tea (thing)

What is a normal cup of tea, I hear you say? Considering there are about a million flavours and types, I hear you add? Well, believe it - there is such a thing as a Normal cup of tea. Actually, the normality of tea is so finely described that there are 21 ISO standards for tea!

an ISO - standard cup of tea

• ISO 1572 (1980) Tea: The preparation of ground sample of known dry matter content
• ISO 1573 (1980) Tea: The determination of loss in mass at 103 degrees C
• ISO 1575 (1987) Tea: Determination of total ash
• ISO 1576 (1988) Tea: Determination of water-soluble ash and water-insoluble ash
• ISO 1577 (1987) Tea: Determination of acid-insoluble ash
• ISO 1578 (1975) Tea: Determination of alkalinity of water-soluble ash
• ISO 1839 (1980) Tea: Sampling
• ISO 3103 (1980) (also known as BS 6008) Tea: Preparation of liquor for use in sensory tests*
• ISO 3720 (1986) Black tea:- Definition and basic requirements
• ISO 6078 (1982) Black tea: Vocabulary
• ISO 6079 (1990) Instant tea in solid form: Specification
• ISO 6770 (1982) Instant tea: Determination of free-flow and compacted bulk densities
• ISO 7513 (1990) Instant tea in solid form: Determination of moisture content (loss in mass at 103 degrees C)
• ISO 7514 (1990) Instant tea in solid form: Determination of total ash
• ISO 7516 (1984) Instant tea in solid form: Sampling
• ISO 9768 (1994) Tea: Determination of water extract
• ISO 9884-1 (1994) Tea sacks: Specification -- Part 1: Reference sack for palletized and containerized transport of tea
• ISO 9884-2 (1999) Tea sacks: Specification -- Part 2: Performance specification for sacks for palletized and containerized transport of tea
• ISO 10727 (1995) Tea and instant tea in solid form: Determination of caffeine content -- Method using high-performance liquid chromatography
• ISO 11286 (1997) Tea: Classification of grades by particle size analysis
• ISO 15598 (1999) Tea: Determination of crude fibre content

Please note that none of these ISO standards have been noded, as the standards themselves seem to be copyright protected. (I might be wrong, but I couldn't find the actual ISO standards for making tea anywhere).

*) This one (ISO 3103) is in effect the ISO standard version of "how to make a decent cup of tea". As a matter of fact, the BS 6008, which is the original 5000-word version of this document, written by the British Standards Institute, won a literature award! Silly britons.

Source: Accessing the ISO database and searching for random things - tea being one of them