Okay, so I’ve been on this huge tea kick lately, and I realized I knew, like, nothing about the different types of black tea. I mean, I could name a couple, but that was it. So, I decided to dive in and figure out what’s what. This is my journey down the black tea rabbit hole!

Getting Started (Totally Clueless)

First, I just straight-up Googled “black tea names.” Yeah, real sophisticated, I know. I ended up with a bunch of websites, some of which were selling tea, and some which were more informational. I just wanted a simple list, so I started writing down any names that popped up repeatedly.

Making a List, Checking It Twice

My process was pretty basic. I opened a simple text document and started jotting down names. Here’s a bit of what my initial, messy list looked like:

• English Breakfast
• Earl Grey
• Assam
• Darjeeling
• …and a bunch more…

I quickly realized that some names seemed to refer to the region where the tea was grown (like Darjeeling and Assam), and others were more about the blend or flavoring (like English Breakfast and Earl Grey). It was all starting to make a little more sense.

Sorting it out!

After I had a decent-sized list, I start to group the names.

I ended up with several rough categories:

• Blends: These are the ones that are mixtures of different teas, often with added flavors.
• Regions: These are named after the place where the tea leaves are grown.

Feeling Pretty Good (But Still Learning)

I feel like I have a much better handle on black tea names now. It is not about memorizing every single name, but more about understanding the system. It’s like, I can now look at a tea name and have a pretty good guess about what it might be like, even if I’ve never heard of it before! It’s an ongoing project.