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Appellation. For wine and other products, appellation offers legal protection. It prevents a tea labeled “Darjeeling” from being produced outside of the designated geographical region of Darjeeling. Even though it has been produced for generations, da hong pao tea does not yet have such a recognized (and enforced) appellation. So I asked 2 colleagues to help clarify what it means to have an authentic “da hong pao.”

Peter Luong is a second-generation owner of Red Blossom Tea in San Francisco. He and his sister Alice took over the family business from their father. They specialize in Taiwanese and Chinese teas.

Timothy Hsu created The Mandarin’s Tea Room to offer select, (even custom crafted) teas and a tea tasting atmosphere in New York City.

Both Peter and Timothy travel to origin, and are fluent Chinese speakers. Given the thorough visits and the relationships they have cultivated, they offer real, deep insight from farmers and industry experts on understanding Da Hong Pao (大红袍), or Big Red Robe wulong tea.

JW: Talking about the plants themselves, what makes da hong pao authentic?

PL We (Red Blossom) define Da Hong Pao as a cultivar, and we feel that that cultivar is best when grown within the actual Wuyi range. A truly authentic da hong pao is one that is a direct descendant of the original da hong pao. The general agreement amongst tea producers in Wuyishan that I have spoken with is that the one closest in genetic make-up to da hong pao is a cultivar called “beidou” (北斗).

TH
Da Hong Pao is a sub-varietal of ShuiXian. Like Golden Key or Tie Luo Han, each has their own special character profile besides the terroir. It should also grow around the original mother trees or at least inside the Wuyi Nature Reserve to be considered authentic.

JW: I noticed you both noted authenticity applies when the right plant grows in the right location.

TH
It is very much all about location if you are a tea connoisseur, in my opinion. Just like drinking Lion Peak Longjing or a champagne for example. Its not legally a champagne if the production is not from the Champagne region of France.

PL
Yes, it needs to come from the Wuyi mountains. It needs to be a zheng yan (正岩).  (Editor’s note: See this post on the differences between zheng yan and other classifications.) This is an issue in China, as a lot of wuyis do not come from the actual wuyi mountains but from surrounding tea gardens. It’s a huge issue in the US because I think most of the wuyis being sold here are not “zheng yan”. They are teas grown outside the wuyi mountains (the best tell is price for some of these teas). For example, it’s impossible to have a zheng yan at a price point that some of these teas are being sold for.

JW: But some Wuyi teas just get piled together and sold under the name “da hong pao.” Are there any tells that can help a discerning tea drinker distinguish the more authentic from the less?

PL
Today, the term da hong pao has become an almost generic marketing term, used as a label for “high grade” “wuyi” oolongs. I have quotes around both high grade and wuyi because sometimes, what is being sold is neither high grade nor from the wuyi mountains.

More often than not, what is being sold as da hong pao are blends that consists mostly of Huang guan yin, an incredibly floral cultivar. The use of Huang Guan Yin as a stand-in for da hong pao is based on the incorrect assumption that anything high grade needs to be incredibly floral. What’s amiss is that true beidou /da hong pao is not floral. It has a slightly medicinal character, but is prized for its balance. I like to think of it as a carrier of all the traits for which the individual Wuyi cultivars are known, but in a way that balances their various distinct notes (minerally, floral, rich, etc.).

JW: This conversation could go on, and I hope it does. We haven’t touched upon other potential points, like harvest time and processing factors contribute to authentic da hong pao character. My thanks to Peter and Timothy for contributing.

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Origin: WuYi, Fujian, China
Harvest: 2011
Score: 84
Price (as of post): 8 g = $9
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Origin: Zhejiang Province, China
Harvest: 2011
Score: 91
Price (as of post): 25 g = $8.75
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Mt. Wudong Huang Zhi Xiang Phoenix Dancong 2011 Sp Premium

Origin: Guanshi Village, Mt. Wudong, Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, China 
Harvest: Spring 2011
Score: 88
Price (as of post): 15 g = $2.10

