Tea grading
Due to the variety of black tea and due to the quality and size of leaves, the grading of black tea was introduced (by the English called Orange Pekoe Grading). Mostly the size of dry tea leaves is taken into consideration in this grading. The manufacturers often place the abbreviations on tea packages, which are to inform about the quality of the offered mixture.
Four groups of black tea leaves can be distinguished:
• Whole Leaf Grades
• Broken Leaf Grades
• Fannings Grades and Dust Grades – these two groups are the remains after selecting the best tea leaves (Whole Leaf and Broken Leaf).
The basic and most popular grade of black tea (Whole Leaf Grades) is Orange Pekoe (OP). The word „pekoe” comes from Chinese language (Pak-Ho) and means white tip. This name refers to white hair or floss which covers young buds of tea leaves. As far as the word "orange" is concerned, it comes from orange, royal sign with which Dutch East India Company sealed tea brought to Europe. In this way the highest quality of the offered products was to be emphasized. OP grade tea consists of long leaves without tips
OP Sup – Orange Pekoe Superior – tea which comes only from Indonesia. Size and quality close to OP grade.
FOP / FOP1 – Flowery Orange Pekoe – high quality tea with long leaves and a few tips.
GFOP 1 – Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe – tea having more tips than FOP.
TGFOP / TGFOP 1 – Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe – tea having the greatest number of tips. This grade grows mostly in the regions of Assam and Darjeeling.
FTGFOP – Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe – tea of the highest quality in the world. It comes from the best regions (Darjeeling), picked and converted manually with great care. Tea connoisseurs have been known to joke that that FTGFOP really stands for “Far Too Good For Ordinary People”.
