Glossary of Drinks Terms

The vocabulary of drinks, defined plainly. This first edition of the glossary leans towards the worlds of tea and coffee — where the encyclopedia begins — alongside core terms used across every kind of drink. Where a term has a fuller page of its own, we link to it. New terms are added as the encyclopedia grows.

A

Aeration: Deliberately exposing a drink to air to develop its aroma and soften its texture — swirling wine in a glass, decanting, or pouring tea from a height. Oxygen encourages volatile aroma compounds to release and can round off harsh edges.
Aroma: The smell of a drink, perceived through the nose and, as the drink is swallowed, through the back of the mouth. Because most of what we call "flavour" is actually smell, aroma carries far more information than the tongue alone.
Astringency: The drying, puckering sensation some drinks leave in the mouth — think strong black tea or a bold red wine. It is a tactile feeling rather than a taste, caused chiefly by tannins binding to proteins in saliva.

B

Barista: A person who prepares and serves coffee professionally, especially espresso-based drinks. The word is Italian for "bartender", and the craft spans grinding, dosing, extraction and milk texturing.
Blend: A drink made by combining leaves, beans or liquids from different origins, harvests or styles to achieve a consistent, balanced result — English Breakfast tea and most espresso blends are classic examples. The opposite approach, showcasing one source alone, is called single-origin or single-estate.
Body: The perceived weight and fullness of a drink in the mouth, from light and delicate to rich and syrupy. Body comes from dissolved and suspended substances — sugars, proteins, oils, tannins — rather than from flavour itself.
Brew: To prepare a drink by combining a base ingredient with water — steeping tea leaves, extracting ground coffee, or fermenting malted grain into beer. Also used as a noun for the finished result.

C

Caffeine: A naturally occurring stimulant found in tea, coffee, cacao, yerba mate and cola nuts, prized for its alerting effect. Levels vary enormously with the plant, the preparation and the serving size — see Does Tea Contain Caffeine? for how this plays out in the cup.
Camellia sinensis: The evergreen shrub from whose leaves all true tea is made — white, green, oolong, black and dark alike. Its two principal varieties are the small-leaved sinensis of China and the large-leaved assamica of Assam and Yunnan.
Carbonation: The presence of dissolved carbon dioxide in a drink, released as bubbles when it is opened or poured. It may arise naturally through fermentation, as in beer and traditional sparkling wine, or be added under pressure, as in soft drinks and soda water.
Chai: Simply the word for "tea" in Hindi and many other languages, derived from the Chinese cha. Outside South Asia it usually refers to masala chai — black tea simmered with milk, sugar and spices such as ginger and cardamom.
Cold brew: A method of steeping tea or coffee in cold or room-temperature water for several hours instead of minutes in hot water. The slow, cool extraction draws out sweetness and aroma while leaving behind much of the bitterness and astringency; see our guide to the main types of tea for styles that suit it well.
Crema: The layer of tan-coloured foam that forms on top of a freshly pulled espresso, created as pressurised hot water emulsifies coffee oils and releases carbon dioxide. Its colour and persistence say much about the freshness of the beans and the quality of the extraction.
CTC: Short for "crush, tear, curl" — a mechanised tea-processing method, developed in Assam in the 1930s, that shreds leaves into small, uniform granules. CTC tea brews fast, strong and dark, which makes it the backbone of tea bags and of milky styles such as masala chai.
Cultivar: A cultivated variety of a plant, selected and propagated for particular qualities — flavour, hardiness, yield or appearance. Tea cultivars such as Japan's Yabukita, and coffee cultivars such as Bourbon and Geisha, shape a drink's character as much as where it is grown.

D

Decaffeinated: Describes tea or coffee that has had most — not all — of its caffeine removed after harvest, using water, carbon dioxide or solvent-based processes. A small residue of caffeine always remains, which is why "decaffeinated" is not the same as "caffeine-free".
Decoction: Extracting flavour by boiling an ingredient in water, rather than merely steeping it in water already heated. Tough materials — roots, barks, spices, CTC tea for masala chai — often need decoction to give up their character.

E

Espresso: A small, concentrated coffee made by forcing hot water through finely ground beans under high pressure, an Italian invention of the early twentieth century. It is both a drink in its own right and the base of cappuccino, latte, flat white and many others.

