Glossary

Quality & Grades

Leaf Grades (Whole / Broken / Fannings / Dust)

The four physical sizes that finished black tea is sorted into.

Whole leaf brews slowest and most subtle. Broken leaf is faster, brisker. Fannings and dust — small particles — extract very fast and aggressively, which is exactly what teabags need. Grade is about size, not necessarily quality.

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Related terms

Words that travel together.

Orthodox

Tea processed by traditional methods that keep the leaf whole — the opposite of CTC.

CTC

'Crush, Tear, Curl' — the industrial process that produces small uniform pellets for tea bags.

Tea Bag

A small porous sachet of tea, invented by accident in New York in 1908.

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