[mhartl]

This is cool, but I think virtually all rating systems suffer from the same basic problem: there's no way to turn it up to 11.

Take movies, for example. They are usually rated on a four-star scale. And yet, a three-star movie is a clear success. Few movies can realistically aspire to more than three stars. Even many four-star movies are really just trying desperately to avoid two-star land. Francis Ford Coppola was sure he was going to be fired any day from The Godfather. The production crew and actors on Star Wars thought it was practically a joke. Please, God, let Star Wars not be a B movie, they must have been thinking.

When you say ★★★ out of ★★★★, you make it look like it wasn't good enough: 75%. Movies really should be rated on a three-star scale: ★★★ out of ★★★; ★★★ = A = 100%. Anything else is gravy.

So, rate tea on a three-star scale. Three stars means "excellent tea, no clear way to make it better". ★★★½ means "Whoa, there is something better than ★★★!" ★★★★ means "This is The Godfather of tea! This tea makes me an offer I can't refuse."