At present, the quality of Tieguanyin tea is judged mainly by sight, smell, taste and touch, and the quality of tea is determined by seeing, smelling, touching and tasting. The so-called look is to look at the shape of tea, the shape and color of tea, and the tenderness, uniformity and soup color of tea. The second smell is to smell the aroma of tea, which is carried out by combining dry smell with wet smell after making tea. Three touches are like touching the body and bones of tea leaves, which are heavy and light, smooth and rough, and grinding by hand to measure the moisture content of tea leaves. Four tastes, that is, when buying tea, if you are "not sure", you might as well make a cup and taste it. Dry tea: [Brown] Green is the beauty of dry tea, with dark green and turquoise as the top and dark brown as the second. However, at present, there is little difference in color of light-haired Guanyin, and there is no clear boundary between low-end, middle-end and high-end teas, so there is no need to be demanding.

[Tea shape] has always been beautiful with compact particles, but now the lightly fermented particles of Anxi Tieguanyin are not compact (compared with traditional Guanyin), which is mainly due to manufacturing reasons, such as the difficulty of removing stems from excessively compact particles, and the intensity of repeated kneading, which has no improvement effect on the internal quality, so the degree of compact particles is also not enough as a criterion for judging high, medium and low-end tea products.

[Particle uniformity] greatly affects the impression, but whether the tea shape is uniform or not is realized by fine picking in the later stage, which has no effect on the internal quality of tea products. For cost reasons, most Tieguanyin will not be absolutely uniform, unless it is to meet the market demand for luxury goods. The first step is to smell the aroma [to smell the tea in the lid, you need to cover the bowl, but users of teapot can't smell the aroma]. First, we rush into the water, wash the tea quickly, and then re-enter the water, soaking for about 10 second, and uncover the lid to smell the aroma. Many tea lovers think that high fragrance is good tea, which is a very general and inaccurate standard; Some tea lovers even think that high aroma is good tea, which is a classic misunderstanding. In the local procurement evaluation criteria, the index of covering aroma includes three aspects: first, the type of aroma, which we call "aroma type" for short; The second is the high degree of Gaixiang; The third is the durability of Gaixiang. Three Indicators of Covering Incense Types of Covering Incense: Tieguanyin we see has countless fragrance types, which can be seen from the discussions on Tieguanyin in various tea forums. In fact, only two fragrance types are considered to meet the high-level standards: one is "Huangkouxiang (Minnan dialect)", that is, the tea fragrance has obvious characteristics of "Huangxiang (Minnan dialect)", and the meaning of this word cannot be expressed in words. Let's put it simply. The second is the elegant orchid fragrance, which is fragrant and quiet, like an orchid. This fragrance is never unassuming but rich and lasting, and it still exists from one bubble to eight or nine bubbles. If the tea fragrance meets these two standards, it will be among the best products. In addition to these two kinds, there are two kinds of fragrance types that are recommended: one is fresh fragrance, that is, the fragrance is full of freshness, but it is not resistant to storage, and it will be very close to the orchid fragrance type after a period of time; The second is the milk fragrance type, which has a strong and lasting milk fragrance and a faint milk fragrance, and the tea fragrance is intoxicating. How high the fragrance of Tieguanyin is: Many tea lovers think that the higher the fragrance of Tieguanyin is, the better it is, and the fragrance is too high to be blunt (silent) or "domineering", which is also a classic misunderstanding. The characteristics of Tieguanyin varieties are not known for their high fragrance. The most commonly used description of Tieguanyin fragrance type is "orchid fragrance", which means that the two fragrance styles are similar: elegant, rich and lasting, not high to the point of rushing (publicity is vulgar). This is not to say that the fragrance is low, but that it can be clearly smelled, just right, and it is known for its richness and permeability, just like an orchid. Durability of covering fragrance: the durability index is often ignored, in fact, it is more important than the high-quality index-high-grade tea, covering fragrance can last from 1 water to 8 water, all of which are fragrant orchid flowers; Mid-end products can generally retain about 5 water. If the fragrance of 1, 2 water is severely attenuated, this tea can hardly be called excellent quality. The first requirement for Tieguanyin to achieve lasting cover fragrance is excellent quality tea green raw materials. If you don't have a clear understanding of the fragrance type, you can also identify whether the cover fragrance lasts or not: First, the cover fragrance is obvious (the high degree is just right); The second is persistence. High-grade Tieguanyin tea requires first-class aroma, high degree and durability; If any index is lacking, the comprehensive grade will drop to a higher level. How to evaluate tea soup can be evaluated by the following indicators:1.Tangxiang; 2. Smooth degree: 3. Bitterness; 4. Abundance of taste elements; 5. Degree of sweetness Tang Xiang: When the nose is close to the tea soup that has just been rushed out, a slight smell will make the superior products have obvious Tang Xiang, especially the tea with the characteristics of "Huangkouxiang" and "Lanhuaxiang" is more prominent; Smoothness: After the tea soup is slightly cool, the high-grade tea soup is thick and fragrant with rice soup, and the taste is extremely soft. However, if the tea drinker has a dull taste, it is probably not easy to feel the difference between the smoothness and smoothness of the tea soup. For this part of tea friends, it is recommended to drink medium-grade tea. Bitterness: the entrance is allowed to be slightly bitter, but the bitter end is not good; Astringency is a taboo indicator, but if the astringency is slight and fades quickly, it will not affect the taste, but even so, the grade of tea has dropped to a higher level-because the high-grade Tieguanyin is not allowed to have astringency. Rich taste elements: the richer the taste of tea soup, the better. Like boiling a pot of soup, those who put more materials will definitely taste more, while those who put less materials will taste thinner. The most important difference of high-grade Tieguanyin lies in this: high-grade Tieguanyin is made of high-quality tea green raw materials, with thick tea green leaves and rich organic and inorganic elements, and the corresponding tea soup tastes richer; Mid-end products will be relatively weak, although it can also have the characteristics of not bitter or astringent, smooth tea soup and so on. Degree of sweet return: Fast, strong and lasting sweet return is the best. Although the sweet return performance of lightly fermented Anxi Tieguanyin can't be compared with that of medium fermented Tieguanyin, high-grade Tieguanyin still requires that the sweet return can be relatively obvious and lasting, at least those tea lovers who like lightly fermented Anxi Tieguanyin can clearly feel it when drinking. Other indicators:

