The order matters because each step builds the vocabulary the next one needs: you can't write a one-line card for a tea you never sat with, and you can't host a blind tasting for a friend until you can describe two teas well enough to choose them. Buy everything in one week so the comparison stays fair, then work from notes rather than memory.
Step 1: Buy all seven in one week
Seven teas sounds like a collection, but it's really a comparison set — you can't judge green against black if the green went stale in March. Buy all seven within the same week, in the smallest size the shop sells, usually 15 to 25g, and write the purchase date on each bag. Ask for unflavored versions: a plain green, a plain black, a roasted oolong, a white like Bai Mudan, one herbal such as chamomile or peppermint, a chai blend, and matcha powder. Flavored blends make step 2 impossible because you end up describing vanilla instead of leaf. A common skip is treating matcha like the others — it is a powder, so it needs a whisk or a jar to shake it in, and it loses its edge faster once opened.
Step 2: One tea, one evening, same hour
Take one tea per evening at the same hour, because a fixed time removes a variable from a comparison you'll be making across seven days. Boil the water, then let it cool: roughly 80C for green and white, 95C for black, oolong and chai, 80C for matcha. One teaspoon of leaf per 200ml, or a level scoop of matcha whisked into 60ml. Before drinking, hold the cup against a white sheet of paper — the mug's color shifts what you think you see, and amber in a brown mug reads as pale gold on paper. Note smell first, then taste, then how long the taste lingers. What people skip is logging temperature and steep time, then wondering why Tuesday's green tasted bitter when Monday's did not.
Step 3: Condense each tea to one line
With seven evenings of notes scattered across your phone, a notebook and your memory, the card is what makes them comparable. Cut index cards in half, one per tea, and write the name, the date, and a single line: cut grass, bright, finish disappears fast — or baked apple, smooth, coats the mouth. The one-line limit is doing the real work here; given five lines you will write nice and smooth three times. Fill it in the same evening, since taste memory thins out within an hour or so. Line the cards up when you're done; the pile is the evidence for step 4, and the exact words matter more than any rating. Where this goes wrong is keeping everything in a phone app, where you cannot lay seven teas side by side and see which words repeat.
Step 4: Study how your favorite is made
Choosing from the cards rather than from mood is the whole point of having them. Lay out all seven, find the words that repeat — if roasted and nutty show up on four cards, your palate is telling you something — and pick that tea. Then read about the process, not the packaging: how long it is withered, how far it is oxidized, whether it is roasted or steamed. If oolong wins, learn that the leaves are bruised to start oxidation and then heated to stop it, often near 30 percent, before a final roast. That knowledge changes what you taste next time, turning roast into something you can name rather than a vague warmth. Watch out for reading the tin's marketing copy instead of a real process description, which leaves you with adjectives and no mechanism.
Step 5: Serve two teas blind to a friend
Everything so far was preparation for two cups on a table with someone else. Pick two teas you can now describe well, ideally from the same family, like a green and an oolong, so the guess requires attention; green against chamomile is too easy to be interesting. Brew both at their correct temperatures in identical cups, mark them underneath, and do not say which is which. When your friend guesses wrong, ask what made them guess that, because the reasoning teaches you more than a correct answer does. People often oversteep while talking, which flattens both teas by the second cup — set a timer and pour on time. Serve more of whichever they liked, and let them read the card for it.
By the end you have seven cards, one tea you can explain from leaf to cup, and a friend who has tasted it blind. A reminder in a phone app disappears the moment you swipe it away and leaves no trace, while a paper strip taped to the cupboard stays put, visibly getting shorter, until the tea party actually happens.