Ceylon Tea Grades Explained: OP, BOPF, Silver Tips & Golden Tips (2026)
Updated 12 August 2026 · by the SOO Ceylon Tea team
The short answer: Ceylon tea grades describe the size and appearance of the processed leaf — not the quality of the tea. OP (Orange Pekoe) is whole twisted leaf. BOPF (Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings) is a small broken grade built for strength and milk. Silver Tips and Golden Tips are bud-only teas, picked before the leaf opens. A high grade is not “better” than a low one; they are different tools for different cups. Anyone telling you OP is automatically premium is oversimplifying.
In this article
- What a tea grade actually measures
- Every Ceylon grade, in one table
- Silver Tips and Golden Tips: the bud grades
- Elevation: the variable that matters more than grade
- Which grade should you actually buy?
- Brewing guide by grade
- Frequently asked questions
What a tea grade actually measures
A grade is a sorting label applied after processing. Once the leaf has been withered, rolled, oxidised and fired, it is passed over mesh screens that separate it by particle size. The letters on the packet record which screen the leaf ended up on.
This is the single most misunderstood thing about tea labelling. The grade tells you how the tea will behave — how fast it infuses, how strong it brews, whether it can carry milk — but it says nothing about the garden, the altitude, the plucking standard or the season. Two teas both labelled BOPF can be miles apart in quality. A grade is a shape, not a score.
One further piece of trivia worth knowing, because it trips people up constantly: “Orange Pekoe” has nothing to do with oranges. There is no citrus in it and it is not flavoured. “Pekoe” derives from the Chinese pák-hó, meaning the fine white down on a young tea bud; “Orange” is generally traced to the Dutch House of Orange. It is a leaf-size classification and nothing more.
Every Ceylon grade, in one table
Sri Lanka uses the standard orthodox grading vocabulary. These are the grades you will actually encounter on a Ceylon packet, largest leaf first.
| Grade | Stands for | Leaf | In the cup |
|---|---|---|---|
| OP | Orange Pekoe | Whole leaf, long and wiry, tightly twisted | Slow to infuse, lighter body, more layered and aromatic. Best drunk without milk. |
| OP1 | Orange Pekoe 1 | Longer, more uniform whole leaf than standard OP | Cleaner, more delicate; a presentation grade as much as a drinking one. |
| BOP | Broken Orange Pekoe | Broken pieces, noticeably smaller than OP | Faster infusion, fuller body, good colour. The classic mid-strength Ceylon. |
| FBOP | Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe | Broken leaf with visible bud tips in the mix | Body of a broken grade with extra aromatic lift from the tips. |
| BOPF | Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings | Small, even particles — larger than dust, smaller than BOP | Fast, strong, dark and brisk. The grade built to survive milk and sugar — the backbone of teh tarik and masala chai. |
| Pekoe | Pekoe | Leaf rolled into tighter, shorter, more curled pieces | Rounded and smooth; a Ceylon speciality style. |
| Dust | Dust | The finest particles | Extremely fast and strong. Used in commercial tea bags and street-stall milk tea. |
A practical note on tea bags: most mass-market bags contain fannings or dust, which is exactly why they brew so quickly and so darkly. That is a deliberate engineering choice, not a defect — but it is also why loose whole leaf tastes so different from the bag version of nominally the same tea.
Silver Tips and Golden Tips: the bud grades
These sit outside the broken/whole-leaf scale entirely, because they are not made from leaves at all. They are made from unopened buds — the tip of the shoot before it unfurls into a leaf.
Silver Tips is a white tea. The buds are picked and then simply withered and dried; there is no rolling and no deliberate oxidation. Because so little is done to the leaf, the character of the garden comes through with unusual clarity — pale liquor, soft texture, a quiet sweetness. Picking happens by hand, at dawn, before the sun is on the bush.
Golden Tips is the oxidised counterpart: bud-only, but processed as a black tea, producing an amber-gold liquor with honey and malt notes. Yields are tiny — it takes an enormous number of individually picked buds to make a small quantity — which is why bud grades cost several times what leaf grades do.
Unopened buds, withered and dried, nothing else. Also see Golden Tips, the oxidised bud grade.
