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.