From a professional tea evaluation perspective, the description of flavor intensity typically uses five characters: "strong, thick, mellow, harmonious, mild".
If using a ratio scale method, "strong" represents the highest intensity, expressed as 100%; "thick" comes next at 80%; others follow by analogy: "mellow" - 60%, "harmonious" - 40%, "mild" - 20%. At the level of "mild," there is a feeling of being as bland as water. This通俗 description, I wonder if tea friends find it easy to understand.
These five characters, combined with each other, produce descriptions of intermediate intensity levels, such as: "strong, mellow-strong, strong-thick, thick, mellow-thick, mellow, mellow-harmonious, harmonious, mild-harmonious, mild". The ratio between them decreases by 5-10%. If degree adverbs like "fairly" and "somewhat lacking" are added, a systematic flavor description framework is formed.
Pu-erh tea has rich contents and is a tea with relatively high intensity, mostly ranging from "strong" to "mellow and thick". Of course, there are also mellow and harmonious teas. Teas that have undergone years may belong to "mellow and thick" or "mellow and harmonious". As for teas that reach "mild and harmonious" or "mild", their drinking experience is approaching the realm of "flavorless flavor".
"Three Thicknesses" is a newly coined term. It is hoped that through this term, i.e., using the classification or method of "Three Thicknesses", the characteristics of Pu-erh tea's flavor or mouthfeel can be described, serving as an enrichment of traditional evaluation terminology.
What are the "Three Thicknesses"?
The art of tasting, narrowly speaking, is an art primarily based on gustatory experience. Elevating it to "bodily experience" (such as the burping many mention - "gastrointestinal reaction", "tea energy" - holistic reaction, etc.), or other purely spiritual realms of experience, is not the scope I wish to expand upon here.
Throughout five thousand years of Chinese history and culture, there are many artistic disciplines with similarities, connections, or areas for reference.
In the field of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, there is the famous theory of "Three Distances". The "Three Distances" method has shaped generations of Chinese painting and Chinese painters.
Painting and calligraphy can be said to be "visual experience"; tasting is gustatory experience. Surely there are相通之处, hence the借鉴. Chinese landscape painting has its own unique form regarding perspective, with "Three Distances" being a main component.
The so-called "Three Distances" mainly discusses how, due to different viewpoints, the treatment of scenery and the artistic effect differ, resulting in different spatial sense, three-dimensionality, and even意境.
Song Dynasty painter Guo Xi summarized the perspectives in landscape painting into three types: High Distance, Deep Distance, and Level Distance.
High Distance is looking up from the foot of a mountain to its peak, thus the mountain colors are clear and bright, the mountain forms are towering, giving a sense of clarity; Deep Distance is looking from the front of a mountain down to behind it, thus with layers of peaks, the mountain colors are deep and overlapping, giving a sense of profundity; Level Distance is looking from a nearby mountain far into the distance, thus the mountain colors vary from dim to bright, the scene is vast and hazy, giving a sense of平和 and淡泊.
Pu-erh tea's changes or stylistic characteristics are diverse. Its intensity mainly follows a line of strong thickness. To describe its "layered sense" or spatial sensation,借鉴 "Three Distances", we have the new "Three Thicknesses".
The "Three Thicknesses" are: High Thickness, Deep Thickness, and Level Thickness.
A flavor with "High Thickness" is like looking up from the mountain foot to the peak—clear, towering... as if admiring Mount Everest—intense and impactful. The representative of such tea is none other than Ban Zhang.
A flavor with "Deep Thickness" is like looking from the front of a mountain down to behind it—layered, overlapping peaks, profound... carrying the feeling of "I cannot tell the true shape of Lu Shan, because I myself am in the mountain". It has a deep and lasting charm. Such tea possesses characteristics of well-blended配方 tea. The most representative are "Yan Yun Qing Bing" and 0622.
A flavor with "Level Thickness"—needless to say, everyone can guess—the prominent representative is Yi Wu tea. It is like looking from a nearby mountain to distant mountains, the scene ethereal. Yi Wu tea is so与众不同! The flavor is mellow, carrying a unique sweet fruity aroma. After years, the thickness of its flavor slowly reveals itself—somewhat不可思议, yet so mysterious. This is Yi Wu. (Speculation: Yi Wu tea's unique freshness and "fruity-honey" aroma cover the thickness of its flavor. With aging, as the fresh substances transform, the thickness of its flavor can then be displayed.未经科学测试, merely推论.)