Tea is quickly becoming the hip connoisseur product, following a path that is very similar to that blazed in the wine and coffee industries decades ago. With a growing demand for high-quality teas, it is difficult to understand, as a buyer, how to determine which teas possess desirable qualities and, as a seller, how each tea will perform in the market. As Tealet has evolved into a wholesale auction for growers to submit their most prized lots for sale direct to retailers and other larger buyers, we have begun researching the success of high-end wine and coffee. Although wine connoisseurs may prefer to make their own judgment on the quality of wine, they can trust the credibility of standardized scoring systems, such as the 50-100 point quality scale developed by Robert Parker. In the coffee industry, the most reputable scoring and auction system is the Cup of Excellence, which uses the cupping standards proposed by the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Through a local and international judging process that uses these standards, the organization is able to bring the highest quality coffee beans to the market at a fair price.
Unfortunately for the tea world, there are no internationally recognized standards. Grading systems have been used for ages for grading the leaf quality of tea from various growing regions, but these don’t take into account flavor, aroma, and processing skill. Tea importers must to do their own vetting on the quality of tea, most utilizing the cupping procedures established by ISO-3103. They must cup hundreds of teas and evaluations are documented offline and are highly qualitative. As more transparency and technology characterize the distribution of tea, it becomes more possible for everyone from tea lovers to high-end tea retailers to get access to high-quality tea. How can buyers identify a good-quality tea and what should its market price be?
On Tealet’s new wholesale platform, growers can submit their most prized tea lots (average 20 pounds) so that potential buyers and enthusiasts can order samples and participate in the evaluation or “cupping” of each tea that goes up for auction. We collaborated with Tony Gebely of The World of Tea to develop the standards, procedures, and tasting notes that would be adopted for the evaluation. With the help of Jason Walker and our celebrity tea friend, Kevin Rose, Tealet is building a technology interface that can make these evaluations more quantitative, similar to the ones used in international competitions in the wine and coffee industries. Through an online evaluation form, tasters can submit the conditions of the evaluation (trial by fire or standard preparation) and tasting notes. Submissions are aggregated to give a more concise evaluation of the teas. Buyers can now make more conscious decisions.
Tealet is very much in startup-hustle phase, so we appreciate all the feedback we can get. Tony’s standards and our platform are living documents that rely on the input of everyone. Take a look at our current evaluation form and let us know what you think by emailing us at info@tealet.com. You can order samples, do real evaluations, and place bids at wholesale.tealet.com.
Sounds like you’re a trailblazer Elyse. How exciting to be creating a standard that hopefully will gain momentum and become the standardized method that is adopted by the tea industry. It is curious that taste had not been a key component of tea tasting.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle is personal preference. As we know from other products, one man’s treasure is another man’s displeasure.
I participated in a blind wine taste tasting last year, each guest required to bring a bottle in keep it in a brown paper bag. I went to Trader Joe’s and asked for their least expensive, great tasting wine. I brought a bottle that cost $5.97. That bottle went up against wines that were in the $30-50 dollar price range. Drum roll please. My bottle won. So we know that great taste isn’t necessarily reflective of price.
I look forward to hearing more about your evolution. I’ll be sure to check out your evaluation form and provide my comments. For those who have not seen a tea tasting before, Kevin’s will be extremely helpful.
Tealet is a revolution in the making…
Currently in China, local grading systems do exist. A perfect way to start is to map out all the local grading systems for tea region over the world and then try to find a way to unite them.
What a challenge! but nothing is impossible ;)
Aloha, thanks for your comment. Yes, this is the challenge, to bring everything together. If you would like to get involved please email me at elyse@tealet.com
This sounds like a really interesting idea and I wonder whether there might be room for tea producer “ambassadors” as well? One of the wonders of tea is what goes into the making and all the complexity and variety that is achieved as a result. I feel that there is a big difference between factory made teas and truly hand- crafted artisanal teas, however both of these “categories” can vary in quality and style. I took a look at the tasting form and think it is a great start. I always provide detailed tasting notes for our customers and include notes about the making which customers seem to enjoy so wonder whether they might be expanded? Tea for me is all about pleasure from the growing through the making right up to the drinking. So much care goes into our making and obviously personal preference is a huge factor but I think that many people do appreciate our teas partly because of this. As some of the larger plantations here in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in the world are struggling I feel hopeful that there may be a positive future for small scale crafted manufacture at community level if the skills could be developed.. And of course if there is enough interest from consumers.
Apologies my last comment may have seemed odd as I didn’t explain that I am a small scale tea maker. I wanted to get across a couple of points. Firstly with regard to the tasting notes I feel that the categories for flavours such as “fruity” are quite limiting.. We have citrus, papaya and melon notes in our tea along with plummy dried fruit.. So maybe a way to expand the description? Perhaps this may only apply to artisanal teas? Also I feel that it would be good to have a ” rare tea” category determined by either volumes of production or by manufacturing methods.
Beverly, I would love to hear more about your tea making and your opinion on this topic. Please email me at elyse@tealet.com
Sounds like an interesting concept. I would support the development of standards, but it is unclear to me that an auction format would be sufficient to influence an industry.
Perhaps a better approach would be to gather a set of larger importers to get behind some standards. This might also be a good project for a regional tea board or trade association.
I think part of the fun in tea is getting behind good buyers, who consistently look for undervalued buys. This doesn’t necessarily require a numerical value per tea. The pleasure of having a mentor personally highlight one particular cupping note would be worth more than a paragraph of collected impressions.
Personally, I just like the experience of tea. Part of the zen of tea is accepting it for what it is, with no preconceived notions. I fear thinking about whether a tea is an 80 or 85 takes the fun out of it. On the other hand, as a buyer or business owner, this is a different matter.
Thus, when I’m enjoying tea, I rarely have a timer. When I’m cupping for buying, I always have a timer and notepad.
Ron
QTrade Teas