Pekoe Fannings, grade 1 and Broken Pekoe, grade 1. Basically, it means very low quality "orthodox" manufactured tea - as opposed to "CTC" or the Cut, Tear, Curl process, a little more recent mass production technique and now the dominant process used in India for mass consumption. Either type of tea is designed to be taken with milk and sugar or made into chai.
The following is from http://www.theteahousetimes.com/tea_facts.htm#Grading:
Broken leaf grades are divided into the following categories:
Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe (GFBOP), Golden Broken Orange Pekoe (GBOP), Tippy Golden Broken Orange Pekoe (TGBOP), Tippy Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe (TGFBOP), Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe (FBOP), Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP), Broken Pekoe (BP), Broken Pekoe Souchong (BPS).
Fannings/Fines (also referred to as Dusts)
Fannings are made up of the finest siftings and are useful in blends for tea bags which require a quick brew. A number 1 is also added to broken leaf grades to denote the best quality. Dusts and fannings are further categorized as:
Orange Fannings (OF), Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings (BOPF), Pekoe Fannings (PF), Broken Pekoe Fannings (BPF), Pekoe Dust (PD), Red Dust (RD), Fine Dust (FD), Golden Dust (GD), Super Red Dust (SRD), Super Fine Dust (SFD), Broken Mixed Fannings (BMF).
Upton Tea has a nice short summary of the South Asian grading system at http://www.uptontea.com/shopcart/inform ... rading.asp
Mar 8th, '08, 17:20
Posts: 5151
Joined: Dec 20th, '06, 23:33
Scrolling: scrolling
Location: Gainesville, Florida