Orange pekoe also spelled "pecco" (usually pronounced: "peck-o") is a term used in the Western tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

 trade to describe a particular genre of black tea

Black tea

Black tea is a variety of tea that is more oxidized than the oolong, green, and white varieties.All four varieties are made from leaves of the shrub Camellia sinensis. Black tea is generally stronger in flavor and contains more caffeine than the less oxidized teas. Two principal varieties of the...

s (Orange pekoe grading). Despite a purported Chinese origin, these grading terms are typically used for teas from Sri Lanka, India and countries other than China; they are not generally known within Chinese-speaking countries. The grading system is based upon the size of processed and dried black tea leaves; high-grade teas are produced with only the best leaves.

The tea industry uses the term Orange Pekoe to describe a basic, medium-grade black tea consisting of many whole tea leaves of a specific size; however, it is popular in some regions (such as North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

) to use the term as a description of any generic black tea (though it is often described to the consumer as a specific variety of black tea). Within this system, the teas that receive the highest grades are obtained from new flushes. This includes the terminal leaf bud along with a few of the youngest leaves. Grading is based on the size of the individual leaves and flushes, which is determined by their ability to fall through the screens of special mesh

Mesh (scale)

Mesh material is often used in determining the particle size distribution of a granular material. For example, a sample from a truckload of peanuts may be placed atop a mesh with 5 mm openings. When the mesh is shaken, small broken pieces and dust pass through the mesh while whole peanuts are...

es ranging from 8–30 mesh. This also determines the wholeness, or level of breakage, of each leaf, which is also part of the grading system. Although these are not the only factors used to determine quality, the size and wholeness of the leaves will have the greatest influence on the taste, clarity, and brewing-time of the tea.

When used outside the context of black-tea grading, the term "pekoe" (or, occasionally, Orange pekoe) describes the unopened terminal leaf bud (tips) in tea flushes. As such, the phrases "a bud and a leaf" or "a bud and two leaves" are used to describe the "leafiness" of a flush; they are also used interchangeably with pekoe and a leaf or pekoe and two leaves.

Etymology

The origin of the word "pekoe" is uncertain.

One explanation is that "pekoe" is derived from the transliterated mispronunciation of the Amoy (Xiamen) dialect word for a Chinese tea known as white down/hair (白毫; ). This is how "pekoe" is listed by Rev. Robert Morrison (1782–1834) in his Chinese dictionary (1819) as one of the seven sorts of black tea "commonly known by Europeans". This refers to the down-like white "hairs" on the leaf and also to the youngest leaf buds.

Another hypothesis is that the term derives from the Chinese báihuā "white flower" , and refers to the bud content of pekoe tea. Sir Thomas Lipton

Thomas Lipton

Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, 1st Baronet, KCVO was a Scotsman of Ulster-Scots parentage who was a self-made man, merchant, and yachtsman. He created the Lipton tea brand and was the most persistent challenger in the history of the America's Cup.-Parentage and childhood:Lipton was born in Glasgow...

, the 19th-century British tea magnate is widely credited with popularizing, if not reinventing, the term for Western markets.

The "orange" in Orange Pekoe is sometimes mistaken to mean that the tea has been flavor

Flavor

Flavor or flavour is the sensory impression of a food or other substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell. The "trigeminal senses", which detect chemical irritants in the mouth and throat as well as temperature and texture, are also very important to the overall...

ed with orange

Orange (fruit)

An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....

, orange oils, or is otherwise associated with oranges. However, the word "orange" is unrelated to the tea's flavor. There are two explanations for the meaning of "orange" in Orange Pekoe, though neither is definitive:

1. The Dutch
   Netherlands
   The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
   
    royal House of Orange-Nassau
   House of Orange-Nassau
   The House of Orange-Nassau , a branch of the European House of Nassau, has played a central role in the political life of the Netherlands — and at times in Europe — since William I of Orange organized the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, which after the Eighty Years' War...
   
   . The Dutch East India Company
   Dutch East India Company
   The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
   
    performed a central role in bringing tea to Europe and may have marketed the tea as "orange" to suggest a royal warrant.
2. The copper color of a high-quality, oxidized leaf before drying, or the final bright orange color of the dried pekoes in the finished tea. These usually consist of one leaf bud and two leaves that are covered in fine, downy hair. The orange color is produced when the tea is fully oxidized.

Manufacture and grades

Pekoe tea grades are classified into various qualities, each determined by how many of the adjacent young leaves (two, one, or none) were picked along with the leaf buds. Top-quality pekoe grades consist of only the leaf buds, which are picked using the balls of the fingertips. Fingernails and mechanical tools are not used in order to avoid bruising.

When crushed to make bagged teas, the tea is referred to as "broken", as in "Broken Orange Pekoe" (also "Broken Pekoe" or "BOP"). These lower grades include fannings

Fannings

Fannings are small pieces of tea that are left over after higher grades of tea are gathered to be sold. Fannings with extremely small particles are sometimes called dusts. Fannings and dusts are considered the lowest grades of tea, separated from broken-leaf teas which have larger pieces of the...

 and dust

Dust (tea)

Dust tea is a low-quality grade of fine grained black tea. Traditionally these were treated as the rejects of the manufacturing process in making high quality leaf tea like the Orange Pekoe. When leaves break or get crushed during the manufacturing process they are variously labelled as Broken...

, which are tiny remnants created in the sorting and crushing processes.

Orange Pekoe is referred to as "OP". The grading scheme also contains categories higher than OP, which are determined primarily by leaf wholeness and size.

