Interesting subject! I always think you can read tea leaves

1) I think you are probably right in that many of the teas that
require heavier processing cannot use buds, but that is obviously not
always the case. I think in the case of oolongs, it will be difficult
to do what they do with the leaves with young buds. I suspect the
taste profile will be completely changed. Having had an Indian oolong
recently made mostly with buds, I have to say it tastes more like a
black tea. I think it's probably because fermentation level is
difficult to control with small buds? Puerh, and some other teas, on
the other hand, are large by nature. Even a small puerh bud is big
compared to a longjing bud.

2) Whole/part leaf depends a lot, afaik, on processing techniques.
If a tea is heavily roasted, for example, it will be odd if it were
still mostly whole leaves, as the process of roasting (and turning the
leaves) will inevitably result in broken leaves. CTC or other machine
processing will cause breakage, and so will manual process techniques
that do the same. I think for some Japanese teas, at least, they roll
it very, very vigorously, which I'd imagine will mean some leaves are
more broken?

3) I think every tea has a particular colour pattern/hue. Colours do
change though. A yuqian longjing should be yellowish from what I've
seen before, but a stale longjing can also be yellowish (slightly
different kind of yellow, but hard to tell unless you've seen them).
Wuyi oolongs all look the same with the same blackish brownish tint,
but when unfurled they can look very different. Puerh runs the
gamut. Colour of dry leaves is a bad way to tell teas apart, IMHO.
Spent tea leaves do reveal a lot more that way....

4) In the case of puerh, I think you can definitely have some clues
with regards to storage condition just by looking at the spent
leaves. A rough way of telling them apart is that wet stored teas are
blacker, a little less flexible, with uneven colours and what not,
while dry stored leaves are more likely to be brownish and more
uniform in colour, as well as being a bit more flexible and retains a
certain sense of freshness that wet stored teas don't. I wouldn't say
this is all there is to it, but it is at least partly what you can use
to tell storage condition apart.

5) AFAIK having bug bites on the leaf is an Oriental Beauty
trademark... the bitten spots promote fermentation.

I think taking pictures of the spent leaves and storing them in an
archive has been a useful exercise for me to compare teas and keep my
memory fresh. Maybe you can do the same?

MarshalN
http://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

On Feb 26, 11:47 am, "cha bing" > wrote:
> I have been drinking loose leaf tea daily for somewhere over a year
> now, and have largely focused on developing a sense for what is out
> there in the very broadest sense: Japanese Green, Chinese Green, light
> oolong, dark oolong, pu-er (cooked, raw), assam, darjeeling, china
> black(red), etc. Now I am at the point where I am trying to focus on
> the finer distinctions in various teas, such as regional
> characteristics, production techniques, time of harvest, etc. I am
> doing this casually, mind you, but with an intent to slowly learn as
> much as possible about tea for my own personal enjoyment. I have thus
> far focused a bit on taste and I think my sense is developing. I have
> some problems brewing consistently, but I now notice things that I
> originally didn't even think about at all a year ago: e.g., mouth feel
> rather than just taste.
>
> In an attempt to evolve my evaluation of tea, I am thinking about
> bringing a slightly more analytical focus to spent tea leaves. Does
> anyone have any good resources in this regard? Here are some things I
> have noticed:
>
> 1. tea leaf shape appears largely the same, but size varies. Oolongs
> are larger leafed, greens are typically smaller, often with just tea
> buds. Pu-er is typically large as well. I suppose this is related to
> the ability of delicate young (i.e., small) teas being able to
> withstand the harsher production techniques required in the oolong
> manufacture.
>
> 2. whole leaf/part leaf: many teas, such as Japanese tea and India
> tea, are not whole leaf. At first I thought of this as a negative
> characteristic, but now I am more interested in learning what torn
> leaves contribute to tea. I generally like Japanese greens and many
> India teas, so how can the fact that they are cut (possibly machine
> harvested?) be a bad thing?
>
> 3. leaf color: of course, green tea is largely green, but not all
> green's are equal. Gyokuro is famous for being shaded and a darker
> green. I had a longjing that was yellowish. Oolongs and black teas are
> darker. Pu-er teas seem to reveal a lot regarding color. At some point
> online, I even saw an analysis of color *patterns* on tea leaves
> (e.g., examining where the leaves should be red in a properly
> processed tea).
>
> 4. leaf condition: what really made me start thinking about tea leaves
> more carefully is that I was drinking a tea after trying gongfu
> brewing in a small cheap yixing-style pot for the first time and I
> noticed that all of the leaves were crinkled and semi-furled
> afterwards. I wondered if it was because I put too many in the pot,
> but I don't think that is it. Why does some tea unfurl and some tea
> not unfurl--is it a result of roasting? Some of the tea (my example is
> a low grade Kings Tea dark oolong from Ten Ren) seems extraordinarily
> dark--almost black. I have seen this in Pu-er as well. In the case of
> pu-er, are there ways to determine wet storage/dry storage from leaf
> condition after brewing?
>
> 5. miscellaneous. pouring from a gaiwan through a tea filter, I have
> noticed that some teas produce a lot of white/yellow "fuzz" that I at
> one point collected and rolled into a soft ball (not sure why). I
> received lots of fuzz from green tea with lots of buds, so thought
> the buds may be the source at first. But I have also seen it in
> Oriental Beauty, which I had thought of as a dark oolong. What does it
> signify? Also, some tea leaves seem shiny and firm after brewing, some
> are dull and fall apart. I have seen some talk of differences in the
> edge shape of leaves (jagged or not?). I have heard mention of certain
> teas having holes in the leaves from tiny bugs--is this a sign that
> the leaves are organic? picked at a certain time of year?
>
> I often find myself looking at tea leaves after I drink tea, but I am
> never sure what I am looking for. I know there are a ton of different
> things that can likely be told from leaves, and maybe there is no easy
> way to catalog it all into an easy reference. But if anyone has
> resources on this topic, I would be interested in hearing more. If
> anyone has thoughts about the observations above, or other
> observations, I would also be curious to read them. Sorry for long
> post.