Last updated: June 2026
Editorial Policy
Tea Atlas is a translation publication. We read Chinese-language sources about tea — community discussions, marketplace data, and regional tea association reports — and translate what matters into English. This page explains how we choose sources, how translation works, and how we attribute the original material.
What we translate
Our coverage draws on Chinese-language primary sources that have no English edition:
- Zhihu (zhihu.com) — China's largest Q&A platform, where tea farmers, vendors, and serious drinkers debate regions, processing, and value in depth. We translate consensus across answers, not single opinions.
- Taobao (taobao.com) — China's dominant marketplace, used for pricing, availability, and listing data on teas and teaware.
- Regional tea associations — harvest reports, origin standards, and production data from the associations that govern famous tea regions.
How sources are selected
- For origin and production claims, we prefer regional association publications and producer statements over reseller marketing.
- For quality and value questions, we look for consensus across many Zhihu discussions rather than a single answer — tea is a market with strong commercial incentives to exaggerate.
- We do not translate sponsored placements or vendor advertorial as if it were editorial. When a Chinese source is clearly promoting its own product, we either skip it or label it.
How translation works
We use AI translation tools (including large language models) to read and draft translations from Chinese, with editorial review before publication. Specifically:
- AI does the heavy lifting: reading Chinese source pages, drafting English translations, and summarizing discussion consensus across many posts.
- Editorial review covers the claims: tea names, regions, harvest years, and prices are checked against the original source before publishing.
- Terminology is standardized: Chinese tea terms are given in pinyin with characters and a plain-English explanation on first use (gongfu 工夫, shengpu 生普), so readers can cross-reference Chinese listings.
- Translation is interpretation. Where a Chinese phrase has no clean English equivalent — mouthfeel and aroma vocabulary like 回甘 are the classic cases — we explain rather than force a one-word translation.
Attribution
Every article that draws on a Chinese source cites that source, with a link to the original Chinese page where one exists. We treat the original platforms and associations as the authority — we are the translation layer, not the origin of the data.
Independence and affiliate disclosure
- No vendor pays for coverage, placement, or ratings. Assessments reflect the Chinese source data, not commercial relationships.
- Some outbound links are affiliate links and may earn us a commission at no cost to you. This never changes what we cover or how we rank it. See our affiliate disclosure.
Corrections
Chinese tea pricing, harvests, and vendor lineups change. If you find an error — a mistranslation, an outdated price, a misattributed region — email us and we will verify against the original source and correct the article, noting the update date.