Broken, Fannings and Dust

Dust (tea)

Dust tea is a low-quality grade of fine grained black tea. Traditionally these were treated as the rejects of the manufacturing process in making high quality leaf tea like the Orange Pekoe. When leaves break or get crushed during the manufacturing process they are variously labelled as Broken...

orthodox teas have slightly different grades. Crush, Tear, Curl

Crush, Tear, Curl

Crush, Tear, and Curl is a method of processing black tea, similar to that of orthodox tea manufacture. Instead of the leaves being rolled as a final stage, they are passed through a series of cylindrical rollers with hundreds of small sharp "teeth" that Crush, Tear, and Curl.CTC was invented by W...

(CTC) teas, which consist of leaves mechanically rendered to uniform fannings have yet another grading system.

Grade terminology

• Choppy: Tea that contains many leaves of various sizes.
• Fannings: Small particles of tea leaves used almost exclusively in tea bags. A grade higher than Dust.
• Flowery: A large leaf, typically plucked in the second or third flush with an abundance of tips.
• Golden Flowery: Tea that includes very young tips or buds (usually golden in colour) that were picked early in the season.
• Tippy: Tea that includes an abundance of tips.

Whole leaf grades

The grades for whole leaf orthodox black tea are:


Ceylon Orange Pekoe Grades

• OP1 - Orange Pekoe 1: A slightly delicate long wiry leaf with the light liquor.
• OPA - Orange Pekoe A: A bold long leaf tea which ranges from tightly wound to almost open.
• OP - Orange Pekoe: Main grade of Orange Pekoe, in the middle between OP1 and OPA.

• OP—Orange Pekoe: Main grade in tea production. Can consist of long wiry leaf without tips.
• OP sup—Orange Pekoe Superior: Primarily from Indonesia. Similar to OP.
• F OP—Flowery Orange Pekoe: High-quality tea with a long leaf and few tips. Considered the second grade in Assam, Dooars, and Bangladesh teas, but the first grade in China
• F OP1—Flowery Orange Pekoe First Grade Leaves: As above but with only the highest quality leaves in the F.O.P classification
• GF OP1—Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe First Grade Leaves: Higher proportion of tip than FOP Top grade in Milima and Marinyn regions; Uncommon in Assam and Darjeeling.
• TGF OP—Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: Tea with the highest proportion of tip; Main grade in Darjeeling and Assam.
• TGF OP1—Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: As above, but with only the highest quality leaves in the T.G.F.O.P classification
• FTGF OP—Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: Highest quality grade (Note: "Special" is occasionally substituted for "Finest", with a number 1 at the end to indicate the very finest). Often hand processed and produced at only the best plantations. Roughly one quarter tips.
• SFTGFOP(1)—Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe: Sometimes used to indicate the very finest.

A joke among tea aficionados is that "FTGFOP" stands for "Far Too Good For Ordinary People".

Broken leaf grades

• BT—Broken Tea: Usually a black, open, fleshy leaf that is very bulky. Classification used in Sumatra, Sri Lanka, and some parts of Southern India.
• BP—Broken Pekoe: Most common broken pekoe grade. From Indonesia, Ceylon, Assam and Southern India.
• BPS—Broken Pekoe Souchong: Term for broken pekoe in Assam and Darjeeling.
• FP—Flowery Pekoe: High-quality pekoe. Usually coarser with a fleshier, broken leaf. Produced in Ceylon and Southern India, as well as in some parts of Kenya.
• BOP—Broken Orange Pekoe: Main broken grade. Prevalent in Assam, Ceylon, Southern India, Java, and China.
• F BOP—Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe: Coarser and broken with some tips. From Assam, Ceylon, Indonesia, China, and Bangladesh. In South America coarser, black broken.
• F BOP F—Finest Broken Orange Pekoe Flowery: The finest broken orange pekoe. Higher proportion of tips. Mainly from Ceylon's "low districts".
• G BOP—Golden Broken Orange Pekoe: Second grade tea with uneven leaves and few tips.
• GF BOP1—Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe 1: As above, but with only the highest quality leaves in the GFBOP classification.
• TGF BOP1—Tippy Golden Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe 1: High-quality leaves with a high proportion of tips. Finest broken First Grade Leaves in Darjeeling and some parts of Assam.

Fannings grades

• PF—Pekoe Fannings
• OF—Orange Fannings: From Northern India and some parts of Africa and South America.
• FOF—Flowery Orange Fannings: Common in Assam, Dooars, and Bangladesh. Some leaf sizes come close to the smaller broken grades.
• GFOF—Golden Flowery Orange Fannings: Finest grade in Darjeeling for tea bag production.
• TGFOF—Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Fannings.
• BOPF—Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings: Main grade in Ceylon, Indonesia, Southern India, Kenya, Mozambique, Bangladesh, and China. Black-leaf tea with few added ingredients, uniform particle size, and no tips.

Dust grades

• D1—Dust 1: From Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, Africa, South America, and Southern India.
• PD—Pekoe Dust
• PD1—Pekoe Dust 1: Mainly produced in India.

Other terms

• Musc.—Muscatel
• Cl.—Clonal
• Ch.—China varietal
• Qu.—Queen jat
• FBOPF Ex. Spl.—Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings (Extra Special): Ceylon spider-leg style.
• FP—(Flowery Pekoe): The leaves for Flowery Pekoe are rolled into balls.
• PS—Pekoe Souchong: Pekoe Souchong conists of shorter, coarser leaves than Pekoe.
• S—Souchong: Large tea leaves rolled lengthwise, producing coarse, ragged pieces.
• BOF—Broken Orange Fannings
• BPF—Broken Pekoe Fannings
• RD—Pekoe Dust/Red Dust
• FD—Fine Dust
• GD—Golden Dust
• SRD—Super Red Dust
• SFD—Super Fine Dust
• BMF—Broken Mixed Fannings