1. What is a Flavor Wheel?
As times evolve, with the rich variety of food flavors, many have explored ways to systematically and scientifically express them. The flavor wheel is one significant method, with early examples including the Coffee Flavor Wheel and the Whiskey Aroma & Flavor Wheel. A flavor wheel arranges terms that describe food flavors in categories and hierarchical order, resembling a wheel. It is a collection of terms used to recognize and describe food flavors, serving as a tool to understand the flavors of foods.

2. Why Create a Liubao Tea Flavor Wheel?
In recent years, experts have published flavor wheels for Pu'er tea, Zhejiang's “Top Ten Famous Teas,” and Chinese teas, achieving good results. Liubao tea has a long history and unique, rich flavors. It became one of China's twenty-four famous teas in 1801 due to its distinctive betel nut fragrance and is renowned for its overseas sales, often referred to as “flowers blooming outside the wall.” However, no Liubao tea flavor wheel has been released yet, which is not in line with the development status and influence of Liubao tea. Therefore, I decided to attempt creating a Liubao tea flavor wheel.

3. How are the Flavors of Liubao Tea Summarized?
Due to my work, I've had opportunities to engage with exported Liubao tea since 1987. Initially, I didn't know much about it nor was I accustomed to drinking it. Starting from 2003, when I promoted and encouraged Liubao tea producers to apply for national geographical indication product protection, I became deeply involved in the application process, learning more about the history, culture, tea varieties, processing techniques, geographical factors, and microbial populations affecting Liubao tea quality. This process, complicated by objections from some organizations outside our region, lasted for eight years until it was successfully resolved in March 2011, leading to the acquisition of protected status. As a result, I gradually developed a liking for drinking Liubao tea and participated in standardization work related to it.

In recent years, while reviewing scientific literature, I found that tea researchers had published flavor wheels for other types of tea. This prompted me to consider that Liubao tea shouldn't lag behind and should have its own flavor wheel. I believed I could contribute to this effort, given my advantageous conditions:

Firstly, from 1987 to the present, I have been involved in quality inspection and hygiene supervision of exported Liubao tea. Due to work requirements, I have visited raw material cultivation bases, primary processing plants, and finished product manufacturers over 100 times for safety and hygiene supervision, registration reviews, and quality and safety inspections. Through these visits, I gained a deep understanding of the quality characteristics, raw materials, processes, growing environment, processing environment, and aging environment of Liubao tea.

Secondly, during my visits to production enterprises, I engaged in many exchanges and discussions with experienced tea makers, quality inspectors, and quality managers, gaining insights into the causal relationships between the flavor of Liubao tea and factors such as raw materials, growing environment, processing techniques, processing environment, and aging environment.

Thirdly, since 2003, based on my work experience, I led or participated in the formulation and revision of a series of Liubao tea standards, collaborating with researchers from various backgrounds to name and define typical flavor terms for Liubao tea, standardizing them.

Fourthly, over the past decade, I utilized my free time and travel opportunities to visit tea houses, tea shops, and tea gatherings across different regions, engaging in informal tastings and discussions with connoisseurs over 300 times, gaining a deep understanding of their terminology, meanings, and identification of various Liubao tea flavors. Fifthly, I served as a judge in Liubao tea competitions eight times, jointly evaluating over 1,000 samples of Liubao tea from different manufacturers, raw material varieties, production periods, aging times, and aging locations. During these events, I engaged in extensive discussions and exchanges, particularly focusing on the similarities and differences between the flavors of Liubao tea and other dark teas.

During these tastings and discussions with numerous tea enthusiasts, I often encountered situations where the same aroma received different names. I felt that without unified terminology, communication would be difficult. Therefore, I worked to refine and unify these terms, providing definitions, such as standardizing terms like grassy aroma, green Leaf aroma, vine aroma, and cereal aroma as “cereal stalk aroma.”

4. How is the Nuance of Liubao Tea Refined and Named?
Currently, the tea industry generally defines the nuance of tea as “the integrated expression of the characteristic aroma and taste of a specific tea variety.” In the Liubao tea industry, there is a consensus that “Liubao nuance” refers to “the integrated expression of the unique regional aroma and taste of Liubao tea.” The study of the color, aroma, and taste of tea has a long history in the tea industry, with a wealth of standardized descriptive terms. However, research on tea nuances is scarce, with only a definition for nuances but no detailed terms or definitions. Nuances seem to be in a state where they can only be intuitively understood but not verbally expressed. Therefore, existing tea flavor wheels mostly cover three dimensions: color, aroma, and taste, without addressing nuances.

Initially, when conceptualizing the Liubao tea flavor wheel, following the conventional approach of covering the three dimensions of color, aroma, and taste would have been feasible. However, I wasn't satisfied with this and instead delved deeper, starting from the definition of “Liubao nuance.” In the Liubao tea industry, the unique regional aroma and taste refer to distinct aromas and tastes influenced by regional factors, such as local tea variety fragrances, fermentation aromas (from pile fermentation), and aging aromas. Based on my extensive tasting experience and common consensus from multiple exchanges, I categorized the nuances into two main types: positive and negative. Positive nuances include balanced, harmonious, delicate, elegant, smooth, thick, pleasant, and lingering, totaling eight. Negative nuances include imbalanced, disharmonious, coarse, vulgar, harsh, thin, uncomfortable, and fleeting, also totaling eight. These two categories, though opposite, correspond to each other.

5. What New Terms Were Created?
With this foundation, I began conceptualizing how to create the Liubao tea flavor wheel in early 2025. As my research progressed, I discovered that the flavors of Liubao tea were very diverse, and the standardized descriptive terms were insufficient. I had to adopt some Liubao tea terms defined in papers, but these were still inadequate. Thus, I had to independently name and define terms needed for the project, such as golden flower aroma, mature aroma, cereal stalk aroma, medicinal aroma, ginseng aroma, jujube aroma, insect tea aroma, balance, harmony, delicacy, elegance, smoothness, lingering, and more, totaling over thirty terms. This solved the problem of lacking descriptive terms.

6. How is the Flavor Wheel Created?
Certain subtle or uncommon aromas and tastes that cannot be detected in Liubao tea testing documents are not included in the flavor wheel. When categorizing descriptive terms for flavors, although I could follow the approach of other published flavor wheels by categorizing terms according to color, aroma, and taste, I found that doing