Black - a black appearance is desirable, preferably with bloom

Blackish - a satisfactory appearance for CTC type teas. Denotes careful sorting

Bloom - a sign of good manufacture and sorting (where reduction of leaf has taken place before firing), a sheen that has not been lost through over-handling or over-sorting

Bold - particles of leaf, which are too large for the particular grade

Brown - a brown appearance in CTC type teas that normally indicates overly harsh treatment of the leaf

Chesty – tea tainted by inferior unseasoned packing materials

Chunky - a very large broken-leaf tea

Clean - leaf that is free from fibre, dirt and all extraneous matter

Crepy - leaf with a crimped appearance, common to larger grade, broken-leaf teas such as BOP

Curly - leaf appearance of whole leaf grade teas such as OP as distinct from wiry

Even - teas true to their grade, consisting of pieces of leaf of fairly even size

Flaky - flat, open pieces of leaf, often light in texture

Grey - caused by too much abrasion in sorting

Grainy - describes primary grades of well-made CTC teas such as Pekoe Dust

Leafy - a tea in which the leaf tends to be on the large or longish size

Light - tea light in weight, of poor density and sometimes flaky

Make - a term used to describe a tea manufacture batch

Mushy- tea that has been packed or stored with a high moisture content

Neat - a grade of tea having good 'make' and size

Nose - smell of the dry leaf

Powdery - fine light dust, as the tea people say, meaning a very fine light leaf particle

Ragged - an uneven, badly manufactured and graded tea

Stalk and fibre - bits of tea bush other than the leaf, which should be minimal in superior grades, but are unavoidable in lower-grade teas

Tip - a sign of fine plucking, apparent in top grades of tea

Uneven and Mixed - uneven pieces of leaf particles, indicating poor sorting and resulting in a tea that is not true to a particular grade

Well Twisted - used to describe whole leaf orthodox tea grades, often referred to as well made or rolled

Wiry - leaf appearance of a well-twisted, thin, longleaf