Methodology — The Warm Tea Index

What this measures

“Which warm tea would you choose when the cold wind arrives?” — What visitors to this site actually pick when asked the question above — nothing more. It is a running poll, not a quality rating: the ranking is the count of picks.

Who answers

Visitors to this site, unpaid and self-selected — a convenience sample, not a probability sample. The question is about everyday decisions in Korea, so respondents skew toward people living in or engaged with Korea, and the results carry that skew.

Where the options come from

The selection lens is differences in the aroma and taste associated with each tea. It excludes health benefits, colds, immunity or treatment, disease or caffeine advice, brands, blends, and dosage guidance. The full option order is not an editorial Top 5 or a ranking of popularity, sales or nationwide preference.

When the ranking opens

Tallies are live from the first vote, with the vote count always shown. Rank numbers appear only once the poll has collected 100 votes in total — a figure fixed before any data existed. Below that, the tallies are early signal, not an order, and the page says so.

Formula

Plain vote counts, shown with each option's share of the total. No weighting, no smoothing, no editorial adjustment.

Editorial Top 5 shown before the poll

On 24 September 2026, Rankorea began showing a reviewed editorial Top 5 above the poll on published topics. It is selected by the Rankorea editorial team under the stated criteria, not calculated from votes. Seeing it first can affect later choices, so votes before and after that date must not be read as a preference change alone. Editorial order never enters the tally, rank, or tie handling.

Options that are not on the list

Visitors can write in what they would have picked. Write-ins never enter the ranking — an "other" bucket would collect every stray preference and float to the top. They are stored separately, only their count is public, and once 20 or more say the same thing, that option becomes a candidate for the next wave. A new wave starts a fresh tally rather than merging into this one, and is announced here.

The official-statistics panel

Where the official statistic that gave us the option list also ranks those same options, we show that ranking above the poll, with its source — measured, not voted. It is never blended into the poll; the two are kept apart so you can see where visitors here differ from the population at large.