FOP stands for Flowery Orange Pekoe, a mid-range whole-leaf black tea grade that sits a step above plain Orange Pekoe in the standard grading system.
“Flowery” here refers to the presence of some young leaf buds mixed in with the whole rolled leaves — not floral flavor. Those buds are what separate FOP from OP, and they’re also the starting point for the more tip-heavy grades above it: GFOP, TGFOP, FTGFOP, and SFTGFOP each add more bud content and finer sorting on top of the FOP baseline. FOP leaves are left whole rather than broken, so the resulting cup tends to be smoother and less astringent than broken grades like BOP, with a slower, more even release of flavor. It’s a common grade for single-origin black teas from Assam, Ceylon, and Darjeeling.