Wudong Song Variety Haung Zhi Xiang Phoenix Dancong Nonpareil

Origin: Li Zai Ping Village, Mt. Wudong, Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, China
Harvest: Spring 2011
Score: 91
Price (as of post): 15 g = $5.40
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Samples provided by JK Teashop.
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Origin: Guangxi Province, China
Harvest: 2008
Score: 90
Price (as of post): 25 g = $5.00
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Sample provided by Camellia Sinensis.
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“Red” tea. “Black” tea. “Dark” tea. “Pu’er.” Many names, and not all the same. The terms get tossed around without much thought to the larger tea context. I have seen “red tea” used to label rooibos, but that fails to consider the older Chinese usage. “Black tea” is familiar in English, but that can lead to confusion when there is an attempt to explain “dark tea”. To further complicate, pu’er often gets categorized with other “black teas,” according to the traditional English usage of the term.

Categories of Chinese tea

To talk about hei cha, or dark tea, these definitions need to be kept in mind:

- In Chinese usage, red tea means those fully oxidized teas like keemun or Yunnan dian hongs.

- Black, or dark teas refers to those teas that undergo a “post-fermentation,” a bacterial process beyond the realm of processing most green, wulong, and red teas.

- Pu’er is a class/category of dark teas (hei cha), but only one of several.

- Hei cha has been around for centuries. It was commonly traded with other countries/regions. But today you could ask the average Chinese person under the age of 45 in Beijing or Shanghai, and 7 out of 10 could tell you almost nothing about hei cha.

For more on categories or classes of Chinese tea, see my July post.

So I went to my tea colleagues to hear what they had learned about hei cha.

Bill Waddington (a.k.a. BW) is founder of Tea Source. He has been travelling to Hunan to do detective work on and source hei cha for several years now.

Gingko Seto (a.k.a. GS) owns and operates Life In Teacup store and blog.

I look to Bill and Gingko as reliable info sources who have done their homework.

1. How does one determine quality of a hei cha?

BW: I think the answer to this is the same, whether you are talking about hei cha or dong ding or Darjeeling. Typically as the quality of the tea rises, one of two (or both) things happen: either particular characteristics become even more pronounced, or the multiplicity of different, but very distinct and discernible sensations (whether taste, aroma, or tactile) increases, sometimes dramatically. When a tea becomes “complex” — without becoming muddled, muddied, or just a hodgepodge. That’s a higher quality tea.

GS: I think the question of “how to determine quality” is more interesting in Hei Cha than among any other type of tea. Unlike many other teas, Hei Cha is not usually evaluated by its leaf grade (how young the leaves are or the shape of them) or tea tree types. Most Hei Chas are made with leaves significantly larger and older than other types of teas, and most Hei Chas are from tea trees with minimum human care (because the tea has been very inexpensive and little cost of maintenance would be invested into it). So in general, I would say legitimate products and products that fit a drinker’s taste are good products.

Some Hei Cha products do use certain common criteria for quality evaluation. For example, for Fu Brick (my personal favorite type of Hei Cha), the traditional “gold standard” is abundance of “golden flowers” (yellow fungal colonies inside the brick). The more yellow fungal colonies, the better.

Hei Cha produced in Hunan province (traditionally supplying to Northwestern Muslim regions) and Hei Cha produced in Sichuan province (traditionally supplying to Tibetan regions) both have grading systems categorizing products from higher grades loose leaf teas to various tea bricks. But even with such grading systems, not all drinkers prefer the higher grades. This is similar to the situation of pu’er, where the younger leaves are not always favored.

2. Of the many kinds of hei cha (besides pu’er), what are some of the major differences in taste and character?

BW: My experience with hei cha, is that most often in China when this term is used, people are referring to Hunan (or Sichuan) produced “dark tea” often from the Anhua region. To me, a classic Hunan hei cha will have a meadowy aroma and taste (as opposed to earthy). Think of fresh, green things after a rain, often with a decided sweet note. The “log” teas, (eg. bai liang 百两 etc.) often have a hint of a darker note; think molasses more than earthy. And I have tasted (and sell) some high-end tian jian 天尖 hei cha, with a decidedly piney aroma and flavor. I know there are hei chas from other regions of China, eg. Anhui, but they are so rarely seen outside their immediate locale my knowledge of them is limited. It seems that the Hunan (and to a lesser extent Sichuan) hei chas are the ones getting exported and reaching a larger audience, in China and elsewhere.

