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Tea grade division national standard certification what's the difference between the first and third grades of tea? which level is good?

Published: 2026-02-24 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/02/24, In the West, there is a system of grading traditional black tea products according to the appearance of tea. It is a quality standard adopted by all commercial black tea merchants in the world. The Orange White Milk Tea label on the supermarket tea can is a common grade name. In any case, it has nothing to do with fruit. There are many theories about the origin of the name Pekoe, but everyone knows it.

Quality grade

In the West, there is a system of grading traditional black tea products according to the appearance of tea. It is a quality standard adopted by all commercial black tea merchants in the world.

The Orange White Milk Tea label on the supermarket tea can is a common grade name. In any case, it has nothing to do with fruit.

There are many theories about the origin of the name Pekoe, but everyone knows that the word Pekoe is a transliteration of "white hairy buds" in Xiamen dialect, which is used to describe the tender leaves of tea trees. The density of "Baihao" in a batch of tea was used as the quality index. There is a saying that when Baimao tea is processed with other tea leaves into black tea, it will turn orange-red. Unfortunately, the word now basically refers to a basic level of black tea, and there is neither any orange nor obvious white tea in dry tea.

The significance and limitation of grading

Another common grade is FOP-flower orange white fragrance. There are two main different views on what the word "flowery" means. It describes the aroma of tea, just as the word is used in wine.

However, there is not much black tea of this grade, and I can personally feel the fragrance. However, the Chinese version of the word "flower" has been used to describe the picking and shape of tea since ancient times.

In fact, some Chinese names of tea get its name from flowering, such as white peony-white peony. The reason is obvious-picking the twigs of the two leaves together, that is, by the standard in most areas, does look like a flower. With so many imported words from China, it is logical that "flowery" is only one of the scoring systems, and many people are still arguing about its originality.

In fact, the names of all other levels in the system refer only to the appearance of the product, not the quality of the taste (see sidebar).

This is a proof of the linear thinking of the people who built the system. Over the years, this production model has occupied most of the field of tea production, turning tea into a standardized product, and whether this system is one of the reasons is still open to question. For tea, of course, it is not universal. Buyers always rely on professional taste to determine inventory, not just appearance. All experienced industry insiders know that FTGFOP#1 from one manufacturer / real estate is much more valuable than the same tag from another manufacturer / real estate.

This system, no matter how widely used in the world of mass production of black tea, cannot describe anything other than it.

Other numbering and letter systems exist in different regions and different tea varieties, mainly for mass-produced tea, such as fried tea, gunpowder, oolong tea, Pu'er tea and so on. I will not elaborate on this topic here. The underlying theme is the same. Even in the world of fine tea, words such as special, high-quality, supreme, selected, extra, strange, and even royal, special, royal, etc., are widely used with no real quality reference. there is no comparative indicator from one businessman to another.

Therefore, consumers should be aware of the limitations of the accuracy of a few letters on the package and learn to judge the value of the purchase by the quality of the content.