All About Black Tea



In this video, Zhuping reviews the different types of black tea as well as an overall historical background for the teas. Most black teas will break down into one of the following categories:

  1. Lapsang;
  2. Qimen or Keemun; or
  3. Yunnan.

At the end of the 17th century in Tong Mu village located in the Wuyi Mountains of Northern Fujian province, Lapsang made its debut; this is the most well-known category of black tea today. Wuyi Shan or the Wuyi Mountains are also well-known for the production of rock wulong as well. We’ve written extensively on the history and development of Lapsang in a popular blog post called The Remarkable Beginning of Black Tea: The Demise of Tongmu Lapsang Souchong Black Tea. Lapsang has a colorful history of origin and a rather serendipitous beginning. The original Lapsang was considerably less smoky than its more well-known counterpart today.

Keemun, the anglicized version of Qimen, is believed to have arrived sometime during the 19th century. As Zhuping describes, an officer who had retired from the Wuyi Mountains brought the methodologies involved in producing Lapsang to Anhui province, which is now known for this delightful black tea. The leaves used to produce Qimen come from a local tea bush cultivar known for its particularly small leaves (xiao zhu ye zhong). Keemun has become popular for fragrance and its use of small young fresh leaves being used to create black tea, an unusual method for creating black tea.

Yunnan black tea reportedly came last in the early 20th century when a government official who studied Anhui agricultural techniques returned to Yunnan province to instruct others on what he’d learned.

Notes for brewing your black tea:

Bear in mind that a great cup of tea has three major factors: the infusion time, the temperature of the water used, and the amount of tea used to brew the tea. Visit the pages for the tea to determine how much tea is best used to make your great cup of tea.