F

Fermentation: The transformation of a food or drink by microorganisms — most famously yeast converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, the process behind beer, wine and cider, and bacteria souring milk into lassi or tea into kombucha. In the tea trade the word was long used, confusingly, for oxidation, which involves no microbes at all.
Filtration: Separating a finished drink from solids — leaves, grounds, pulp, spent yeast — by passing it through a strainer, paper, cloth or fine membrane. Filtration affects texture as well as clarity: paper-filtered coffee is cleaner and lighter-bodied than the same coffee pressed through metal.
First flush: The first plucking of a tea garden's new growth in spring, prized for freshness and delicacy. Darjeeling's first flush, picked around March and April, is among the most celebrated — and expensive — teas in the world.

G

Gaiwan: A Chinese lidded bowl, usually of porcelain, used to brew and drink tea; the name means "lid and bowl". The lid holds back the leaves as you sip or decant, making the gaiwan one of the simplest and most versatile brewing vessels ever devised.
Garnish: An edible or aromatic finishing touch added to a drink — a twist of citrus peel, a sprig of mint, a slice of ginger. A good garnish is not mere decoration: expressed oils and aromas become part of the drink itself.
Gongfu brewing: The Chinese approach of brewing tea with a high ratio of leaf to water in a small pot or gaiwan, in many short infusions rather than one long one. Each pour reveals a different facet of the leaf; the name means "skill acquired through practice", as in brewing done with care.

I

Infusion: Extracting flavour by steeping an ingredient in liquid without boiling it — tea leaves in hot water being the everyday example. The word also names the resulting drink, as in "herbal infusion".

M

Matcha: Japanese green tea ground to a fine powder and whisked directly into hot water, so the whole leaf is consumed rather than infused and discarded. Central to the Japanese tea ceremony, it descends from the powdered teas of Song-dynasty China — see our full profile of matcha.
Mocktail: A mixed drink composed with the balance and presentation of a cocktail but containing no alcohol. The best examples are built on the same principles — sweetness, acidity, bitterness, aroma, dilution — rather than being mere fruit juice in a fancy glass.
Mouthfeel: The physical sensations a drink produces in the mouth apart from taste and smell: weight, texture, temperature, astringency, fizz, silkiness or creaminess. Two drinks with identical flavours can feel entirely different to drink.

O

Oxidation: The enzymatic browning of tea leaves after they are plucked and bruised, as their compounds react with oxygen — the same chemistry that darkens a cut apple. The degree of oxidation is what chiefly separates the main types of tea: green teas are barely oxidised, oolongs partially, black teas fully.

P

Palate: A taster's overall ability to perceive and judge flavour — as in "a trained palate" — and, more loosely, the impressions a drink makes in the mouth from first sip to finish. Palates are made, not born: attentive tasting sharpens anyone's.

R

Roast: The controlled heating of coffee beans — or of some teas, such as hōjicha and roasted oolongs — to develop colour, aroma and flavour. Lighter roasts preserve origin character and acidity; darker roasts trade them for body, bitterness and toasty depth.

S

Steep: To soak tea leaves, herbs or other ingredients in water so their flavour passes into the liquid. Time, temperature and the ratio of leaf to water are the three levers of every steep.

T

Tannin: A family of naturally occurring polyphenols found in tea, wine, cider and many plants, responsible for astringency and structure. In moderation tannins give a drink grip and length; over-extracted, they turn it harsh and bitter.
Terroir: The French idea that a drink expresses the place it comes from — soil, climate, altitude, aspect and local tradition together. Coined for wine, the concept applies just as readily to tea and coffee: a Darjeeling and an Assam are unmistakably different, from gardens only a few hundred kilometres apart.
Tisane: An infusion made from plants other than Camellia sinensis — chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, hibiscus and countless others. Often called "herbal tea", a tisane is, strictly speaking, not tea at all; the distinction is explored in Tea vs Herbal Infusion.

U

Umami: The savoury fifth basic taste, identified in Japan in 1908 and produced chiefly by glutamates. In drinks it appears most strikingly in shaded Japanese green teas such as gyokuro and matcha, which can taste almost brothy.

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