Orange Pekoe - as a kind of tea?
 

Now I'm really confuzzled...

I went back to the store that had the tins of Wedgwood and bought a few.
What can I say - the tins are a really fun shape and a very pretty blue.

Anyhoo... I couldn't resist one that is labeled "Orange Pekoe" where the
flavor designation would be. On the back, where the description is, it
says, "Wedgwood Orange Pekoe is a brisk, smooth, and light blend, with a
bright appearance typical of this classic tea. It can be enjoyed
throughout the day." It shows Sri Lanka as country of origin.

From everything I've been learning the past 6 weeks or so, I was certain
that OP was a leaf size, yes? No? Sometimes?

I opened the tin, and it smells *exactly* like standard American
supermarket teabags - Lipton, Savarin, Red Rose, whatever. I made some,
and sure enough, it tastes exactly like that, too. The leaves look
like... well, just like the English Breakfast and Earl Grey leaves - any
of the black teas I see on websites - TGFOP, FTGFOp - I think you know
what I mean.

Is Orange Pekoe also a type of tea?

Thanks!

Resa

"Serendip" > wrote in message
...
> Now I'm really confuzzled...
>
> I went back to the store that had the tins of Wedgwood and bought a few.
> What can I say - the tins are a really fun shape and a very pretty blue.
>
> Anyhoo... I couldn't resist one that is labeled "Orange Pekoe" where the
> flavor designation would be. On the back, where the description is, it
> says, "Wedgwood Orange Pekoe is a brisk, smooth, and light blend, with a
> bright appearance typical of this classic tea. It can be enjoyed
> throughout the day." It shows Sri Lanka as country of origin.
>
> From everything I've been learning the past 6 weeks or so, I was certain
> that OP was a leaf size, yes? No? Sometimes?
>
> I opened the tin, and it smells *exactly* like standard American
> supermarket teabags - Lipton, Savarin, Red Rose, whatever. I made some,
> and sure enough, it tastes exactly like that, too. The leaves look
> like... well, just like the English Breakfast and Earl Grey leaves - any
> of the black teas I see on websites - TGFOP, FTGFOp - I think you know
> what I mean.
>
> Is Orange Pekoe also a type of tea?

That's a deception that's been practiced by many supermarket-type of tea
companies for a long time. According an old M-W dictionary that was given to
me, yes. The second definition is that it's a high quality <snort> India or
Ceylon tea.

However, those in-the-know recognize it as nothing more than an indication
of leaf size.

From
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionar...oe&x=18&y= 13

"One entry found for orange pekoe.

Main Entry: orange pekoe
Function: noun
: tea made from the smallest and youngest leaves of the shoot"

So, M-W has caught up to reality.

--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:48:04 -0500, Serendip wrote:

> Is Orange Pekoe also a type of tea?

Nope. It's a tea size. But different leaf sizes can provide different
flavors.

--
Derek

"(I've heard), 'If God wanted us to fly into space, he would have
given us more money'." - Dick Rutan

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:13:29 -0600, Bluesea wrote:

> So, M-W has caught up to reality.

Reality is over-rated. Tea is not.

--
Derek

LARPing: Where the Geek community out-geeks itself.

"Derek" > wrote in message ...
> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:13:29 -0600, Bluesea wrote:
>
> > So, M-W has caught up to reality.
>
> Reality is over-rated. Tea is not.

Have you seen Douglas's posts about the EB in Adagio's starter set? Have you
ordered an IngenuiTea, yet? I did on Friday.

--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:48:04 -0500
Serendip > wrote:

> Now I'm really confuzzled...
>
> I went back to the store that had the tins of Wedgwood and bought a few.
> What can I say - the tins are a really fun shape and a very pretty blue.
>
> Anyhoo... I couldn't resist one that is labeled "Orange Pekoe" where the
> flavor designation would be. On the back, where the description is, it
> says, "Wedgwood Orange Pekoe is a brisk, smooth, and light blend, with a
> bright appearance typical of this classic tea. It can be enjoyed
> throughout the day." It shows Sri Lanka as country of origin.
>
> From everything I've been learning the past 6 weeks or so, I was certain
> that OP was a leaf size, yes? No? Sometimes?


It's a corruption of the chinese "Bai Hao" meaning "White Tip" or
"White Down" - which is believed to describe a new leaf that has just
unfurled, and still has white fluff on it.

As for the 'orange' connotation it is variously believed to refer to
either the dutch house of Orange (eg William of) and is merely an old
brand name (like bandaid, styrofoam, etc), or to refer to an old chinese
method of flavoring teas with oranges.

Neither of these assumptions are at all well substantiated. For
whatever it's worth, it's been argued that the chinese have never used the
Bai Hao term to refer to fermented leaves.


