Tieguanyin Tea - Silver Medalist

by Sigurd
(Sweden)

First a congratulation to both your Tieguanyin tea awards! A Merit award for your Champagne Goddess and then also a Silver Medal for the rare and exotic Wang grade Tienguanyin Silver Medalist tea. You have really found a superb tea garden in Shen's.

With 117 tea gardens participating in a competition, I guess that it is a rather large undertaking to do such a competition.

Could you maybe tell me a bit more about the tea competition?

For example, how does the selection of the winners take place?

And what do the judges look for in a medal quality tea?

BTW, just ordered some Silver Medalist tea.

Answer:

Sigurd, just spoke to Shen about the Silver Medalist and Tieguanyin tea competition.

There were altogether 6 judges, 4 full time and 2 part time.

The full time judges are renown experts in Anxi county who also worked in the local tea research society and university.

The competition lasted 3 to 4 days and consisted of 4 stages.

The judges make their decisions base on appearance, aroma (dry leaves, cup, wet leaves), taste and durability.

Usually there is strict procedure (brewing vessels, time, sniffing and sipping time) to ensure consistency.

According to Shen, traditionaly style teas are more likely to win prizes.

Current trend is such that mainland Chinese people prefer lightly oxidised Tieguanyin tea, with some acidity. These teas are less favoured by the judges.