Teabags are easy to deal with; sachets are also easy but somehow fancier and certainly more expensive; and loose leaf is even more expensive and is often much more complicated to brew. As a nerd, I decided to look into the issue by buying the same tea packaged as a teabag, sachet, and loose leaf, to see the differences. Presumably, then, they will all taste the same when brewed. (Spoiler alert: they don’t!)
What would rhyme have to do with a tea’s aftertaste? To understand the many layers of this play on words, it is important to know that Chinese singing and by extension Chinese poetry have a Yang (masculine) and Yin (feminine) rhyme system.
Tea offers adventures unlike those of any other beverage. We can all invoke our own special and intimate adventure in our minds and senses as we sip our cup. The first step begins with our eyes. We anticipate the adventure as we look into the cup, even before the tea’s aroma wafts to our nose.
Intrigued by the notion of creating a scent kit I was not prepared to launch a serious effort until I had fully retired and written the first version of my first book on tea. It was then I began to grasp the various processes that yield the different aromas in tea. And I had sourced some of the aromas for my presentations.