Gustatory Memory Competition
All TMC Tea Tasting competitions
In the Tea Tasting category, participants compete in memorizing and recognizing tasted teas and ingredients of multi-component tea-based beverages. Tea Tasting is held in two subcategories.
In the Pure Tea subcategory, participants work with samples of pure tea, without any additives or flavors. During the preliminary open tasting, participants tate and memorize tasting notes of ten teas. During the control blind tasting, participants try to identify five of the teas tasted before.
In the Multicomponent Blend subcategory, participants work with one pure tea and additives to it. During the pre-tasting, participants taste tea and nine separately brewed ingredients that can be used as tea additives. During the control tasting, participants taste an infusion of a blend of the tea and three of the nine previously tasted ingredients and try to recognize which ingredients were included in the blend.
The winner of the tournament is determined based on the results shown by each participant in both subcategories. To bring the outcomes of the two subcategories to a single result, a system is used to convert the results of the participant in each of the subcategories into points.
Tea Tasting is not a test of professional erudition, that is, a participant does not need to determine the tea region and harvest time or the technology of the tea’s production according to its taste. The participant should taste tea (or a component of the blend) and, when tasting for the second time, recognize it among other teas (other components). Thus, any person can take part in TMC Tea Tasting without any special training. At the same time, of course, the tasting experience and professional erudition will give the participant significant advantages.