writes:

[..."pondy"...]
While I happily add "pondy" to my tea tasting vocabulary, I however
don´t see any advantage in a standardization of tea terminology but
still believe in using free and spontaneuos asscocations. Especially
after having tasted a large number of Darjeelings together with
professional tea tasters who indulge in endless repetitions of their
pretty limited professional terminology (woody, brisky, green, ...)
without deviating a single time from that muddy beaten track. IMO
not exactly helpful in communicating the impressions of a sensual
experience as complex as tea.

I'm pretty ambivalent about trying to standardize tea vocabulary,
too. I wouldn't want to be limited to a finite list of adjectives,
certainly, but I do find it frustrating that we have so little idea
what the other is experiencing.

(Yes, I'm aware that there are philosophical issues here, and I don't
think it would help to ventilate them.)

I wonder if the professional tea taster jargon might be a place to
*start* (with black teas only, I'd imagine.) Does anyone know if the
tea tasters reliably agree with each other about whether a given tea
is woody, etc.? Has this been studied at Tocklai or someplace?

The tea taster jargon is just a *possible* starting place; there are
others out there, certainly in China.

Here's a possible comparison. I happen to care about music at least
as much as I do about tea. Music is pretty complex, too, not to
mention sensual. I find that I can glean a lot of useful information
- that is, bearing on whether I would actually *like* the music - from
reading music critics, often even those I dislike. I don't have the
same level of confidence reading what people write about tea, and it
bothers me.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html