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Joining a Tea Competition
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Competitions are mainly held in spring and winter by private organizations or city governments. In most competitions, a local tea farmer would be requested to submit 21 Taiwanese kg of loose tea leaves (1 Taiwanese kg is equal to 600 grams) to the holding organization to join the competition. Upon winning, the submission is packed by the organization and each tea canisters will be clearly labelled with the prize, year, organization and competition name. |
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Tool
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An judgin dish, a judging cup and a judging bowl for each participants for the certified judges to grade the tea.
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Sampling
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This is a critical step of the competition. Certified samplers randomly select 150 to 200 grams of loose tea from each the submissions and place the selected loose tea on the judging dish. Before sampling, the samplers make sure that each submission is well mixed in itself without damaging any loose tea. This allows the selected loose tea to be representative of the submission.
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Brewing
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Brewing methods may vary slightly among different tea competitions, but within a tea compeition, the method is the same to ensure fairness.
The following brewing method is the most common one.
1, Select precisely 3 grams of sample loose tea from the judging dish and place them into the judging cup.
2, Fill in exactly 150 cc of 100C water and then put up lid.
3, Wait exactly 5 or 6 minutes, depending on the types of tea,then pull brewed tea into the judging bowl and leave brewed loose tea in the judging cup.
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Grading
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The grading of each joining tea is based on its loose tea leaves, brewed tea and brewed tea leaves. In most cases, a group of three certified judges is responsible to assign grades on all joining teas. To grade a tea, the judges exame the loose tea leaves on color, shape and size to ensure the tea is well processed. Then they smell the brewed tea leaves to examine the degree of fragrance and looks for any particular smoky, burning and bad smells as well. The color of the brewed tea is examined next. The judges makes sure that the leaves are clear and not too dark or too light. After the tea temperature drops down to around 40C, the judges take a small amount of the tea, around 5cc to 10 cc, to taste. The last step is to examine the brewed tea leaves on the degree of oxidization, shape and expansion. |
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Conclusion
The quality and taste of a tea is greatly affected by many factors, such as season, weather, location and processing skills of the tea farmer. Althought many of the factors are not controllable, processing skills are always improveable. Tea competitions does not only encourage tea farmers to continuously improve their tea producing skills and methods but also help Taiwan Oolong tea to maintain its best quality.
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About the Author: Mr. Fu is an experienced tea farmer in Pinglin Township, Taipei County. He has been growing tea for over 25 years and has won many prizes in tea competitions.
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