Brewed Tea Leaves (Yedi, 叶底), as its name suggests, are literally the tea leaves left after brewing. Too often they’re simply ignored and discarded. Did you know that there’s a lot of information hidden in these leaves? Often times, brewed leaves can tell you more about the quality of tea than dry leaves. With a few tips that we share in this article, you can judge tea quality without even tasting it.

Learning to judge tea can make you a better buyer of tea. It can be especially useful when you’ve the luxury to first taste teas before you buy. Imagine, you’re in China and visiting tea shops to stock up some decent tea. The first thing you find out is that there’s way too much choice. It’s easy to simply ask the owner recommend you something. But why hurry? In China it’s perfectly normal to ask the owner to prepare the tea for you. And while you taste the tea, you’ve the opportunity to check out the brewed leaves! Moreover, the owner will get the impression that you’re a connoisseur and start bringing you the good stuff without quoting outrageous prices.

Reminder: Before the observation, place the Brewed Tea leaves in a special tea leaf plate or a cup lid (or other flat objects), leave out the small broken pieces, and spread out the tea leaves.

1. Blister-like bubbles on the brewed tea leaves

Sometimes you can see small bubbles on the brewed tea leaves. It’s usually caused by high temperature during roasting and indicates problems during the process for most teas. But for teas such as rock tea and some yellow tea, it is a good sign.

Frog’s back on Wuyi Rock tea

Frog’s back is a term to describe dry and brewed oolong tea leaves, especially for Wuyi rock tea. It means the white dots that look like grains of sand on the dry leaves, and the blister-like bubbles on the brewed tea leaves of rock tea that resemble a frog’s bumpy back with raised spots.

The appearance of the frog’s back on rock tea is from its traditional long roasting process. It is generally hard to find on the greenish brown dry leaves if you don’t look carefully.

Fish roe bubbles on yellow tea

This term is to describe the fish roe sized burnt spots on the dry leaves and tiny bubbles on the brewed leaves of yellow tea.

Yellow tea requires high-fired roasting, which leads to the fish roe sized burnt spots due to the high temperature during the process.

Black burnt spots

For green tea, if you can see obvious black burnt spots or small black dots on the brewed leaves, don’t even smell it. This means there was excessive heat, usually due to poor process.

Loofah

On some dry or brewed leaves of black tea leaves, you can see the veins are partly separated from the leaves that it looks like a loofah. This is usually caused by excessive piling which isn’t the best condition for the tea.

2. Check the degree of the unfolding of the brewed tea leaves

As the number of times of brewing increases, quality tea leaves will gradually unfold and expand fully in the end. Such tea shows good manufacturing technology and a stable aging, and usually it can be steeped multiple times and still tastes good.

If the tea leaves unfold fully soon after steeping, they are most likely made from coarse or old leaves, and would taste bland after a few steeps.

If the leaves do not unfold or unfold to a small degree even after multiple times of brewing, we can be sure that they are the result of problematic manufacture process such as over-heating roasting and wrong environment of the aging period. This kind of tea usually makes the throat dry and uncomfortable.

3. Check the wholeness of the brewed tea leaves

The less broken pieces of the brewed leaves are, the better the tea is. Good tea will show a nice and neat appearance after being brewed.

If it is one of the tightly compressed teas, this standard does not necessarily apply. Because it is easy to make a mess of the leaves of a tea cake or a tea brick without proper loosening and breaking.

4. Check the elasticity and the flexibility of the brewed tea leaves

Pinch the brewed tea leaves with fingers and feel the elasticity and the flexibility. If the elasticity and the flexibility level are high, it means the tea leaves were young and tender, the manufacturing process was appropriate. In addition, if this trait is found in brewed pu erh leaves, it also indicates a good natural aging processs.

If the brewed tea leaves feel blunt and inelastic, it means the leaves were old or the tea went through a bad manufacturing process.

5. Check the colour of the brewed tea leaves

For recent raw pu erh, the brewed tea leaves are relatively fresh and green. Good raw pu erh that ages with the appropriate temperature and humidity will be fermented nicely, and the brewed teas leaves will be bright orange.

If the pu erh was stored in an environment with too much humidity and bad ventilation, its brewed leaves would not turn orange/red even after decades of storage. The brewed tea leaves would be dark and rough if the tea didn’t get well fermented.

6. Check the smell of brewed tea leaves

Brewed tea leaves should always have a light fragrance of the tea. Any odd smell could imply a problem of the tea.

7. Distinguish the defective brewed tea leaves

If the tea got burnt during the manufacturing process, it would be often accompanied by heavy mixed odours such as smoke and fire stink, and would lose the ability of natural aging.

Impurities in the tea are also the cause of odd smells and bad tastes. It is also harmful for the health. In this case, we suggest you to discard the tea.

Special tips:

For raw pu erh

After years of fermentation, the brewed leaves of raw pu erh could be dark too – brown or dark brown like those of the famous Oriental Beauty oolong. The brewed leaves should be full and tender with a sense of freshness.

Some raw pu erh didn’t get dried right after rolling process, the brewed tea leaves would be brown with a thick and dark soup, and much alike those of the lightly fermented ripe pu erh.

For ripe pu erh

Brewed leaves are mostly dark brown or black with a dry and hard texture.

The heavily fermented leaves would even look like they were scorched by fire. Some old leaves will break into loofah-like shape.

If the ripe pu erh didn’t go through a long piling period, it could be just lightly fermented, its brewed leaves would be very similar to those of raw pu erh.