Tea residue is often discarded without a second glance by many.

Little do they know, the tea residue is crucial in determining the quality of tea, just as important as observing dry tea, smelling its aroma, and tasting it.

So, hold on before discarding the tea residue; learn a few tips to assess it first!

The leftover tea leaves after brewing are professionally referred to as “leaf base.”

In professional tea evaluation, the leaf base must be examined and scored at the end.

After absorbing water during brewing, the tea leaves expand, returning to their original shape.

The reasonableness of the tea's picking, processing, and storage can be clearly seen in the leaf base.

To examine the leaf base, focus on tenderness, color, uniformity, and degree of expansion.

01

Tenderness

Tenderness refers to the proportion of buds and tender leaves in the tea and the overall tenderness of the leaves.

Many teas curl up when not fully brewed, making it hard to discern the content of buds and tender leaves, but this can be easily identified through the leaf base.

Pick up a few tea leaves and spread them out, and you can determine the picking level, such as single bud, one bud and one leaf, etc.

To judge the overall tenderness of the leaves, use both your eyes and hands.

The general principle is:

Leaf bases that are soft and resilient to the touch indicate good tenderness; hard and springy leaves indicate old leaves.

Leaves with smooth veins like silk indicate tenderness; raised veins indicate old leaves.

Smooth serrated edges indicate tenderness; pronounced serrations indicate old leaves.

Thick, soft leaves are the best, indicating good tenderness and rich internal substances, typically sourced from high-quality tea plants grown at high altitudes;

Soft but thin leaves are average, typically sourced from lowland tea plantations; hard and thin leaves are the worst.

02

Color

The color of the leaf base can directly reflect the quality of the tea's raw materials and processing.

It's best to compare several teas side by side when observing the color of the leaf base, or else it can be influenced by lighting, environment, and subjective factors.

The general principle for color differentiation is:

The color should be normal.

Normal means it meets the color requirements typical for the type of tea.

For example, green teas are best when light green, yellowish-green, or emerald green, while deep green is less desirable. If there are spots, scorched leaves, red leaves, red stems, or broken leaves, it's even worse.

Wulong tea should have “green leaves with a red border,” and the ratio of red to green areas can determine the degree of fermentation.

The color must be bright.

Bright doesn't mean the leaves glow, but rather appear fresh, lustrous, full, and vibrant.

What counts as bright?

This is something that words struggle to describe; only seeing it firsthand reveals its vitality.

If we must compare, think of tree buds sprouting right after an early spring rain – that vibrant brightness is something summer and autumn leaves cannot match.

03

Uniformity

Among the three aspects of examining the leaf base, uniformity is relatively minor.

Uniformity refers to whether the tea's age, size, thickness, and integrity are consistent.

This relates to the tea's picking and processing management.

Some tea farmers pick leaves indiscriminately, resulting in a lack of uniformity in the leaf base.

During processing, some factories mix teas from different mountains and batches without proper sorting, leading to poor uniformity.

Poor uniformity indicates inadequate standards in picking and processing or blending.

04

Degree of Expansion

In addition to the above points, pay attention to the degree of expansion of the leaf base.

Most teas undergo rolling or shaping processes during production.

Teas processed properly will naturally expand after being steeped in hot water, returning to their original shape.

Heavily rolled teas like Wulong tea may still curl slightly after fully expanding, which is normal.

However, if the leaves remain tightly curled or completely flattened after brewing, it indicates flaws in the process.

For example, some tea factories use intense charcoal Roasting to mask defects in the tea, which can be identified by the black and hard contracted leaf base.

Additionally, once the tea residue cools down, the “cold fragrance” becomes an important indicator of the tea's quality.

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