Having said that, I am going to seemingly contradict myself immediately—just this week I was given samples of 2 different hei chas, from southern Japan (this shocked the heck out of me, I had no idea they existed—this is one of the reasons I love the world of tea). They were wonderful, they were both very Japanesey, one had almost a fish sauce taste to it. And apparently they have been making these teas in these villages for hundreds of years (although they readily acknowledge the idea came from China). And if your definition of hei cha incorporates the idea of a secondary manufacturing process/step, that somehow involves additional microbial activity (and some degree of aging), they are definitely hei cha.

GS: I have difficulty describing the tastes. Chinese people often say Liu Bao (六堡) has “betel nut aroma”. But since I’ve never tasted betel nut, I have no idea what the aroma is. Liu Bao is tasteless to me, but I think it’s just because my taste buds are numb to it, and Liu Bao is liked by a lot of other people.

Liu An Tea seems the “least black” Hei Cha to me in terms of taste, physical appearance and processing method. I feel its taste is somewhat between other Hei Cha and aged sheng puerh.

My favorite type of Hei Cha is Fu Brick, the tea with yellow fungal colonies. People often say the tea has “fungal aroma”, and my understanding of this is a malty aroma with a hint of mushroom taste.

Although most Hei Cha products supplying to ethnic regions are in compressed forms (such as bricks, cakes or columns), some of the higher grades are in loose tea forms. These include Tian Jian (天尖, Heaven Tips), Gong Jian (贡尖, Tribute Tips) in Hunan Hei Cha, as well as Mao Jian (毛尖, Silver Tips) and Ya Xi (牙细, Fine Buds) in Tibetan Hei Cha. In spite of all their names, these “higher grade” Hei Chas are all composed of larger and older leaves than those found in most other tea varieties, but their leaves are usually of higher grade than those used for compressed Hei Cha. These loose tea Hei Cha usually have more abundant layers of flavors. It seems to me
they often have a rich “marine” flavor that’s not found in any other tea and is different from the “marine” flavor people may find in some Japanese green tea.

3. What advice do you give to those who want to start exploring and learning about hei cha?

BW:
First I would consider puerh and “other” dark teas as distinct, at least in terms of tasting, even though they are all hei cha. Also I would distinguish between varying places of origin, that always has a huge influence on the character of any tea. Next, it seems dark teas do have some similarities based on their form: looseleaf, bricks, cakes, logs etc. (although I don’t think this is necessarily a hard and fast rule), so I would be inclined to distinguish between these.

So now you’ve broken dark teas down to sub-sub-sub categories: I would get an inexpensive dark tea from each sub-sub-sub category, and see if you like it. And then in those sub categories you like, I would experiment upwards in terms of quality (and sometimes price).

One additional note- higher price does not necessarily mean higher quality. Hei cha tea from Hunan and Sichuan were both originally developed as “everyman” teas, they deliberately weren’t meant to be expensive—but there are some really, really nice and very different, inexpensive ones. And in the last few years companies have been producing some “fancier” hei chas from these areas, which are commanding higher prices (see my first answer).

GS:
(1) Start from inexpensive products. Traditionally some of the best Hei Cha products are least expensive in price. Nowadays there are some expensive Hei Cha products. Some are very well made, while some are probably just products of market hype. So I think those inexpensive traditional products are good start points. For example, Fu Bricks from An Hua (安化) Tea Factory or Yi Yang (益阳) Tea Factory; Liu Bao from Guangxi Wu Zhou (梧州) Tea Factory (three-crane brand).

(2) Sample broadly. Hei Cha has many vastly different varieties that may share barely any similarity in tastes. If you don’t like one Hei Cha, don’t rule out the possibility that you may love some other Hei Cha. Personally I never like any Liu Bao, but love some other Hei Cha.

(3) Explore various brewing methods to find the best one for you. Depending on the specific type, Hei Cha is potentially suitable for gongfu style (this is non-traditional for Hei Cha though), stove-top brewing, Western style (large teapot) brewing, or other. It could go well by itself, with milk, with milk + sugar/salt/spices…

4. What tips can you give on storing or aging hei cha?

BW: Your readers probably know all of this all ready, but…
Storage: some air circulation is good (airtight is bad), low to moderate humidity, protection from direct light of any kind, temp-between 40 and 70 F is OK, absolute isolation from any other aroma or taste producing products.

