Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe)

Da Hong Pao is considered the strongest full-bodied Oolong comparable to a top "espresso" in the coffee world. Multiple infusions of this tea will keep offering a uniquely multi-dimensional oolong flavour along with a silky-smooth aftertaste. It is a really good (maybe the best) mild-tasting, mid-roasted tea from Wuyi Mountain.

From the internet:

Dà Hóng Páo (大红袍) is a very important Wuyi Oolong tea. Legend has it that the mother of a Ming Dynasty emperor was cured of an illness by a certain tea, and that emperor sent great red robes to clothe the four bushes from which that tea originated. Three of these original bushes, growing on a rock on Mount Wuyi and reportedly dating to the Song Dynasty, still survive today and are highly venerated. Less than one kilogram of tea is harvested from these plants each year, of which a portion is retained by the Chinese government. The remainder of this original and real Da Hong Pao is auctioned, with an initial asking price of 4000 RMB/100 g, but often reaching millions of dollars per kilogram[1]. Cuttings taken from the original plants have been used to produce similar grades of tea from genetically identical plants. Taste variations produced by processing, differences in the soil, and location of these later generation plants is used to grade the quality of various Da Hong Pao teas.

Xiao Hong Pao, or Small Red Robe refers to Da Hong Pao grown from plants of fourth or greater generation, but the term is rarely used. In some cases Xiao Hong Pao is simply sold as Hong Pao, presumably for marketing purposes.

As it's of very high quality, the Da Hong Pao is usually reserved for honored guests. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Hong)

On our last trip to Chengdu, we bought some of the most expensive as well as some mid-priced Da Hong Pao tea. Here are the results of the tasting of these teas.

This is the most expensive Da Hong Pao we bought. We had the store put them in little individual bags which is quite common in most of the area tea stores in Emei City.

The leaves are dark and tightly curled. This seems to be typical of Oolong teas all over China. I wonder if one can really tell if a tea is a Oolong just by looking at these leaves. I would say one probably could.

This is a cheaper version of Da Hong Pao. Quite frankly, I could not really tell the difference between the two. This seemed to have less tiny pieces than the more expensive but this is probably because it was taken from a jar with a lot of teas and the flakes and dust were probably on the bottom of the container.


A close up reveals the texture of the dark orange colored tea leaves. Again, I could not see any great difference between the two teas. Sunee fixed herself some of the cheaper brand and let me taste it. The Da Hong Pao I was drinking definitely had a stronger and more distinct flavor but is it worth the difference in cost?

The first infusion (steeping) came out fairly strong with a bit of astringency but not bad. The "floral" taste must be the woody or earthy taste I experienced. Now that I think about it, I can taste the hints of floral but it is a quasi-floral with no distinct tastes coming to mind. The astringency part was probably because I let it seep a bit too long before drinking it. Nothing as astringent as we experienced with our yellow tea, however. This was not altogether unpleasant.

This is the third infusion and it remains consistently "floral." The taste is a bit stronger than the Guan Yin Wang I tasted yesterday. The floral taste was much more floral in the later infusions. This is a great tea for special occasions. It is not cheap by any standards. Even the mid-priced Da Hong Pao was, for our small pocket book, quite expensive. I can see why this is considered in the top ten best teas in China. It is time to make plans to visit Fujian and find out where this tea comes from. It should be a great trip, don't you think?

These are the wet leaves after three infusions. I ended up using the tleaves another four times before discarding them. Probably could have gotten another two out of them if I had pushed it. Kinda makes the tea not so expensive after all.

Just to prove that the tea came from a Da Hong Pao tea bag. The bags were small, just enough for a gaiwan.

Guan Yin Wang

Guan Yin Wang means the king of the Iron Goddess Teas. Tie Guan Yin is listed as one of the top ten best teas in China. Guan Yin Wang, therefore, is supposed to be the king of Tie Guan Yin. According to what I found on the internet, the taste of this tea is light and can make people's mouth fresh and clean. The best way to make this tea is to use a small pot with hot water. It is supposed to be able to make 6-7 steepings. Let's check this great tea out as we bought a couple of pounds when we were in Chengdu last time.

