the scent of Dian Hong

At Kkik Da Geo, last week, I asked about their red tea selection and realized that they actually have a huge variety in stock but just don't push them as much as they do their aged sheng puer and classic oolongs.

Inspecting their Dian Hong, I could see no discernible difference in quality to what I had, and the aroma was equally impressive. It was even packaged in the same gold foil, which made me think it could have been from the same source.

I mentioned to Prof Ahn that I think it has a nice citrus scent. He replied with a friendly smile, "It smells like red tea."

Ying De Hong #9 • 英德紅茶

With my order of Dian Hong cha, Daniel included a sample of Ying De Hong #9, which made me wonder of perhaps I should have made an order of this one. Given my difficulties with figuring out Dian Hong, I kept this one aside until I had a bit of a clue what I was doing. It was actually with this tea that I finally unraveled the secret of hong cha and became an instant fan.

Ying De Hong is a relatively new tea, first introduced in 1959. It is harvested in the city of Ying De, in Guang Dong Province (famous for Phoenix Dan Cong oolong), but made from broad-leaf plants brought from Yunnan (Puer country but also where Dian Hong is from). Ying De Hong #9 is the premium grade and has won several awards in China and internationally, including Winner of Chinese National Black Tea Competition, in 1980, and Paris Food Tourism Association Gold Award in 1986.

This particular sample is from Bai Zha factory and was harvested in May, 2011. Red teas don't always age well, but this one does, so three years has added nicely the flavours very nicely. It's mostly made of tips and the first two leaves. The leaves are very dark contrasted by bright the golden tips.

Letting the boiled water cool and following the same 20-15-20-30-40 second steep schedule, I was totally amazed by the delicious sweetness of the tea. I'd heard this tea compared to cocoa, which I didn't really notice, but found it in perfect accord with Daniel's description of "quasi-longan", very sweet and fruity. Though I'd like to try a few other black teas first, I'd much like to get a larger portion of this tea in the future. It was simply lovely.

Premium Dian Hong Cha • 滇紅茶

I honestly can't say that I've ever had a tea that I flat out didn't like, but I can admit there are some types of tea that I get more or less excited about than others. Red tea (black in the West) being one of them.

In all fairness to the red/black tea family, most of my experience with it has been cheap tea bags but aside from the taste, the high-end Indian and Sri Lankan teas I've had gave me the jitters, which is exactly why I don't drink coffee.

Upon learning that China actually had a long history of producing red tea, I figured I ought to try it out. Looking through the selection on The Chinese Tea Shop's site, I was immediately seduced by the images of Dian Hong (Golden Tips Red Tea or also Yunnan Gold). I'm not usually one to judge a book by its cover, but with nothing else to go on, I figured at least if I don't like it, I'll have fun admiring the long, slender golden buds. The description sounded just as appealing, though, claiming the tea to have a "peach" flavour.

When the box arrived a couple of weeks later, the first package I opened was the Dian Hong. I was immediately greeted by a warm, intensely sweet scent that I found more citrus than peach but amazing none the less! I thought, if the brew tastes anything like the scent, than I chose well. 

What I was actually in store for, though, was a lesson in how untalented I am at brewing red tea... I remembered Prof Ahn's wife, Mrs Kim, telling me that green and red teas are both very difficult to learn. Not sure exactly what I did wrong, I began a long process of trail and error until eventually, several months and most of the package later, I realized everything. I'd started off treating it as an oolong, lots of leaves, very hot water, when all along the hint was in Mrs Kim's teaching. Using just a couple grams of leaf in a glass pot and letting the water sit in a 'suku' (cooling bowl), as I do with green tea, until it cooled to about 80°C, I was finally rewarded with a cup of Dian Hong that tasted very nearly to the delicious smell of the leaves. I followed the same steep schedule as green tea, 20-15-20-30-45-60... and found it just right. A very pleasant, sweet fruity taste and clear, bright orange colour.

Compared to Indian black tea, I found Dian Hong to still have a strong surge but a more manageable one.

A traditional way to brew Da Hong Pao

This is a technique that I very seldom use but thought it would be worth sharing. I think it's especially useful if you must be conservative with your stash or are down to the last few grams and have a lot of fragmented leaves and stems. Just to be clear, we are still talking about tea, here...  At least Da Hong Pao isn't know for buds!

First, get a clean piece of paper and fold it in half, In the fold, place a small amount of leaves. You don't need much, just enough to cover the bottom of the pot, um teapot. Now, I can't believe I'm going to say this, it's hurting my fingers just to type it, but gently crush the leaves inside the folded paper (this is where I should reiterate, we're still dealing with tea!) and slide the broken leaves straight into the heated pot. This is way I recommend this technique when your near the end of your leaves and there are already several crumbs. I feels sacrilegious to destroy perfectly whole leaves, especially Da Hong Pao leaves.

Don't expect to squeeze much more than three steeps from the leaves, but for the small amount of leaves used you will get three surprisingly potent servings. The small fragments may clog up and make pouring slow, but I am for a standard 15-10-15-25 second pours, but may leave the forth steep for as long as I feel. As I mentioned, there really isn't much left by this time, anyway.

Four Shades of White

I suppose the title should really be "Three Shades of White and Shadow Blue", but here it goes, anyway...

At the tea shop a couple of weeks ago, while drinking some of Taiwan's best oolong, Prof Ahn poured our cups full then, uncharacteristically, gathered them together and asked, "Which one has the nicest  colour?"

Gazing into the cups, I was surprised to see the distinct difference in tea colours, even though they'd all just come from the same pot and into Qing Dynasty cups. I observed my tea had a nice teal tint, Prof Ahn's tea was very similar but more green, and his employee's tea was ocher coloured.

He explained that the difference, as I'd already guessed, was in the shade of the cup. There are four different shades of white tea cups; milk white, snow white, ivory white, and "shadow blue". Milk white is pure white, snow white has a blue tint, and ivory white has a yellow tint. Prof Ahn's cup is celadon with a crackled glazed, darkly stained from years of use, but he referred to its colour as "geurimja-paranseak" (shadow-blue). Mine was a porcelain "Double Happiness" cup with a blue "snow-white" slightly blue tint, and the third was also porcelain but with an "ivory-white" tint. He added hat snow-white cups are best for admiring tea.

At home, I gathered a few of my cups picked one of each shade and experimented by comparing how they affected the colour of Bai Mu Dan (White Peony). The difference was subtler than with the brightly coloured oolong at Kkikdageo, but still noticeable. In the above image, starting with the top-left and going clockwise is snow-white, milk-white, ivory-white, and the closest cup I had to shadow-blue. You can see, the milk and ivory whites are very similar, as are the snow-white and shadow-blue.

Why does this matter? Well, depending on who you are, it may not matter at all, but much like with wine tasting, there are steps in appreciating tea, and admiring the colour is one of them.