Aging: see above, puerhs seem to consistently (and over the long haul) seem to benefit most from aging, particularly uncooked puerhs. Although cooked puerhs definitely benefit from aging also. As do other hei chas, from Hunan or Sichuan or elsewhere- but my experience is that these other hei chas seems to stabilize after 3-6 years (this will vary a lot from tea to tea), and there doesn’t seem to be much change in the tea after that period of time. The above is mostly anecdotal or personal observation—I do not lay any claim to being any kind of hei cha expert. I proudly claim the mantle of fascinated student.

GS: I don’t age Hei Cha so don’t have much to say about it. In terms of storing, I think Hei Cha is generally very tolerant of humidity (more so than puerh). So common sense of tea storage (dark, free of odor, limited air flow) and humidity levels that feel comfortable for human living would work well on Hei Cha storage.

JW: Many thanks to Gingko and Bill for sharing their knowledge and experience.

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Does the success of a tea inevitably lead to its degradation?

Such a case could be made of some teas of Wu Yi Mountain (武夷山) in Fujian Province. The region is home to several classic and popular wulong teas. Da Hong Pao (大红袍), Shui Xian (水仙), and Tie Luo Han (铁罗汉) are just a few of the famous ones. In addition, new varieties are being developed. Golden Buddha (金佛) and Golden Key (金钥匙) are but some of the newer Wuyi teas that have been developed in recent decades.

The legendary nature of the 36 peaks and 99 cliffs of the protected Wuyi Mountain Scenic Area help feed a growing business. So much growth that there was talk of a Da Hong Pao bubble just a few years ago. The Wall Street Journal and tea businesses reported on it.

Separating fact from fiction in Wuyi teas can be challenging. If you want an ultimately authentic Wuyi wulong tea experience, there are a few keys that will help.

First is the classification of teas by area. Teas grown in the authentic scenic area are called zheng yan (正岩). Unless you fully trust the provider of a zheng yan, and paid very dearly for it, most of us will never taste a handmade, traditionally processed, authentic zheng yan tea. Another category is ban yan (半岩). Ban yan teas are grown on or just across the border separating the scenic area from other lands. While zheng yan can be grown at elevations of 400 meters above sea level in mountainous pockets with their unique micro-climates, ban yan teas may be in more open, lower areas. Below and beyond ban yan lies wai shan (外山), which literally means “outside the mountain.” These broader areas produce most of the commercial grade product on the market.

Secondly, varietals come into play. Beidou, a village approximately 20 miles away from the town of Wuyi Mtn, grew some of the early clones of the original Da Hong Pao bushes. The tea from these plants is descended from the mother plants, so does that make it authentic “Da Hong Pao”? If cuttings from these daughter plants are then grown in other zheng yan, ban yan, or wai shan regions, does this placement increase or decrease their authenticity? Many will say extended periods of time will cause these plants growing in these distinct locations to develop different characteristics. In other words, they are already on the path to becoming new varietals.

Thirdly, processing determines character. It is said that some farmers/processors may take portions of different teas: shui xian, tie luo han, or other wuyi wulongs and combine them. Then they deeply roast this concoction to even out differences in taste among the components. The resulting heavy roasted tea is deemed “da hong pao.”

With the rising popularity of these teas, increased tourism to the area, and appeal of da hong pao speculation, the answers to these questions may get cloudier before they get clearer.
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Origin: WuYi Mountain region
Harvest: mid-May 2011
Score: 91
Price (as of post): 2 oz = $25
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Sample provided by Red Blossom Tea Company.
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Origin: Anhui Province, China
Score: 90
Price (as of post): 2 oz = $21
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Sample provided by Mark T. Wendell Tea Co.
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Origin: TaiMu Shan, Fuding, Fujian. Fujian PinPinXiang Tea Co.
Harvest: June 2011
Score: 91
Price (as of post): 100 g = $8.90
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Sample provided by Teavivre.
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