A brief history of Chinese black tea
While China defines tea by liquor colour — hóng chá translates as ‘red tea’ — the West calls it black after the dark, wiry leaf. First developed in Fujian’s Wuyi Mountains during the late Ming dynasty (c. 1568), black tea emerged as a more stable form for export along the ancient Tea Horse Road and later to Europe. The fully oxidized character became the foundation for classic styles: Lapsang Souchong, traditionally smoked over pine wood, carries the memory of those early frontier caravans. From Anhui province came Keemun, a qìmén hóng chá prized for its winey, floral-malty complexity — a key component of English Breakfast blends. In more recent decades, Fujian’s Jīn Jùn Méi (金骏眉), composed entirely of tender buds, reset the conversation around luxury black tea with its honey-sweet refinement.
Crafting a great black tea demands precise timing. Spring and early summer picks undergo a sequence of withering, rolling, careful oxidation (the step that turns the leaf copper-red), and finally firing or, in Lapsang’s case, smoking over smouldering pine roots. The result is a tea that can be bold yet smooth, accommodating boiling water without bitterness. Where green teas lean crisp and ephemeral, black tea offers a lingering, caramel-like finish — a daily ritual with remarkable depth.
This season’s hóng chá selection
Zhou Xiang brings three distinct expressions of Chinese black tea, each from a storied origin and handled with the lightest touch from withering to final firing. Fresh 2025 lots, small-batch sourced.