In the few seconds before taking a packet to the till, there is not much it can tell. It cannot be opened, and the leaves are often out of sight. Even when they show, the colour of the brewed tea does not. All there is to go on is the print.
This piece sorts what the words on a packet can tell from what they cannot.
Tracing the print with a fingertip
Pick up a packet and the front carries the name and the selling lines in large type. It can tell leaf or stem, what the shop stakes itself on, and where the tea sits in that shop's range.
The temperature and time of roasting, and the colour in the cup, cannot be read from it. And packets with roast words at all are in the minority. In a separate count of shop shelves, fewer than one seller in four used them.
The sources show that what a packet will answer is narrow. After the front, the small table on the back.
The back answers tea type and origin
Turn it over and fine ruled lines hold a table of small print. That table answers the type of tea and where it came from, and no more.
The industry's rules set what must be printed and what may be. Neither list has a place for roast depth. The fields that come close to the contents are about three: the name, the ingredients and the origin.
The sources show that depth sits outside the back table. From the back, the next thing is how to read the roast words on the front.