Body describes how a tea feels in the mouth, its weight and thickness, separate from its flavor or aroma. A tea can taste subtle and still have a heavy, substantial body, or taste bold and still feel thin.
Body runs on a rough scale from light to full. Light-bodied teas, like most white and delicate green teas, feel closer to water on the tongue. Full-bodied teas, like black tea and darker oolongs, feel thicker and more substantial, largely thanks to higher tannin and mineral content built up through fuller oxidation.
Why it matters for milk and blending
Body is the practical reason black tea holds up so well to milk and other flavored blends is that a heavier body doesn’t get lost the way a light-bodied green tea would if you tried the same thing. Pour milk into a delicate white tea and the tea more or less disappears; pour it into a full-bodied black tea and it just rounds the cup out. That’s also part of why chai, which layers real spice weight on top of the tea itself, is almost always built on a black tea base rather than a lighter one.
