Tea tasting, artistic endeavor of its own
Tea tasting, artistic endeavor of its own
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A woman steeps some tea leaves in boiling water in a small bowl.
She uses a spoon to sip some of the liquid, and then quickly
spits it out again.
In the moments before she spat out the tea, the woman was able
to make an accurate evaluation of it.
The woman is Carlina Susanto, an expert tea taster of PT
Gunung Slamet, the company producing Cap Botol, Poci and Super
Sosro tea brands.
During the first Jakarta Coffee and Tea Festival held on April
26 and April 27, Carlina demonstrated her expertise in tasting a
variety of teas.
Becoming a tea taster takes years and years of very
specialized training, and the profession usually comes near the
end of a career spent in the tea industry.
Carlina studied chemical science at the Bandung Institute of
Technology and graduated in 1972. She had worked for a long time
with PT Perkebunan Nusantara VIII in West Java, overseeing
quality control of its tea.
"After I retired, I was asked by PT Gunung Slamet to become a
consultant tea taster for its Sosro teas," Carlina told The
Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the festival.
A professional tea taster is needed at tea plantations to
evaluate the quality of the tea produced, and in tea packaging
companies -- such as Lipton, Pickwick, Twinings -- to help decide
which teas to buy from producers during tea auctions.
"Tea auctions are conducted every week in England, India and
Indonesia. Here it is done every Wednesday through a Joint
Marketing Office," Carlina said.
The tea taster uses his or her smell, sight, touch and taste,
to form subjective and objective decisions about the tea. He or
she has to be able to differentiate between the tastes of various
tea varieties, and how to demarcate the good from the bland.
"Cupping" tea -- the term a tea taster uses to describe the
process of tea tasting -- is a ritual all on its own. The Tea
Man's Tea Talk website at www.teatalk.com describes the process
well.
First, tea samples are brought to the cupping table and
organized by number around the table. Kettles of steaming water
are kept close at hand, while a tea taster's covered cup and bowl
are positioned at each numbered setting.
Dry tea leaves are placed in the bowl and examined carefully.
The leaves are then placed in the cup and infused with boiling
water for exactly six minutes.
The tea liquid, or tea liquor, is then poured completely from
the covered cup back into the bowl. The remaining wet tea leaves
are then examined.
The tea taster then examines the tea liquor for color and
aromatics. Using a special spoon, the tea taster then sips the
tea.
"The slurping sound is caused by the tea being sucked into the
mouth at the exact speed of 125 miles per hour. At this speed,
the tea explodes at the back of the palate forming minute mist
particles. These particles tell a story about the tea in volumes
to the tea taster," the Tea Man said on his website.
The tea is not swallowed but spewed out, and the tea taster
begins anew with another cup of tea.
When buying tea, one should take note that the tea is well
dried otherwise it will deteriorate rapidly. The color of the
liquor should glisten like a jewel, and the smell of good tea
will have a fresh, pure fragrance.
Indonesia produces 8 percent of the world's tea, with exports
comprising 70 percent of its production. According to the
Indonesian Tea Association (ATI), the country produced a total of
161,202 tons of tea in 2000, compared to 157,371 tons the
previous year.
However, annual domestic consumption is still low at 300 grams
per capita compared to the United Kingdom's consumption of 2.3
kilograms per capita per year.