Blind Tea Tasting Set #6

Spot the black sheep! This set of four high-quality teas belong to the same category, but one uses a different cultivar. Identifying it amongst the others from the same region, and with very similar processing, will be the taster's main challenge here—and it won't be easy!

The samples arrive in pouches numbered from #1 to #4. Along with the samples, you will receive a link to a page that will reveal the name and nature of the teas, to be viewed after the tasting.

Some questions to ask oneself while tasting Set #6 are:

• Smell the leaves in the pouch before looking at them. Can you guess the tea category? Can you narrow it further down? Do any different scents already suggest an outlier?
• Looking at the leaves, what does their appearance suggest about the style of their processing?
• Tasting and smelling the teas, which notes are shared amongst all teas, and which are unique?
• Noting that differences in processing may have a large influence on the taste, try to detect the odd cultivar out behind these influences. What distinguishes it from the other three? What unites the remaining teas, versus how they vary?
  
• How has your guess changed while tasting, and how certain do you feel about your current guess? Rank the teas in order of most to least likely the odd one out.
  
• If you can, try to guess the type and origin for each of them.

For an extra challenge, have someone else prepare the infusions or prepare them without looking at the leaves. Try to answer the relevant questions above. (See our video Find the Black Sheep for techniques for doing blind tastings by yourself.)