TEA’s BIBLE

Liquor Colour

The Colour of Tea

The colour of brewed tea has its own name in Japanese: suishoku. From pale gold to deep brown, here are 62 teas arranged by the family of their colour and how deep it runs. One drink, and this much range.

About these colours

These are approximations built from the words used in the encyclopedia — 'light orange', 'clear ruby' and so on — not measurements of the actual liquor. The same tea changes colour with the amount of leaf, the steeping time and the hardness of the water.

pale → deepPaleLightMediumDeepishDeepVery deep

Read next

62 teas, sorted into 20 colours.