Tea, in all its wonderful varieties, has many complex flavors. If you want to fullytaste and experience the flavor of a cup of tea it is necessary that the tea touches every part of your mouth.
The reason why the tea must encounter all the parts of your tongue and mouth is because there are 4 major types of tastes and different parts of your mouth taste different things. The 4 tastes are sweet, bitter, salt, and sour. Bitterness is tasted at the back of the tongue, and sweetness is experienced at the front part of the tongue. Sourness is tasted by the back of the tongue and saltiness at the front.
So, if the tea you are drinking only touches certain parts of your tongue and mouth you will not experience the full flavor of that tea. For this reason, professional tea tasters actually slurp up tea and make sure the different flavors and tastes are experienced by all the parts of the mouth.
Remember when your choice of coffee ranged from just a few brands? And then this company out of Seattle — Starbucks came along to show how much better it can be. The same is true of tea. The varieties on offer in your supermarket are the bottom of the barrel: low-quality bags containing tea dust - the tiny leaf particles that break off when tea leaves are processed. They’ll add color to your cup, but not much flavor. A far cry from the abundance of flavor and intoxicating aroma found in a cup of full-leaf gourmet tea. Chances are, you are no longer drinking Sanka. Once you try our teas, you will not wish to drink anything sold in the supermarket either. www.oceanoftea.com for a wonderful world of tea.
This is the first post in tea-ramblings.com, we are going to look at different teas, flavors and products on a regular basis. Thanks for coming by.