Fortnum & Mason Tea Advent Calendar - Day 12 Assam TGFOP

 Alright, so for those of you not steeped in the world of tea as deep as me, the Day 12 offering may require a bit of explanation.




Assam TGFOP?  What on earth does that mean?  Why is there word salad at the end of the tea flavor?  Well, TGFOP is a grade of tea.  In case you didn't know, all tea actually comes from the same plant.  Assam, Green, Oolong, Darjeeling... these don't come from different types of tea plant, they are instead different in taste because of WHERE they are grown or how they are processed.  Both Darjeeling and Assam are named after the regions in which they are grown.  And YES, the region makes a huge difference in the taste.


Ok, so then, the word salad - let's pick it apart.  OP stands for Orange Pekoe - which has nothing to do with oranges. I've done a lot of reading, and there isn't a consensus as to where exactly the phrase came from. Some say that the Orange refers to the Dutch House of Orange who helped popularize tea in Europe in conjunction with the Dutch East India Company - and some say Pekoe is a westernization of a Chinese phrase referring to the silvery tips of the buds of the tea plant. At any rate, Orange Pekoe (OP) is the lowest grade of loose leaf black tea - though it does still denote quality because it indicates the tea is made from whole loose leaves and not dust and fragments left over after processing.

Next up is FOP - the added F stands for Flowery which denotes large tea leaves typically plucked from new shoots. Next comes G which is Golden which refers to the golden tip. And then T which stands for Tippy which refers to how much of the tea is made up of tips. GFOP is Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe and is a tea made from whole leaves that are large in size plucked from new shoots with golden color and lots of leaf tips. There are 3 grades higher (FTGFOP, SFTGFOP, and SFTFOP1), though the last two are super rare and hard to find.


Ok, so with all that having been said, the name of this tea just means that it's from the Assam region of India and is high quality full leaf tea. I find Assam tea a little dry on the mouth at times, so I expected to need to cream the tea, and I was right. It was strong and bold without cream, but when I added some egg nog it became lush, and robust, and decadent. I really felt like I was treating myself through the entire cup.


Final thoughts: A nice quality bold black tea.

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