As you can see, the leaves are a mixture of dark and green. Most of them are tightly curled with some easily recognized as tea leaves. The color seems to be about 60 percent green and 40% dark. Rather an interesting looking tea.

A close up of the leaves pretty well looks like tea leaves with the green being a very pretty shade. The dark leaves are definitely dark as you can see.

Here is the label from the bag we bought the tea in. We had the loose leaves placed in the container from the store that specialized in this tea. This just proves that the tea at least came from a Guan Yin Wang tea bag.


With my cute little pot, I placed about a spoonful of the dried leaves in the pot and filled it with hot water. Did my first drain and then refilled the pot. I let the tea leaves steep for about a minute and had my first Guan Yin Wang tea. Was it light? Absolutely and it was also very refreshing.

As I surfed the web, I had three more steepings of the tea and I found that the fifth was, indeed, the best. The tea is mild and refreshing with indications that it has affects on my senses. By the time I had a couple of cups, I felt slightly alert, not that I was falling asleep or anything. This tea is very, very good. We will be taking some of it back to Thailand with us for sure.

The leaves unfurl and are quite large in relation to what we have been drinking before. As you can see in the pot, the leaves are definitely leaves from the tea plant. This is a wonderful tea to drink throughout the day.

Sunday Afternoon Tea Tasting

We wanted to use our new tea tray and our new gongfu tea set so we decided to have a tea tasting party. Of course, we invited Tom for a Sunday afternoon tea tasting. In addition, I sent an email to my older brother in Oklahoma with an invitation to join us. More just to let him know what we were doing than anything else.


Using Apple Mail, I developed my own invitation template to emphasize tea and sent out the invitation that went over 10,000 miles away. Needless to say, my brother did not show up for the tea tasting.


Tom showed up for the party at exactly 1400. We had already set up our tea service tray on the coffee table in the living room. I had laid out all the utensils and the tea. Actually, I laid out a bunch of tea just in case we got diligent in our tasting. I had only planned for five teas with a couple more greens if we had the time. Tom reads over the steps for a Chinese Culture Tea Tasting that I copied from the internet.

Here Sunee prepares all the cups and pitchers and teapots for our first official Chinese Tea Tasting. We had bought a couple of pounds of cookies which we could munch on as the party went forward.

Here Sunee heats the cups and gets them set up for the ordeal. Since I had already done a tasting of the fine Yunnan Golden Tip or Bud Black Tea, I did not take any photos of it except when Tom drank some. We started with this tea because it was not overpowering and was very smooth and easy to drink.

Tom agreed that it was as good as advertised.


Next up was the Puerh Tuocha that we had purchased last summer in Yunnan. I had also already tasted this and registered it in this blog so I did not take a lot of pictures.


The Tuocha performed wonderfully, giving us three or four solid steepings which we drank with enthusiasm. I asked Tom to describe the taste and he responded that it reminded him of a damp forest with the smell of woods and earth. Each steeping provided the same sensation with the second being the best. This puerh was smooth from beginning to end, front to back. I, once again, felt my face go a bit numb as the tea took effect. I like puerh very much.

Normally the Tuocha puerh is of lower quality, has a lot of dust in it and tends to be smooth but a little lacking in excitement. Not so the loose leaf puerh we had purchased in Chengdu. Here Tom takes in the aroma of the leaves before we begin the "gongfuing" of the tea.


Following directions from the internet concerning a tea tasting, we also felt and looked closely at the leaves, noting the size, color and texture. Of course, we had no idea what we were looking for or looking at, but we were tea tasters for sure!


Sunee prepares the tea and pours the first steeping of this fine tea using the Gongfu method.


