This is the best way to prove you dont like tea. Forget the
spreadsheet and let your subconscious do the categorizing. Youll find
for some reason youll like one tea over another. One day youll like a
tea you that you didnt before. Enjoying tea is independent of
determination. We have guys show up preaching the gospel of
differentiation then disappear when they get bored. The mental notes
come from experience. You need to build an internal reference point.
Trust your instinct, forget the database. I go to tea tastings
because they dont cost me anything extra. I have more fun trying to
find one of my teas. For a long time I had an organized cuppard. I
still have one more or less.

Jim

On Sep 19, 8:30 am, Prof Wonmug > wrote:
> I'm thinking about writing a little tea database to keep track of what
> I buy, where I buy it, and what I like and don't like.
>
> I ran into a little snag. I am not sure how best to categorize the
> various teas?
>
> I think I more or less understand the basic "types" (red/black, green,
> oolong, white, etc.).
>
> I am not sure about specific teas or varieties. Many vendors sell
> generic types like Earl Grey, Gunpowder, Irish Breakfast, etc. I
> believe most of these are blends or more than one tea and most vendors
> sell more than one type of Earl Grey.
>
> My basic question is how to best categorize each tea so that I am
> comparing apples to apples?
>
> My current plan is to have a "Purchases" table. It would have one
> entry for each tea I purchase. Some of the fields it would contain
> include:
>
> Name of the tea (from the vendor)
> Vendor
> Product number
> Date
> Amount
> Cost
> Type (black, green, etc.)
>
> I would then have a a "Brews" table with one entry for each pot I
> brew. It would have fields like:
>
> Date
> Tea (link to Purchases table)
> Amount of tea
> Amount of water
> Temperature
> Time
> Rating
> Comments
>
> Is this a good start?
>
> The next step would be to compare simlar teas. Or does it even make
> any sense to compare an Earl Grey from different vendors?