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The six-week calibration programme.
Six reference teas, one per week, one structured ninety-minute session each. The goal is not to become a better taster in some general sense — it is to make your 6 mean what another trained taster's 6 means. Progress saves to this browser.
This is the tracker version of a full essay — read the complete six-week calibration programme → for the session structure, the three drifts it corrects, and what to do after week six.
- GB/T 22291-2017
Bái Háo Yín Zhēn · 白毫银针
Brew: 85 °C · 4 g / 150 ml · 3 min
Pale apricot liquor; fresh hay and a faint melon note; xiān shuǎng (鲜爽) — fresh, brisk texture. The calibration baseline for delicacy — learn to score low intensity without scoring low quality.
- GB/T 18650-2008
Lóngjǐng · 龙井
Brew: 80 °C · 3 g / 150 ml · 2 min
Chestnut and orchid note codified as dòu xiāng (豆香), bean-fragrance, when properly pan-fired. Calibration target: vegetal vs roasted, sweetness vs astringency, fine tippy máo fēng texture.
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Mì Lán Xiāng · 蜜兰香
Brew: Gōngfū style · short, successive infusions
Honey, longan, orchid, magnolia — the most descriptor-dense oolong floral-aromatic vocabulary on the wheel. A mid-elevation blend anchors better than a single-tree lot.
- GB/T 18745-2006
Ròu Guì · 肉桂
Brew: 5 g / 110 ml · 100 °C · gōngfū · 8 infusions
Cinnamon-bark note gives the cultivar its name; yán yùn (岩韵) — rock-rhyme, a mineral persistence in the throat — the calibration point for the mouthfeel axis.
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Shēng Pǔ'ěr · 易武生普洱
Brew: Gōngfū · progressively longer infusions
Calibration targets are huígān (回甘) — the returning sweetness — and shēngjīn (生津), salivation. Count seconds from swallow to first sweet return; note where saliva first pools.
- GB/T 13738.2-2017
Qímén Hóngchá · 祁门红茶
Brew: Gōngfū or Western style
Sits at the intersection of every trained axis: floral like the Dāncōng, sweet like the aged shēng, with a roasted dimension echoing the Ròu Guì. Rose, honey, faint pinewood (Qímén xiāng).
Reference lots
Buy from a vendor who can name the producer, the harvest year, and the grade — shop.teamotea.com and shop.puerh.app both list reference-grade lots seasonally.
After week six
Run a seventh, unscheduled session two weeks later with a tea a colleague selects for you blind — or use blind tasting mode to keep the discipline going between formal cycles.