The puerh is beautiful in this first steeping. The color is dark, deep with orange overtones. It was as good as it looked. At first, we had hints of wet woods and earth and something else we could not quite get. Something that was familiar to us but . . . we were not quite sure.


Sunee prepares the second steeping and then leaves us to go work on her Chinese watercolor painting.


Tom continues with this second steeping, leaving the steep for a couple of minutes longer than the first. This second steeping absolutely blew us away. Both Tom and I said, "Tobacco!" at exactly the same time. This puerh felt, tasted, or whatever one calls it like a fine, expensive Cuban cigar. Now we are wondering if one can call it "cigary?" Such a cigar has a sensation that one has to experience to understand. As the smoke fills the mouth, the tongue and roof respond with unique sensations like no other. This is exactly how our mouths were reacting to this tea. Cup after cup, we enjoyed this really unique feeling and relaxed and talked about cigars and this puerh tea. Both of us were enjoying our first official Chinese Tea Tasting.

As we drank our "cigary" puerh tea, we talked about puerh and I showed Tom my two cakes I had bought recently in Chengdu. I shared what little knowledge we had learned and suggested that these puerh cakes may be a decent investment to take back to the States whenever he decided to return. We plan to get a few more to take with us back to Thailand in January.

The third, fourth and fifth steepings, although the time increased for each, were equally as good and satisfying as the second.


This is the fifth steeping and it was just as beautiful and just as "cigary" as the previous. We discussed the cost per serving of this fine tea and decided that it was probably cheaper than the others even though we had paid a lot more for it than the others. Puerh is a great tea to drink and it is supposed to be one of the healthiest teas to drink as well.

During the sixth and final steeping of the puerh, Sunee returned with her recently finished watercolor painting to show Tom. She has gotten to be very good in her paintings as you can see.


Time for a change. I had this Hong Xiang Fei Scented Green tea and wanted Tom to try. He does his smell, look and touch thing as all good tea tasters are required to do. This tea is one strange looking tea. The tea is rolled into little balls with brown looking stuff on the outside. It looked very much like rat or rodent droppings, a big rat or big rodent to be sure.


With this tea, I became lazy and used our teapot from Taiwan. After around two minutes of steeping, we poured our first shot.


The tea turned out to be weak so we decided to do it again by pouring it back into the basket for a few more minutes. We then discussed what we had experienced. Tom thought it had hints of rose or some other flower but he could not be sure. I could not make out the fragrance because my stomach felt a bit odd. I had not liked this tea when we first tried it and my feeling probably would not change this time.

The second steeping screamed at us "ROSE!" and my stomach returned the scream of "ACID!" Tom, however, liked it and finished it off. Me! I went to get some Zantac to stop the heartburn. This tea is not for me! We both decided that it tasted like year-old rose potpourri that had been left in my grandma's easter hat box for at least a year. I hated the smell and the taste.

Tom emptied the used leaves into one of the cups so I could take a picture of them. Do they look like tea leaves to you?

Here Tom finally gets one of the balls to open up into a definite tea leaf. It looked to be a very young leaf but who am I to know what is young and what is not! I ended up giving the Hong Xiang Fei we had left over to Tom. At least, he will drink it.

Our final tea would be the Emei Mountain Yin Zhen Yellow tea I have already tasted for this blog. I wanted Tom to try it and see what his reaction would be. Here he loads the gaiwan up with the yellow tea. He, of course, did the aroma smell, long look and feeling beforehand.

He was unsure of the amount of tea he should use so he filled it about half full or so.


The washing of the white heron, or so the Chinese saying goes for this step. Making sure the unwanted impurities are washed away.




The above steps are carried out with precision and we let the yellow tea steep for several minutes.

Here Tom pours the first steeping as I anxiously await this unique yellow tea.

