When it comes to black tea grades, tea lovers who often store in professional tea stores should not be unfamiliar with them: they refer to the words such as OP, BOP, FOP, TGFOP, etc., which usually follow the name of the producing region; a little bit of recognition and a good idea of what is in your mind will make you feel more or less comfortable when buying tea.
It is worth noting that such terms are mostly found on single origin black teas that are not blended (meaning that they are blended together with different origins, seasons, and even types of tea) and are made by the "Orthodox" traditional black tea production method. At the last stage of production, the tea is "graded" by a special sifter, and the grades of black tea are thus distinguished.
Each grade is mostly represented by a single capital letter with its own meaning, such as P: Pekoe, O: Orange, B: Broken, F: Flowery, G: Golden, T: Tippy ......, etc., which are interlinked with each other to form different grades and meanings.
Orange is not orange, Pekoe is not white hair
At first glance, it does not seem to be complicated, but due to the overall development over time, the layers have gradually multiplied and become more and more complicated, with the most basic "OP" and above, later evolving into such a long and confusing word like "SFTGFOP1".
What's more, there is a misinterpretation and mistranslation of the word meaning caused by the interference. For example, the most basic level of "OP, Orange Pekoe" is often forcibly interpreted or translated as "Willow Orange Pekoe" or "Orange Blossom Pekoe" - this is actually a very easy to cause misunderstanding ...... especially in the early days when the knowledge of black tea was not yet popular. Some tea lists, tea packaging and even tea books would even mistake OP grade tea as white hairs tea with orange fragrance, making people laugh and cry for a while.
Strictly speaking, the word "Pekoe" originated from the Chinese tea "Bai Hao", which refers to the dense growth of fine hairs on the young buds of tea leaves; however, in fact, in the field of black tea, it is obviously no longer related to "Bai Hao". The word "Orange" was originally said to describe the orange color or luster on the picked tea leaves, but later became a ranking word and has nothing to do with orange.
In addition, another myth that has become increasingly common in recent years is the confusion of tea grade with tea parts and picking quality; some even attach tea leaf diagrams, believing that "the third leaf picked is graded as P, the second leaf picked is graded as OP, and the first leaf picked is graded as FOP ......".
In fact, according to the results of field visits in the estates and tea factories, black tea picking is always based on a core of two leaves, up to three leaves as the standard, and the grade will only be determined after the final grade procedure, which represents the size, state and fineness of the finished tea after screening and grading, and has nothing to do with the picking part.
The common grades are listed here as follows
Black tea grades at a glance
OP：Orange Pekoe .
BOP：Broken Orange Pekoe .
BOPF：Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings .
FOP：Flowery Orange Pekoe .
FBOP：Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe .
TGFOP：Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe .
FTGFOP：Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe .
SFTGFOP：Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe .
In addition to the English letters, occasionally there will be the number "1", such as SFTGFOP1, FTGFOP1, FOP1, OP1 ......, which means the top grade in the class.
In addition to the above grades, you will occasionally see the words "Fanning" (fine tea), "Dust" (powdered tea) and so on, but this type of tea is only made into tea bags, most of them are only found in the marketplace of South Asian countries as a way to cook daily milk tea, and are less common in other countries.
Suitable for the material, suitable for the place
In addition, it must be stressed again and again that there is sometimes not necessarily an absolute relationship between the grade label and the quality of tea - although it is often jokingly said that the more English letters, the more expensive ...... but this is also not inevitable; it mainly depends on the production area and the characteristics of the tea, as well as what kind of taste you like and what kind of brewing method you want to use. method of brewing.
For example, Ceylon's UVA black tea, because the emphasis is on the rich and strong aroma, especially if you want to brew a strong enough milk tea, it must be finely crushed BOP; therefore, the large leaf grade is very rare, and the overall evaluation and price are not as high as the BOP and BOPF grades.
In addition, although the grading system of black tea is generally common worldwide, not every country and origin has such a variety of grading as mentioned above. For example, Ceylon tea, which is mainly known for its crushed black tea, often has only BOP, BOPF and up to OP and FOP grading. China is known for its kung fu black tea, so if the items are sold directly from the origin, most of them do not have such grading.
As for India, although it is the world's origin of the most subdivision of the most detailed, but interestingly, if the Darjeeling origin directly to the estate to ask and buy tea, will find that even if the tea is top, the highest is only marked to FTGFOP1; as for the forefront of the "S (Super)" word, it is not until entering the Calcutta auction market, by the local auctioneers to add.
As for our Taiwan black tea, due to the form of tea production inherited from the early days of the Japanese rule, therefore, in the area of Yuchi, Nantou, if the black tea made in the Yuchi Branch of the Taiwan Tea Improvement Farm and the Riyue Old Tea Factory, which have a longer history and follow the traditional equipment and concepts, sometimes you can still see the tea models such as BOP, FOP, OP, etc. marked with the grade.
However, in the past decade, Taiwan black tea has gradually shifted to the mainstream of whole-leaf tea without chopping, especially after the blossoming of small-leaf black tea that incorporates the traditional oolong tea making concept, graded tea is even rarer.
Post time: Feb-27-2023