Tieguanyin Hong (Red Tieguanyin)
Black Tea 2026
A new twist on Tieguanyin with early spring leaves and buds made into a black tea with a very well-rounded sweet and tangy flavor, soft woody notes, and rich aromatics of fruit and sweet florals.
$18.25
- Tea Origin
- Anxi County, Fujian Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Hongxin Tieguanyin (Red Heart Tieguanyin)
- Tea Maker
- Zhang Shuiquan and Zhang Qingmu and Zhang Qingjian
- Harvest Time
- Early April
- Plucking Standard
- One bud, one leaf
The beloved Tieguanyin tea bush shows up with bold sweet and tangy flavors in this particularly well-rounded black tea. Its smooth brew possesses unusual soft woody notes balanced with rich aromatics of fruit, honey, and sweet florals for a very pleasant experience. While most Tieguanyin gets harvested later in the spring and made into Anxi wulong tea, these leaves were harvested in early April as one tender bud and leaf and made into black tea.
Tea maker Zhang Qingmu was the first to make black Tieguanyin tea in his region of Anxi County. When asked by a European client to source a local black tea that would meet the stringent EU criteria for organic tea, it was difficult to find a pre-existing tea that met those standards. So, he turned to his family’s own sustainable Tieguanyin tea gardens and learned how to make black tea, and the result had a remarkable intense aroma and smooth body.
As with all black teas, the leaves are processed by withering, kneading, and oxidizing them until dark before drying them. The Zhang family makes their black tea by letting the soft kneaded leaves oxidize overnight in a large bamboo basket, underneath a dry cloth. Unlike with many other black teas, no additional water is added; the oxidation process is carried out with only the naturally occurring water in the leaf itself. The oxidation is carefully monitored until it progresses to about 90%, after which the leaves go through another round of kneading and then drying.
No chemical fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide was used in the production of this tea. Click here to read more about our promise to fair trade and the environment.
