) Color- Too many variables to cover here
iv) Evenness- though there are many limitations to this criterion (e.g. white tea/ yellow tea are not rolled for evenness)
v) Smell- does it smell stale? Smoky (except for some exceptions)? Offending smells in there?
Those are indicative of lower quality.
vi) Size of the leaf- it doesn’t mean the bigger the better- green tea is a good example, as is Pu-er.
vii) Is it aromatic? Fresh tea should smell that way

Liquor: (Basically similar to assessing diamonds ;))
i) Shine/lustrous- more lustrous liquor indicates more tea oils emitted and more well processed
ii) Clarity
iii) Color- there are some specifics but in general
a) Green tea- pale green
b) Oolong (lightly oxidized)- yellowish gold
c) Oolong heavily oxidized- goden
d) Black tea- golden
e) Pu-er- burgundy

Aroma of brewed tea:
i) Does it carry?
ii) Any offending smells?
iii) Does the fragrance disappear after the tea has cooled- for floral/fruity fragrances it means its probably additives as opposed to natural smell
iv) Any weird smells in there? Smoky? Stale?
v) Smell the cup after you finished drinking- does the aroma linger?

Taste: (Sometimes you may need to brew more than once to determine some of it)
i) Do you feel a sweetness well up in your throat after drinking it? Does it linger for long?
ii) No hints of astringency (assuming its not overheated)
iii) Refreshing, Soothing?
iv) Does the taste linger in your mouth? (Especially for oolong)

Wet leaves- leaves after it is brewed:
i) Shiny? Most rolled tea leaves (i.e. green, black, pu-er, oolong) should be shiny
ii)Buds-leaves- For green tea- generally 1 bud- 1 leaf or 2 leaves would be high grade. Some exceptions such as Liu An Gua Pian though
iii) Tenderness, small shoots are valued for green tea
iv) Oolong- fat sturdy leaves
v) Wholeness of leaves although there are exceptions- Pu-er, Wuyi oolong and some Tieguanyins undergo ‘shuai qing’ which causes the ‘bruised’ sides of the leaves to fall off and gives a ‘lighter’ flavor
vi) Lingering aroma
vii) Color (too many specifics to cover here)

Sorry I can’t be more detailed since this is quite a big topic which there are too many specifics to get into.

Of course that is not too say you won’t enjoy the tea- quality is from a commercial standpoint- i.e. assessment of value
To illustrate- MacDonald’s doesn’t use Angus Young or Kobe beef or Wagyu in their patties but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy sinking my teeth into a Quarter Pounder. Just that I won’t pay more than $8 for a McValue meal while I consider it a bargain if I can get some beef cuts for $80

Thank you for that info. I tried uploading a small jpg but maybe that function isn’t working right now.

Found this on ehow. Easy read.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2301998_evaluate-tea-quality.html

Here’s Adagio Teas’ “Tea Class” article about quality: http://www.teaclass.com/lesson_0203.html

“Moral of the story: taste, taste, taste! That is the only way you can determine what good quality tea means to you. Just as a trustful relationship is important between growers and buyers, so to is it important between yourself and your tea. Keep practicing and learn to trust your opinion. Also, buy from reputable tea sellers. They should easily be able to tell you about their teas and should encourage your feedback, if your business truly matters to them. Lastly, where you see grades applied to teas, let that be a guide as to what MAY be better quality than others. Don’t let fancy words blur the opinion of your taste buds.”

It’s more about grading systems but one point is that looks aren’t everything. :)

They sell this same sampler set in my local Chinese supermarket for about $5-6, and the larger tins for about the same each. The good thing is that packaged in the sealed tins in a sealed larger package, they probably haven’t gone “bad”. The not so good thing is that, at that price you can’t really expect much in the way of varietal charactistics or taste. Sort of like buying a generic California Pinot Noir vs a French Burgundy,or a California Pinot from a well known vintner from a certain vineyard and a certain year. Coming from China they will at least be the real thing, a sort of daily quality version of the tea it says it is. The teas might – hopefully will – give you an beginning idea of what better quality versions of those teas will taste like. However, don’t cross any tea off your list just because you didn’t like the one that came in your tin. A better quality may be very different. Not to mention that each one should be brewed in a different way, water temp and time of steeping to really tell you what it should be like.

Taste them, enjoy them (or not) and if something appeals to you, try ordering from a reputable tea merchant. There are sooooo many on line these days that there is no reason to buy from Amazon.