Reading the Label
How to Read a Tea Label
DARJEELING 2nd FLUSH FTGFOP1 Castleton — turn a packet over in a shop and you get an incantation like this. Every part of it means something, and once you can read it you know roughly how the tea will taste before you buy. Here are 6 labels, taken apart line by line.
Before we start
Neither grade codes nor the way origins are written are legally standardised worldwide. Conventions differ by region and by maker, and the same letters can mean different things. What follows is how these labels are commonly written — not a copy of any real package.
An Indian estate tea (Darjeeling)
The most informative kind of label: origin, picking season, grade, garden, lot number and year, all in four lines.
Line by line
- 1
DARJEELINGOrigin
A district in the hills of West Bengal, India. It is a registered geographical indication there, so who may use the name is defined.
- 2
2nd FLUSHPicking season
The summer picking. In Darjeeling the first, second and autumnal flushes taste distinctly different, so this line matters as much as the origin.
- 3
FTGFOP1Grade
A code for leaf size and appearance — not a ranking of taste. F for Finest, T for Tippy, G for Golden, F for Flowery, OP for Orange Pekoe. The trailing 1 usually marks a step up within the same grade name, but it is not a standardised rule: gardens and traders use it differently.
- 4
CASTLETONGarden
The tea comes from a single garden. Nothing is blended away, so the character of that particular year comes through.
- 5
DJ-247Lot number
DJ is the prefix on a Darjeeling manufacturing invoice, and the number identifies the garden's production lot. How the numbering runs varies from garden to garden. Two lots from the same garden and season can taste quite different.
- 6
2024Year
The year it was picked — not a use-by date. Leaf declines with storage, so the rule is to buy fresh and buy small.
In shortSo: Castleton garden, 2024, summer picking, a tippy full-leaf grade, lot 247. If you are hunting muscatel, it is that combination of origin and season to look for.
A Ceylon tea, with its elevation
Sri Lankan tea carries the growing elevation as well as the district. It is a reliable clue to how the tea will taste.
Line by line
- 1
PURE CEYLON TEAOrigin guarantee
It marks tea whose leaf is entirely Sri Lankan. The lion mark that often sits nearby is a separate thing — a Sri Lanka Tea Board trademark, allowed only on tea that is wholly Sri Lankan, packed in the country, and approved by the Board.
- 2
UVADistrict
A highland district in the south-east. Counted among the world's three great teas; in its quality season around June to August it develops a menthol-like note.
- 3
HIGH GROWNElevation
Grown above roughly 1,200 m, with medium and low grown below it. Higher ground tends to give more aroma and finer astringency, though the boundary figures differ a little between districts, and cultivar, season and manufacture matter too.
- 4
BOPGrade
Broken Orange Pekoe. Cut leaf that brews stronger and faster than full leaf, and takes milk well.
In shortAll Sri Lankan, from the Uva highlands, broken leaf. Start at the short end of the steep — 45 to 180 seconds.
Assam CTC
The same 'BP' means something different once 'CTC' is on the packet. Grade codes only make sense alongside the method.
Line by line
- 1
ASSAMOrigin
The plains of north-east India, one of the largest producing regions in the world. Full-bodied and sweet, and the standard choice for milk tea.
- 2
CTCMethod
Crush, tear, curl. A machine process that produces small pellets which brew strong and fast — a different lineage from orthodox manufacture.
- 3
BPGrade
Broken Pekoe. CTC has its own scale of size grades — BP, PF (Pekoe Fannings), PD (Pekoe Dust), Dust — run separately from the orthodox ones. Some codes such as BP appear in both, so read them together with the method.
- 4
SECOND FLUSHPicking season
In Assam too the summer picking is prized. It points somewhere quite different from a Darjeeling second flush, so read it together with the origin.
In shortAssam summer leaf, made by CTC, on the coarser side. It brews strong, so go light on the leaf. Good for chai.
A flavoured tea
Tea and flavoured tea are different products. The packet tells you which one you are holding, if you know where to look.
Line by line
- 1
EARL GREYProduct name
Not an origin. It is a generic type name for black tea scented with bergamot, tied to no particular district or single producer — which is why no two are alike.
- 2
FLAVOURED BLACK TEACategory
It marks tea to which aroma has been added, rather than aroma the leaf itself carries.
- 3
with bergamot flavouringThe flavouring
What the aroma comes from. Bergamot is a citrus, and the traditional scenting uses oil pressed from the peel rather than the juice. Shop teas may use natural flavouring, synthetic, or both, and this line rarely tells you which.
In shortBlack tea scented with bergamot. What the base leaf is usually goes unsaid — that is the blender's choice. If an origin is printed alongside, that is your clue.
Japanese black tea (wakoucha)
Japanese black tea uses a different vocabulary altogether: grade codes rarely appear, and instead you get a cultivar and which picking it is.
Line by line
- 1
和紅茶Category
'Wakoucha' — black tea grown and made in Japan. It revived across the country from the 1990s and the name stuck; there is no legal definition behind it.
- 2
静岡県産Origin
'Produced in Shizuoka Prefecture'. Written by prefecture or municipality rather than by the kind of named tea district used abroad. Within one prefecture the makers differ a great deal, so the producer's name is the surer guide.
- 3
べにふうきCultivar
'Benifuki', a Japanese cultivar bred for black tea. Its mother line, Benihomare, descends from stock brought back from India in the Meiji period. It behaves quite differently from black tea made with Yabukita, a green tea cultivar.
- 4
一番茶Which picking
'Ichibancha', the first picking of the year, counted the way Japanese green tea is; it corresponds roughly to a first flush. Some makers put the second or later pickings into black tea instead, for the astringency and strength. Which picking suits depends on the cultivar and on the flavour being aimed at.
In shortShizuoka-grown, made from Benifuki, from the first picking of the year. Grade codes rarely appear here, and that is not carelessness — it is simply a different system.
The back of a Japanese teabag box
The most familiar label, and the most misread. In Japan the country-of-origin line is not the country of the company selling the tea.
Line by line
- 1
名称：紅茶Name
'Name: black tea'. What the contents actually are. If this line says a tea-based drink rather than tea, or says herbal tea, you are holding something else.
- 2
原材料名：紅茶Ingredients
'Ingredients: black tea'. A blend reads like 'tea (India, Sri Lanka, Kenya)', with the countries generally in descending order of weight. Recipes are adjusted year by year to hold the taste steady, so that order can change. Added flavouring is declared here too.
- 3
原産国名：スリランカCountry of origin
'Country of origin: Sri Lanka'. Not the country of the brand: it names the country where the processing that substantially changed the product took place — for tea, the making of the primary processed leaf: withering, rolling and drying what was picked. Labelling, packing and blending do not count as substantial changes, so a British company packing the tea does not make Britain the country of origin. The line belongs to imported processed foods.
- 4
内容量：40g（2g×20袋）Net weight
'Net weight: 40 g (2 g × 20 bags)'. It tells you how much leaf is in each bag — 2 g is about one cup. Divide by this when comparing the price against loose leaf, and the two become comparable.
In shortTea processed in Sri Lanka, packed as twenty 2 g bags. Reading that origin line as the brand's home country is the commonest mistake on the shelf.
Read next
6 labels, taken apart.