Early this month, I went for a tea tasting course at Parchmen Academy of Coffee and Tea. I’d previously gone for their Theanine! Tea Pairing workshop in April and I felt that it was very instructive, so I decided to sign up for their full day course. This is actually the second iteration of their tea tasting course, which is now split into three core modules and multiple elective modules. Since I am still a newbie to the world of tea, I went for the foundational core module.

The morning was spent on tea history and culture, focusing mainly on Chinese and Japanese tea history and culture. Interesting and content-heavy so I learned a lot. There was also a section on the chemistry of tea and how that interacts with other things, which was really preparation for the afternoon section on tea tasting.

After a break for lunch, the afternoon session started with a test on our taste buds. So we used blue food dye to count the number of taste buds and apparently I have an acceptable number [1].

How the test goes is that I had to put a piece of paper with a hole cut out on my tongue and that section was dyed blue. Then the number of taste buds were counted.

After we went through an introduction to smells, we had some practice! Apparently one way I can try to identify smells is by paying attention to which part of the nose it hits first. There were a lot of bottles[2] and I had to try my best to identify smells like vanilla, almond, apricot, and others. By the way, I did terribly here, but it was fun guessing.

When that was over, we moved over to moving and tasting tea. First, there was a quick lecture on how to prepare tea, and then I got to try! Altogether, we made six types of teas: white, yellow, green, oolong, red, and black.

the teas after they have been brewed.

To me, these were how the teas tasted:

– Yellow: smells woody (after washing the leaves) and savoury (after the first brew). It tastes nutty, a little woody, but not astringent (though it is a bit drying).

– Green: smells grassy, tastes grassy and bright.

– Oolong: smells floral, like perfume and tastes smooth[3]

– Red: smells like muscato and tastes sweet, like honey

– White: I didn’t really smell anything the first time, but there was a savoury smell the second time. It tasted さっぱり (sappari; best translation I can think of is “refreshing” or “clean”), and it has a floral note. The mouthfeel was the strongest component.

– Black (Pu-er): It smells like campur and tastes woody but also lively. It’s got a a very mellow and syrupy mouthfeel.

After we brewed and tasted all the teas, there was a mini blind smelling + tasting test. So like I’m awful at smells but at least I can consistently identify black, oolong, and green teas (when hot and cold). Mostly because black and oolong are super distinctive and I’ve drunk enough green tea to recognise it immediately. I could also recognise red tea when it’s hot but not cold. Let’s not even talk about yellow and white because I got those wrong twice! I really must remember that yellow = nutty notes and white = fruity notes.

Overall, this was a really fun one day course! It’s quite intense since it’s from 9:30 to 6:30 but it covers a lot of ground and it’s really hands-on which I appreciated. It also taught me that I need to expand my taste palate if I want to be able to fully appreciate teas because there are so many different tastes in the different teas.

Notes
[1] Which doesn’t mean I can tell tastes any better. Still interesting to know though.

[2] Originally used for coffee training but now repurposed for tea since some smells are similar.

[3] Wow I’m terrible at this describing stuff.

Links and Information
Price: $130
Location:
71 Brighton Cresent,
Serangoon Gardens
559214 Singapore
Official Website
Facebook Page – Check this page to find out when their next course will be held!