A cup of Orange Pekoe tea with milk added

Orange Pekoe is also the name of a Japanese jazz band.

Orange Pekoe is a classification of black tea based upon the origin of the leaf. To be classified as pekoe, the tea must be composed purely of the new flushes - a flush being the flower bud plucked with two youngest leaves. (Any other leaves produce teas of lower quality.) ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (2592x1944, 1893 KB) Description: A photograph of a cup of orange pekoe tea with the milk not yet stirred in, so forming clouds. Source: Taken by Xavier Snelgrove Date: 2005-06-24 File links The following pages link to this file... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (2592x1944, 1893 KB) Description: A photograph of a cup of orange pekoe tea with the milk not yet stirred in, so forming clouds. Source: Taken by Xavier Snelgrove Date: 2005-06-24 File links The following pages link to this file... Tea leaves in a Chinese gaiwan. ... The leaves of a Beech tree A leaf with laminar structure and pinnate venation In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. ...

The origin of the word pekoe is not definitively known. Suppositions include the Chinese bai hwa "white flower" (Chinese: 白花; pinyin: báihuā; POJ: pe̍h-hoe) referring to the flower bud content of pekoe tea, and an Amoy word for the special kind of Chinese tea (白毫茶; pe̍h-ho-tê). The original Amoy name was pronounced "pek-ho" but the English word has corrupted into "pee-Ko" nowadays. The name means white downy hair. The term refers to the down-like white "hairs" on the tea leaves that are the youngest and smallest on the tea plant. The Chinese Pekoe teas are classified into various qualities according to whether the adjacent young leaves (two, one or none) were picked along with the leaf buds. Top quality pekoe consists of only the leaf buds. The buds are picked using only the balls of the finger tips. Finger nails or mechanical tools are not used to avoid bruising the picks. Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell(ing) and yin means sound(s)). This article describes the most common variant called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... See alternative meanings for other possible definitions. ... Xiamen (Simplified Chinese: 厦门; Traditional Chinese: 廈門; pinyin: Xiàmén; Wade_Giles: Hsiamen) is a coastal sub_provincial city in Fujian Province, southern China. ...

A common misconception is that Orange Pekoe is a type of tea with an orange flavor, or that is otherwise somehow associated with the orange fruit. In fact, however, the word 'Orange' has nothing at all to do with the tea's flavor. Orange—specifically, sweet orange—refers to the citrus tree Citrus sinensis (syn. ...

There are generally three popular explanations given for the meaning of "Orange" in Orange Pekoe, none of them definitive. A popular explanation is that it refers to the Dutch royal House of Orange-Nassau, the Dutch having had a central role in bringing tea to Europe. A second explanation is that it refers to a supposed Chinese practice of using orange blossoms to flavor tea. (In reality it is more customary to use jasmine blossoms, and only for green tea.) Finally, a third explanation is that it refers to the color of the leaves when they are harvested, which is wrong. The House of Orange-Nassau (in Dutch: Van Oranje-Nassau), a branch of the House of Nassau, has played a central role in the political life of the Netherlands since William I of Orange (also known as William the Silent and Father of the Fatherland) organised the Dutch revolt against...

The actual explanation, however, is apparently the orange-yellow coloration of the dried tea flower buds, very conspicuous among the dried leaves. It is the same origin as that of the "Golden" tea grade (see below).

When crushed to make bagged teas, the tea is referred to as "broken", as in "Broken Orange Pekoe" (or "Broken Pekoe"), sometimes sold as loose leaf for reduced price. Bagged teas often also include fannings and dust, which are simply tiny remnants of the sorting and/or crushing process. Dust tea is a low-quality grade of fine grained black tea. ...

Orange Pekoe is often referred to as "OP"; the grading scheme contains several other categories considered to be of higher quality than OP. The grades for whole leaf orthodox black tea, in ascending order are:

• OP (Orange Pekoe)
• FOP (Flowery Orange Pekoe)
• GFOP (Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe)
• TGFOP (Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe)
• FTGFOP (Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe)
• SFTGFOP (Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe)

Broken, Fannings and Dust orthodox teas have slightly different gradings. CTC teas have a yet different grading system. Crush, Tear, and Curl is a method of processing tea. ...

A common joke among tea aficionados is that "FTGFOP" actually stands for "Far Too Good For Ordinary People". To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

See also

• Nilgiri tea
• White tea