View the rare grades →Elevation: the variable that matters more than grade
If you only remember one thing from this page, make it this: in Ceylon tea, altitude changes the cup more than grade does. Sri Lanka classifies its growing regions by height above sea level, and the same processing at a different elevation produces a genuinely different tea.
| Tier | Altitude | Regions | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| High grown | Above ~1,200m | Nuwara Eliya, Dimbula, Uva, Uda Pussellawa | Bright, brisk, almost floral. Best without milk. |
| Mid grown | ~600–1,200m | Kandy | Balanced, rounded, full colour. The everyday all-rounder. |
| Low grown | Below ~600m | Ruhuna, Sabaragamuwa | Dark, heavy, malty. Stands up to milk — the traditional milk-tea base. |
This is why a packet that names its estate and elevation is telling you far more than one that says “premium blend”. Grade plus elevation together predict the cup; either one alone does not.
Which grade should you actually buy?
Work backwards from how you drink it.
| If you want… | Buy this grade | From our range |
|---|---|---|
| Teh tarik, milk tea, or a chai base | BOPF | BOPF Strong Ceylon Black Tea |
| A clean black tea to drink plain | OP | OP Black Tea (Orange Pekoe) 100g |
| A familiar strong morning cup | Broken-grade blend | English Breakfast Tea |
| Something delicate and unusual | Silver Tips (white, bud) | Silver Tips White Tea 50g |
| The rarest thing on the shelf | Golden Tips (black, bud) | Golden Tips Tea 50g |
| Ceylon green tea | Unoxidised leaf | Ceylon Green Tea |
Brewing guide by grade
Grade determines infusion speed, so the same brewing rule cannot apply across all of them. Use roughly 2–3g of leaf per 200ml of water.
- BOPF / Dust — 95–100°C, 2–3 minutes. Small particles release fast; leaving them longer is the single most common cause of a harsh cup.
- BOP / FBOP — 95°C, 3 minutes.
- OP / OP1 — 90–95°C, 3–4 minutes. Whole leaf needs room to open, so give it space rather than packing an infuser.
- Silver Tips (white) — 75–80°C, 3–5 minutes. Boiling water scorches bud teas and flattens them.
- Golden Tips — 85–90°C, 3–4 minutes.
- Ceylon green — 70–80°C, 2–3 minutes.
Then take the leaf out. Almost every “bitter” cup is an over-steeped one rather than a bad tea — we go into that in detail in Why Your Homemade Chai Is Bitter.
Frequently asked questions
What does BOPF mean in tea?
BOPF stands for Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings. It is a small, evenly sized broken grade that infuses quickly and brews strong and dark, which is why it is the standard base for milk teas such as teh tarik and for masala chai.
What is Orange Pekoe tea?
Orange Pekoe (OP) is a whole-leaf black tea grade, not a flavour. The leaves are long, wiry and twisted, and they brew a lighter, more aromatic cup than broken grades. There is no orange in it.
Is Orange Pekoe better than BOPF?
No. They are different leaf sizes for different purposes. OP suits plain drinking; BOPF suits milk tea. Quality depends on the garden, elevation and plucking standard — not on which screen the leaf landed on.
What is the highest grade of Ceylon tea?
By rarity and price, the bud-only grades: Silver Tips (white) and Golden Tips (black). They are hand-picked as unopened buds in very small quantities. “Highest grade” here means rarest and most labour-intensive, not universally best-tasting — many people prefer a good high-grown OP.
What is Ceylon tea?
Ceylon tea is tea grown in Sri Lanka, which was called Ceylon until 1972. Genuine Ceylon tea packed in Sri Lanka carries the Sri Lanka Tea Board’s Lion Logo. We explain that certification in What the Lion Logo means.
Which Ceylon tea grade is best for milk tea?
BOPF, and ideally low-grown BOPF. It has the body and briskness to stay present under condensed milk or fresh milk instead of disappearing into it.
Does a higher grade mean better quality?
No — this is the most common misconception about tea labelling. Grade records leaf size after sorting. A carelessly made whole-leaf tea can easily be worse than a well-made broken grade from a good estate.
Related reading
- How to Choose a Ceylon Tea Brand: An Honest Buyer’s Guide
- Teh Ceylon: Why Malaysia’s Best Teh Tarik Starts With Ceylon BOPF
- Best Tea in China (2026): An Honest Guide for Black Tea Drinkers
- Ceylon Tea in Malaysia — shipped from our KL warehouse
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