Quality Rating

TeaGschwendner Rating System

Buying Tea is a Matter of Trust!

The TG-Rating (TGR) allows a differentiated evaluation and refers to the upper, small peak of the tea-quality-pyramid – the best qualities that meet our requirements at all. We start our Rating with 63 / 100 points. Teas below the pyramid’s peak would be evaluated with less than 63 points. Those teas are not part of our assortment. 100 out of 100 points is rarely given, because there cannot be any improvement within the Editions-range, except for our Edmon’s Premium Tea Selection. These specialties, often with rarity character, can reach up to 110 points due to their perfection, exceptionality or craftsmanship.

Our tea tasters evaluate the tea by different criteria. There are points given within each defined category. A Darjeeling tea can only be compared to another Darjeeling of the same harvesting period. Our herbal, fruit and flavored teas have a different evaluation scheme. Besides the taste, the ingredients, products of competitors as well as organic cultivation are decisive criteria.

Best of Best

The world tea production of Camellia sinensis was around 4 million tons in past years. This is an immense quantity, since 2.9 trillion cups of tea can be brewed from this. If you divide this number by 7 billion people living in the world today, we have a tea consumption of 414 cups per capita a year or more than 1 cup per capita a day. The tea-quality-pyramid (see page 30) underlines the categorization of the world tea production in 3 categories: lowest quality (56 %), simple quality (43.5 %) and best quality, which makes up only 0.5 %. Since 56 % of that 0.5 % is consumed by the producing countries themselves, only 8,800 tons of tea are left from which TeaGschwendner chooses the best qualities for its premium assortment.

Direct contact to producers

The big auctions in Kolkata, Mombasa, Cochin, Colomboand Djakarta are not of interest for TeaGschwendner. Over the years, TeaGschwendner and its tea tasters have established direct contact to the tea farmers, the managers and owners of the tea gardens in the countries of origin. The  personal contact, the exchange and the joint definition of quality are of primary importance. This also accounts for our excellent, incomparable organic herbal tea assortment that we purchase from sustainable cultivating farmers in e.g. Austria and East Europe. Long-term friendships with the top organic farmers for Rooibos tea in South Africa assure reliable, clean and healthy products.

We take great efforts to assure high quality in our whole assortment.