RateTea Explains Use Of The Term "Styles Of Tea" To Separate Region Of Production From Character

Jan. 27, 2012 - PRLog -- RateTea, an online community where anyone can rate and review teas, has issued an official statement giving a detailed rationale for their use of the term styles of tea, a term that is not the standard within the tea industry.

The primary impetus for the use of the non-standard term styles in this context lies in the debate surrounding geographic authenticity, a serious issue facing the tea industry nowadays, and an issue at the root of sometimes costly legal battles and lobbying.  Different types or varieties of tea, teas produced in certain methods, and exhibiting certain characteristics of flavor, aroma, and appearance, have originated in different regions.  Often, as in the case with well-known types of tea such as Ceylon, Darjeeling, Assam, Pu-erh, Keemun, and many others, the name of the type of tea corresponds to the name of a region or place.

Producers of tea often emulate varieties of tea that originated in other regions.  These growers produce tea in the style of other types of tea, but in new regions.  For example, Keemun, a variety of black tea which originated in Anhui province, and is named for Qimen county in that province, is now grown in Hubei province of China, as well as in Taiwan.

This poses a problem for accurate labelling: if these teas are intended to be appreciated as and compared alongside teas from the original region, it becomes a disputed matter whether these teas are "true" or "authentic" examples of their kind.

To address this issue, RateTea uses the term style to refer to tea.  This allows, for example, Keemuns originating in Anhui province, as well as teas produced in other regions the style of Keemun, to be compared side-by-side, and viewed honestly, without any controversy over authenticity.

Read the full statement:

http://ratetea.com/topic/why-style/52/

Browse styles of tea on RateTea:

http://ratetea.com/style.php

# # #

RateTea is the web's authoritative resource on tea, a community where anyone can rate and review tea and herbal teas, with a database of teas classified by brand, style, and region, and articles on tea, health, sustainability, and related topics.