The leaf gets a wall label and nothing else

Why each tea is hung like an object

A wall label does one thing: it names the object, says where it came from and when, and then gets out of the way. Applied to tea that is more useful than it sounds, because a tea has exactly those facts and they are usually buried under adjectives. The label here runs pinyin, hanzi, English name, origin and year, separated by slashes, and it never adds a tasting adjective — that belongs in the article, not on the wall. The photograph is centred with wide margins so the eye reads the shape of the cut: a flat blade for Longjing, a rolled thread for a Yunnan red, a broken glossy slab for chagao. One red square is the only colour, placed as a marker rather than as decoration, and it stays the same size on every page. The rule is a hairline because a heavy rule would compete with the leaf. Nothing here is retouched to look better than the sample that was in front of the camera.