Color of tea soup: whether it is light green, light green with yellow, light yellow with green or golden yellow, the color is bright, followed by dark, but overall, the color of tea soup is a secondary indicator. Bubble resistance requires a standard amount of tea [when the leaf bottom is open, it is flush with or slightly raised from the top of the bowl], and high-grade Tieguanyin requires that it can brew more than eight waters (eight waters begin to show water taste). If the requirements are more demanding, it is also a normal standard to reach 10 water (10 water begins to show water taste); Mainstream tea products generally require more than 7 waters, and introductory tea products require more than 5 waters. The foam resistance depends largely on the raw materials. However, some Tieguanyin with good tea green may be mined earlier because of the rush of the weather. The tea green is very tender, and the foam resistance of the products is mostly around 5 water (5 water begins to show water taste). Some Tieguanyin, whose raw materials are old, may only be resistant to soaking in 5 water. Tieguanyin, which has no taste after sanshui (the drinker has a light taste), is undoubtedly of low quality. The explanation of leaf bottom is almost superfluous to talk about leaf bottom, because if all indicators are first-class, the raw material of tea green is absolutely quite good. Because of the need to remove the red edge, the leaf bottom of some teas will be slightly broken, and the leaf bottom of some teas is better intact. These are all fine, as long as the leaf bottom is not too broken. Neither tea farmers nor buyers will study the bottom of leaves when evaluating the quality, and most people will just throw them away after drinking.

There has always been a great controversy about acid-traditional Tieguanyin's sour Tieguanyin, which is caused by the existence of two kinds of acids in light Tieguanyin at present. They are called "positive acid" and "crooked acid" on the Internet, but what is positive acid and what is crooked acid has never been clearly explained. To explain this concept, it is necessary for us to start with acid. Before the mid-1990s, in the traditional Tieguanyin era, Tieguanyin with acid was considered as a synonym for the ultimate product. This kind of product is extremely rare, with strong penetrating power and the feeling of drilling teeth. After drinking it, it not only feels strong and lasting sweetness, but also has obvious sense of salivation, giving people a wonderful drinking experience: acid produces salivation. This kind of tea is called the ultimate product without any objection, but with the arrival of commercial times, The industry simply describes it as the best tea with "acid", which happens to make Tieguanyin feel sour or even sour, resulting in a large number of products with acid, and this kind of lightly fermented Anxi Tieguanyin with acid is completely different from the traditional Tieguanyin's concept of "producing saliva with acid and lasting sweetness". About acid-light fermentation of Anxi Tieguanyin's acid, however, this does not mean that light fermentation of Anxi Tieguanyin's acid is useless. A considerable part of tea is made by dragging acid. If it is not handled properly, it is easy to have various problems, such as strange sour taste in tea soup, or unpleasant acid in cover incense, which makes it difficult to give people a good feeling after drinking. Obviously, this kind of product is not a high-quality Tieguanyin tea. Another part of the light fermented Anxi Tieguanyin will also have "acid", but it is a sense of smell rather than a sense of taste, that is, the lid smells slightly sour and has no odor, and the acid in the cover incense and the orchid fragrance are combined, mainly elegant and orchid fragrance; At the same time, the tea soup tastes sour. This kind of fragrance is called "green acid" or "fresh acid"; If tea still has obvious bright mouth characteristics, it is commonly known as "bright mouth acid" or "green bright acid". However, no matter what grade of products, it is difficult to feel sour and produce saliva, which is probably determined by the light fermentation process.