Is Tea Good or Bad? Or Just a Matter of Taste?

I really dislike this kind of wishy-washy saying!

Tea absolutely has good and bad quality, and the biggest indicator is price. If there were no differences in quality, how could there be sky-high priced teas? Why would people personally travel to tea mountains to watch over the picking, processing, and sun-drying, and finally pack the tea themselves to bring home...

Take myself as an example: I started the e-commerce site 51pur.com in 2008, and until 2013, I didn't really understand tea. Back then, I firmly believed that many teas were primarily marketing, and most high-priced teas were just hype. It wasn't until 2013 that I had several unpleasant experiences drinking tea. It wasn't entirely tea drunkenness, but I felt restless, heavy-bodied, and couldn't eat or drink properly—just uncomfortable. Looking back now, it was because I usually drank large cups of mediocre tea due to work, and when it accumulated to a certain amount, my body sent out warnings. From that point on, I suddenly realized I could understand tea a bit better. It was also from then that I made up my mind to go up the mountains and make tea myself. I'll share those stories with you later if I get the chance.

There's another saying in the tea industry: "Tea can speak!" It means that if you can understand tea, it will tell you what kind of tea it is and its quality. To put it plainly, through looking, smelling, and tasting, a mature professional tea master can roughly figure out the tea's ecology, processing, and flavor, thereby determining its quality.

I am from Jiangxi, and for many years, my diet was salty and spicy. It wasn't until recent years, after I began to appreciate the beauty of tea, that my diet became lighter. I discovered that I now enjoy seafood, especially deep-sea seafood—no matter how it's prepared, I can appreciate the natural flavor of the ingredients. Even now, my family back home doesn't really like seafood, thinking it lacks taste.

I think "what suits your taste is precious" also has some truth. It means you should trust your own judgment and not be swayed by others' hype. The tea you currently enjoy might indeed be the most suitable for you, but we should also strive for a better quality of life and improve our tastes. If you like drinking, drink good wine; if you like tea, drink good tea, and learn to understand it.