What is the difference between Orange Pekoe and Ceylon?
This post has been contributed by tea sommelier, Domini Hogg. Follow this link for her first post on tea.
This is a question I am frequently asked. I can only assume that the confusion arises from the use of Orange Pekoe as a way of marketing tea as a more premium product often in connection with Ceylon teas. The reality of it is, however, that all teas are a form of Orange Pekoe and Ceylon as much as any.
The word Pekoe comes from the Cantonese pronunciation of 白毫 (Mandarin: Baihao) meaning tea leaf, literally “fine white hair”. While the tea leaf is still an unfurled bud, it protects itself with an outer layer of fine white hair typically seen in very high grade tea, especially white tea like Silver Needles that uses only the unopened buds.
Orange comes rather obscurely from the name of the Dutch royal family since it was the Dutch who first brought tea to Europe. Consequently, Orange Pekoe simply means tea leaf. It is distinguished, however, from Broken Orange Pekoe which is used in lower grade tea bags.
When the British started growing tea in India and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), they used Orange Pekoe as the basis for their tea grading system. The system reaches the heady heights of SFTGFOP1/2! This is the very highest grade of leaf and stands for ‘Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe’.
Ceylon, by contrast, is simply the name for any tea produced in Sri Lanka.
Recently I visited a tea garden in the South West of India, which was growing teas in a very similar way to Sri Lanka. Parisons Tea Estate was a beautiful and extensive estate nestled in the luscious Western Ghats, the foothills of the Nilgiri mountains. The estate owner had decided to create his own hybrid plant which combined the virtues of both the Chinese tea plant (camellia sinensis sinensis) and the North Indian variety (camellia sinensis assamica). The Chinese plant was selected for its hardy roots and longevity, while the Assamica was selected for its high yield. Ceylon teas from Sri Lanka would be produced from similar hybrids.
So next time you see a packet with Orange Pekoe written on it, you won’t be taken in by their exotic marketing techniques.
I was extremely confused when they change the Ceylon Orange Pekoe to the Ceylon pure black tea. I was debating on buying it or not because if it doesn’t taste the same, then it wouldn’t be the great cup of tea that I’ve been use to over the years. So for clarity does it taste the same as the orange pekoe?
Hi Madonna, yes the change in terminology has confused a number of people, because it was never clear what Orange Pekoe actually meant. Ultimately Orange Pekoe is just a fancy name for the tea leaf, so there should be no taste difference between Ceylon Orange Pekoe and Ceylon pure black tea. Both mean exactly the same thing. What I can’t vouch for is whether the company producing the Ceylon pure black tea also made a change to the way they source or produce the tea at the same time as changing the name on the pack. That would make the tea taste different either positively or negatively. However, my guess would be that it is purely a marketing change rather than a product change. They probably used “Orange Pekoe” before, because they thought it would make it sound better quality, but more recently they decided to change it, perhaps because many of their customers didn’t know that Orange Pekoe meant black tea and were buying it expecting it to have an orange flavour only to be disappointed. I hope that helps, SD