> I opened the tin, and it smells *exactly* like standard American
> supermarket teabags - Lipton, Savarin, Red Rose, whatever. I made some,
> and sure enough, it tastes exactly like that, too. The leaves look
> like... well, just like the English Breakfast and Earl Grey leaves - any
> of the black teas I see on websites - TGFOP, FTGFOp - I think you know
> what I mean.


TGFOP, FTGFOP, etc, are part of the grading system for orange peoke tea
usually attributed to Thomas Lipton. It's been suggested that he spent too
much time in the sun because it's not well understood precisely what
qualities are described when saying a given tea is 'golden' or 'flowery' -
'tippy' almost makes sense. I've been drinking Special Finest Tippy Golden
Flowery Orange Peoke lately and i admit it's nice but i wonder precisely
what it did to deserve the designation. I've heard there are yet more
initials that show up from time to time.

A letter 'B' in there means broken - bits of leaves instead of whole
leaves. these will generally brew up faster and stronger and possibly more
bitter than whole leaf.

I hope i've managed to confuse you with some additional facts.

On 2/20/2005 4:29 PM, Eric Jorgensen wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:48:04 -0500
> Serendip > wrote:
>
>> Now I'm really confuzzled...
>>
>> I went back to the store that had the tins of Wedgwood and bought a few.
>> What can I say - the tins are a really fun shape and a very pretty blue.
>>
>> Anyhoo... I couldn't resist one that is labeled "Orange Pekoe" where the
>> flavor designation would be. On the back, where the description is, it
>> says, "Wedgwood Orange Pekoe is a brisk, smooth, and light blend, with a
>> bright appearance typical of this classic tea. It can be enjoyed
>> throughout the day." It shows Sri Lanka as country of origin.
>>
>> From everything I've been learning the past 6 weeks or so, I was certain
>> that OP was a leaf size, yes? No? Sometimes?
>
>
> It's a corruption of the chinese "Bai Hao" meaning "White Tip" or
> "White Down" - which is believed to describe a new leaf that has just
> unfurled, and still has white fluff on it.
>
> As for the 'orange' connotation it is variously believed to refer to
> either the dutch house of Orange (eg William of) and is merely an old
> brand name (like bandaid, styrofoam, etc), or to refer to an old chinese
> method of flavoring teas with oranges.
>
> Neither of these assumptions are at all well substantiated. For
> whatever it's worth, it's been argued that the chinese have never used the
> Bai Hao term to refer to fermented leaves.
>
>
>> I opened the tin, and it smells *exactly* like standard American
>> supermarket teabags - Lipton, Savarin, Red Rose, whatever. I made some,
>> and sure enough, it tastes exactly like that, too. The leaves look
>> like... well, just like the English Breakfast and Earl Grey leaves - any
>> of the black teas I see on websites - TGFOP, FTGFOp - I think you know
>> what I mean.
>
>
> TGFOP, FTGFOP, etc, are part of the grading system for orange peoke tea
> usually attributed to Thomas Lipton. It's been suggested that he spent too
> much time in the sun because it's not well understood precisely what
> qualities are described when saying a given tea is 'golden' or 'flowery' -
> 'tippy' almost makes sense. I've been drinking Special Finest Tippy Golden
> Flowery Orange Peoke lately and i admit it's nice but i wonder precisely
> what it did to deserve the designation. I've heard there are yet more
> initials that show up from time to time.
>
> A letter 'B' in there means broken - bits of leaves instead of whole
> leaves. these will generally brew up faster and stronger and possibly more
> bitter than whole leaf.
>
> I hope i've managed to confuse you with some additional facts.
>

Facts I love; "statistics", I can usually do without! Thank you!!

I think I may have read it here when I was reading posts day in, day
out, but I can't see "(F)TGFOP" without thinking, "(Far) Too Good For
Other People" and keep adding on appropriate adjectives!

Thank you!

Resa

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:51:39 -0600, Bluesea wrote:

> "Derek" > wrote in message ...
>> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:13:29 -0600, Bluesea wrote:
>>
>>> So, M-W has caught up to reality.
>>
>> Reality is over-rated. Tea is not.
>
> Have you seen Douglas's posts about the EB in Adagio's starter set?

Yep. Rather disappointing.

> Have you ordered an IngenuiTea, yet? I did on Friday.

Nope. Not yet. It's on my "to get" list.

--
Derek

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.

It refers to leaf size found on the plant. The top two smallest leaves
are Orange Pekoe, the next larger leaves Pekoe, and the largest leaves
Souchong. Usually synonymous with Orange Pekoe is the term 'two leaves
and a bud'. The term Flowery refers to presence of any bud and even
that is graded. This is a leaf size grading system used by Britain and
India. The sifted smaller grades from any tea production run will
taste like the larger grades. So grading is just size and never
represents quality.

Jim

Serendip wrote:
....kaboom...
> Is Orange Pekoe also a type of tea?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Resa