Tea Grades: What Does it Mean?

Tea grades are the standard in which the leaves and quality of the tea are put in different categories. When you shop for tea, you will want to know how the tea is is graded from high quality to low quality. Here are some very useful information on tea grades.

The grades of tea, particularly in Black tea, generally are abbreviated by 4-6 letter. This makes it very confusing for tea shoppers, especially people often don't even know that the letters stand more. One thing that makes it more confusing is that black, green, and oolong tea have different grading system. Take your time to get some ideas about the grades. It can come in handy later...

Black tea grading system

There are 2 major grades in black tea: broken grades and leaf grades. The broken grades occupy the majority of the harvest. They include the broken leaves and small leaves. These grades are often used in tea bags. Leaf grades contain whole and large leaf. Their flavors are not as strong as broken grades.

Broken grades

1. BOP = Broken Orange Pekoe

It contains very small tea leaves. The leaves often have yellow tips. This grade is strong and bold in flavor.
2. BP = Broken Pekoe

This grade contains bigger leaves than BOP above. When brewed, this grade yields pale color.

3. BPS = Broken Pekoe Souchong

This grade contains even bigger leaves and Broken Pekoe above. The flavor and fragrance is not as strong as BP.

4. FNGS = Fannings

This grade contains the smallest leaves. The flavor is not as strong as any of the grade above.
5. D = DUST

This grade mainly contains dust of tea leaves. It's often used in tea bags for quick brewing. The quality for this grade is lowest among broken leaves grades.
Leaf grades
1. OP = Orange Pekoe

This grade mainly contains large and unbroken tea leaves. The flavor is not as strong as broken grades. The fragrance is pleasant. After brewed, it yields paler color than broken grade.

Sometime there is may be a GT or TG (t= tip and G = golden) in front of the grades above. This is a good indication that the tea is of high-quality. There are also some other uncommon tea grades like Flowery Pekoe and Orange Flowery Pekoe. These grades contain small and young leaves. Green tea grading system The green tea is graded based on the size of the leaves and the processing methods like pan-fired or natural leaves. Green tea grading system is different for different countries. Green tea grades are backed up by the quality of the leaves.

Generally, some of the grades are explained like this:

Imperial : is made from old tea leaves

Hyson : mixture of young and old leaves

Twankay : old and broken leaves

Dust : tiny grains of broken leaves

Green tea in Japan are generally graded in the following order: Choicest, Choice, Finest, Fine, Good, Fannings, and Dust.

This indicates that the Choicest is the highest-quality tea while Dust is low quality tea.

Green tea in India follows another grading system, which goes something like this: Fine Young Hyson, young hyson, Twankay, Fannings, and Dust.
This reflects that Fine Young Hyson is the best quality. Green tea in China follows yet another grading system: Gun Powder,Imperial, Hyson, Twankay, Hyson Skin, and Dust.

OOLONG TEA grading system

Oolong tea is semi-fermented tea. It is the product between black tea and green tea. The best oolong tea is Formosa oolong. This tea is only produced in Formosa. Other places can mimic the processing methods but can't compete with the original Formosa oolong tea. There is another common name, Pouchong Oolong. Pouchong is scented tea. This is real tea but has flowery fragrances.
The oolong tea grades are as followed: Choice, Finest, Fine up, fully superior, Superior, Fully good, Good, and Standard. There are also many more intermediate gradings between each of the catergories above.