Here is the first steeping and I thought it looked a lot darker than when I had made it before. The yellow was very deep and strong looking. One sip and Tom and I both let out a yell. Astringent is the correct word, but we both said WOW!. Too many leaves and too long brewing for sure. Eventually we did a second and third steeping and they were both perfect. It is difficult to describe this tea. It starts out with a bitter feeling (not really a taste) and then changes flavors or tastes depending on where it touches the tongue. Strange but wonderful sensations as we held the tea in our mouths. The aftertaste was definitely there, a bit sweet and a little bitter but not unpleasant. We may have made a mistake by not rinsing our mouths out after the first cup but I doubt if the sensations would have changed much. This tea is complicated, interesting and very pleasant. I can only imagine what the Jun Mountain Yun Zhen yellow tea would be like. It is listed as one of the top ten teas in the world. We plan to find some when we travel to the Tea Culture Town next month. Could get some at the local department store but I truly doubt if it is the real thing based on what I have read about it.

This yellow tea was a great way to finish the tea tasting. Luckily we started with a smooth and single taste tea and finished with a very complicated and complex tea. Our first tea tasting would have to be considered a great success. Now when to have another one?

Yunnan Golden Bud Black Tea

This morning I felt like trying something different. We had just finished all of our tea from the "I have no idea what this tea is" cache of teas and are now into the fully labeled and identified teas. Something about this Yunnan Black Tea that interested me. Here is one of the reasons why:

One of the few best Chinese black teas, given as tribute by Yunnan local government to visiting foreign VIP’s and Chinese top leaders. Growing in organic tea gardens of high mountains, only fat fine buds of Spring first crop are plucked to produce this Golden Bud A. Less than 2,000kg made each year. Attractive golden buds without a black leaf in sight. This tea brews a bright amber color liquor. Smooth, sweet honey flavor with elegant flowery aroma. Highly prized by tea connoisseurs. (http://www.pu-erhtea.com/BlackTea.htm)

Pretty impressive write-up, wouldn't you agree? Of course, the site is a commercial tea site so they will never have any negative write-ups about their teas. The information we were given about this tea pretty well matched the above description.

It was the best black tea money could buy out of Yunnan according to the guy we bought it from. He had a tea shop that specialized in tea from Yunnan and, of course, he was from Yunnan. It is called Jin Ya or Golden Bud/Shoot. The guy we bought it from in the Tea Culture Town gave some pretty good information about the tea and we tasted it before we bought it. Sunee does not care for it (she thinks it taste like Thai tea) but I like it because I definitely "feel" its effects on me almost immediately. Here is the "tasting" of the Yunnan Golden Bud Black Tea.



As you can see, the tea leaves are almost entirely golden in color. This means it has been hand-picked and only the "buds" or "shoots" have been chosen.


This is a very impressive close up to show the golden hue that each tea leaf has plus the white hairs that cover the buds. According to the seller, the number of golden leaves and the fine hair is the guarantee that this tea is what he says it is.


This tea makes a beautiful dark amber liquid. It really is as beautiful a tea as one will ever fine, IMHO. It looks like tea to the Western eyes. The taste is smooth from start to finish. It does not have the characteristic green tea bite at the beginning and the green tea aftertaste. It is smooth and mellow with hints of smoke and pepper. The effects are almost immediate for me. My face gets very numb all over and makes me feel very relaxed. It is almost like getting a shot of novacaine at the dentist office. Is this the "qi" thing that I have read about at some of the sophisticated tea sites on the web such as Mattcha? I will definitely buy some more of this tea when we return to Chengdu in a couple of weeks. It will also make nice Christmas gifts to my friends and relatives in Thailand. Too bad I have no way of getting it back to the United States before Christmas. Maybe next year, big brother, maybe next year.

As I mentioned earlier, Sunee does not care for this tea. She thinks it tastes like the cheap Thai tea she is used to. For me, I like it a lot and especially for the feeling I get after drinking it. My mind is clear but my body is very relaxed. Guess that is why we drink tea and the Chinese wrote so many lines of poetry about drinking tea.


Here are the leaves after my last steeping (third infusion). I have seen some of my favorite tea blogs show pictures of the tea leaves when they were done with them. Hey, I can do that too!

