47 products
What is Chinese black tea?
Black tea is deeply oxidized tea — 70–90%, with no kill-green step to stop the enzymes — and in China it goes by another name: hong cha, "red tea", after the reddish-brown color of the infusion. The Western label dates to the 17th century, when European merchants sorted shipments simply into "green" and "black". Whatever you call it, artisan Chinese black tea has little in common with flat, tannic teabag blends: it is naturally sweet and aromatic — baked sweet potato, cocoa, honey, dried longan, malt — smooth enough to need no milk or sugar, though it takes both gracefully.
Where was black tea invented?
Every black tea on Earth traces back to one mountain pass: Tongmuguan, a former border garrison at 1,100–1,500 m in the Wuyi range of northern Fujian, where red teas have been made since the 16th–17th centuries. Local legend calls it an accident at the end of the Ming dynasty: passing soldiers slept a night on freshly picked leaves, the bruised leaf turned red, and farmers salvaged the batch by drying it over pinewood. They disliked the result — but the European merchants who tasted it ordered more for the next harvest. Deep oxidation also let the tea survive months at sea, something fresh green tea never managed.
How is black tea made?
Withered leaves are rolled to bruise them, left to oxidize for several hours, then slowly heated and dried. The craft rule is simple: the slower the heating and the more moderate the temperature during oxidation and drying, the finer the red tea. Green tea takes the opposite road, fixed within hours of picking; black tea is defined by that long oxidation, which darkens the leaf and builds its warm, malty sweetness.
Which Chinese black teas should you know?
Dian Hong from Yunnan — golden buds and notes of honey, pepper and sweet potato; a young classic, created in the late 1930s by technologist Feng Shaoqiu to rival Indian black teas. Zhengshan Xiaozhong — renamed Lapsang Souchong by British merchants; «Zhengshan», "the original mountain", was added to the name to fend off the fakes that followed its fame — comes both pine-smoked and unsmoked. Jin Jun Mei — made purely of buds, roughly 120,000–140,000 of them per kilo, invented as recently as 2005 by Jiang Yuanxun, a 24th-generation Tongmu tea master. Plus Guangdong: Yingde Hong and small-lot reds from Dancong cultivars, a technique worked out in 2009. Many of these historic tea localities are now protected nature reserves; our teas are handmade on small farms there.
Chinese black teas at a glance
| Tea | Region | Taste | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dian Hong | Yunnan | Honey, baked sweet potato, light pepper | Sweet and malty — the friendliest first black tea |
| Zhengshan Xiaozhong (smoked) | Tongmu, Wuyi mountains | Pinewood smoke, dried fruit | The original Lapsang Souchong: bold, campfire-like |
| Zhengshan Xiaozhong (unsmoked) | Tongmu, Wuyi mountains | Sweet caramel, longan, cocoa | The modern style: all the sweetness, no smoke |
| Jin Jun Mei | Tongmu, Wuyi mountains | Honey, flowers, ripe fruit | Buds only — a refined special-occasion tea |
How to brew black tea
Red tea is easygoing: 4–5 g per 150 ml gongfu style with water at 90–95°C and short steeps, or a teaspoon per mug for 3–4 minutes Western style. It stays sweet even if you forget it for a minute — an ideal breakfast and office tea, and a warming choice for the cold season.
Every lot is tasted and bought directly from producers at origin. Orders ship fast from our Amsterdam warehouse across the Netherlands and Europe, and you can always taste before you buy at the Moychay tea club — Rozengracht 92H, Amsterdam.
Facts and figures in this guide are based on “Geography of Chinese Tea” by Sergey Shevelev, founder of Moychay — written after visiting every tea-producing province of China.
