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As a coffee drinker, you may have heard of coffee cupping, but have you ever heard of tea cupping?  Similar to coffee cupping, tea cupping is the process of tasting and evaluating the quality of loose leaf tea, determining the quality, taste, aroma, briskness, body and color.  The cupping process is an art and science to ensure that the finest and highest quality of tea is procured.  Before tasting the tea, an assessment of the tea leaves is performed, taking in not only the appearance of the leaves themselves, but also the scent they produce.  With the exception of green and oolong teas, the appearance and smell of the dried leaf is a determining factor in the quality.  The cupper is looking for a leaf that exhibits a uniform appearance and is well-involuted, firm and small.  The reasoning behind this is that an open leaf will steep quickly, whereas a closely curled leaf takes longer to saturate and thus offers a better second cup.  After this careful observation of the physical dried leaf, the tea is ready for the steeping process.    Pure water is required to ensure no contaminants, such as natural minerals in the water, affect the taste of the tea.  You should prepare 6 oz. to 8 oz. cups with 2 gm. of dried tea leaves.  After bringing your water to a boil, pour directly onto the tea leaves.  Be sure to avoid oversteeping in your tea cupping process!  The flavor from the tea leaves is released while steeping and if oversteeping has taken place, the release of acids can occur and elicit a bitter cup.  Steeping times vary from tea to tea.  Oolong teas take longer to fully release their flavor and can take up to 7-8 minutes.  Green and white teas may take only 3-4 minutes and do not require fully boiling the water.  The general rule of thumb is 5 minutes for black teas.  To stop the steeping process, pour off the tea from the tea leaves.  A perfect black tea will be rich and thick looking in the cup with bright shining characteristics immediately after pouring.  Oolong teas will display a cloudy effect as the tea cools.  If the black or oolong tea has not been fermented enough, the color will be distinctively bright and the leaf will have a green tint.  While there are different requirements for each type of tea, the basic indicators of the color and tint are as follows: dark green indicates inadequate withering and over-fermentation; green-yellow indicates a sharpness or unsavoriness; golden indicates quality; reddish indicates fullness and richness; dark indicates a low grade or common tea.  The final step in the tea cupping process is to taste the flavor.  Briskness, body and aroma are the three criteria you are searching for in tea cupping.  Regarding the briskness, decide whether the taste makes a strong impression in your mouth and evaluate how it makes your mouth and tongue feel.  The body refers to how the tea fills your mouth and how smooth it is going down.   The aroma should be a healthy, strong aroma.  The above suggestions for tea cupping are very broad guidelines and are only highlights of the very involved process.  No single method is considered the only way to cup teas.  The most significant aspect of tea cupping is consistency.  Whether you experiment with different quantities or different steeping times, you must be consistent throughout your process.  Remember, you are looking for quality, taste, aroma, briskness, body and color.  With these in mind, test your tea cupping skills!