>> [..."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.

Me too, needless to say.

>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.

We get there by expanding our analogies and discussions of them.
>
> (Yes, I'm aware that there are philosophical issues here, and I don't
> think it would help to ventilate them.)

Oh, it's warm out here in NYC. I'll just open that window. There.
Ventilated.
>
> 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?

If you are refering to the "Tippy Orange Pekoe" crowd, I'd say it's a total
crock of shit and worthy of the dustbin of tea history. If you mean Oleg's
taste without aroma system -- his Russian group's system, that is -- then we
might be on to something, at least for starters. (That was Tea Disc, I
think. Oleg of Russia suggests a system based on taste and mouth sensations
rather than aroma.

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

Yup. (That's my contribution.)
>
> 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.

Seriously, could you give an example of the kind of comment a music critic
might make that suggests to you how well you might like the music critiqued?
I think I see your point, but I'm not sure. I get a tremendous amount of
information form tea comments, but it is admittedly based on my (perceived)
knowledge of the speaker and his relationship to tea.

Finally, given the sole choice between a rigid standardization on the one
hand and "free and spontaeous association" on the other, I'd go with the
latter every time.

Michael