One thing I have found about this tea, it is only good for two or at the most three infusions. I am waiting now to have my third and final Yunnan Golden Bud Black Tea. Why not come and join me?

Emei Mountain Yin Zhen Yellow Tea

There is a new department store (Focus Market) just down the street from where we generally do all of our shopping. On Thursday, we went there to see what it had. It was modern with many new products that we may be interested in later.

What really caught my eye was their tea offerings. Much of it was typical green tea from Emei Mountain, but some were quite unique. I had not prepared to look at tea so I did not have my cheat sheet with me. I did notice two kinds of tea that seemed to be white tea. I remembered that a kind of white tea was called "silver needles" or yin zhen. Two types of this yin zhen were being offered at this store. I went back home and researched white tea and the yin zhen and, sure enough, it was as I had remembered.

On Sunday we went back to visit the store and I bought some of the Emei Mountain Yin Zhen. The other was a Jun Shan Yin Zhen but I wanted to have the locally produced tea. When we returned home, I did some more research and found that this particular yin zhen was, in fact, a yellow tea. The white tea was known as bai hao yin zhen. According to my research, the best yin zhen yellow tea comes from Jun Shan:


Mt. Jun Silver Needle is one of China’s most famous teas and is honored as the king of Yellow teas. The tea originates from Jun Shan Island (also known as the Island of Immortals) of Lake Dong Ting in Hunan Province. The yearly production of this tea is very limited, using only early Qing Ming harvest. Tea leaves picked after this period were processed into other teas such as Jun Shan Mao Jian and Jun Shan Lu Cha. Jun Shan Yin Zhen was an Imperial Tribute tea back in the ancient days, and is also well-known as Chairman's Mao favorite tea. The tea is composed of needle shaped buds that are relatively dry and green in color. In recent years, it is getting increasingly difficult to obtain authentic Jun Shan Yin Zhen. Processing this yellow tea requires great skill and effort. It has a delicate aroma with a hint of floral notes. The taste is smooth, light and sweet at first sip but finishes with a fleeting smoky taste. After a few cups, you will still feel the light sweetness in your mouth.

OK, so I did not buy the most famous yellow tea in the world. It will be interesting to try this particular Emei Mountain Yin Zhen and we will just have to try the other later.


To try this yellow tea, we broke out our new tea tray which we had bought at the Tea Culture Town area. Isn't it beautiful with the matching set of "tea tools?"


The leaves of the Emei Mountain Yin Zhen are greenish to yellow in color and resemble the shape of Zhu Ye Qing and other premium green teas from Emei. We only bought a small amount to try because it was expensive (50 grams was around $3).


This is a close up of the Yin Zhen leaves. One can easily see the light green and yellow color and the texture. They were not as tightly dried as the best greens from the local area.






We do not use the Gong Fu Method for our teas yet. That will come later. For now we are lazy and use a teapot kind of thing from Taiwan we bought from a Pu-erh Store in Yunnan Province this last summer. It is called the Piao I Teapot and it works great! Eventually we will get some bigger gaiwans for our wulongs and some teapots (hopefully Yixings) for some of the other teas. For now we just use this great little invention. In fact, we have three of them with the other two being cheaper Chinese copies. They seem to all work about the same. Guess we have not reached the "tea snobbery" state yet.



The tea is a beautiful deep yellow. This is with about a three minute steep. The taste reminded me of the initial taste of Xue Ya but much sweeter and with less of a lasting aftertaste. The sensation is very complex but seemed to be just a bit weak. I think we will have to steep it longer to get these flavors to come out a little stronger.

Sunee thought it tasted like Zhu Ye Qing but I found it to be a lot more subtle with several different overtones that I would be hard pressed to describe. I like the tea and especially its deep yellow color. I think it would be interesting to get the famous Jun Mountain Yin Zhen and do a taste comparison between it and this tea. What do you think?