Keemun Black Tea
Indescribable Sweetness
Keemun is one of our favorite black teas
- and is one of the reasons that
un-blended whole leaf teas are so much more interesting than
the mediocre and consistent blends more commonly available.
Keemun
One of the two or three best black teas in the world, Keemun
is deservedly one of China's Ten Most Famous Teas, even though
the Chinese rarely drink it. Like Ti Quan Yin, Keemun is a
cultivar or subvariety of tea plant unto itself and this is
what accounts for its splendor of flavor and perfume. This
is the only tea leaf in which an essential oil called myrcenal
is found — it also occurs in oil of Bay and this is what
lends its indescribable sweetness to the taste of the tea.
Its aroma is like a dying black rose, I think - friends less
poetic are reminded of toast hot from the oven. Strange
to relate, Qimen, the county in Anhui Province where this
miracle of vegetation is found, almost failed to become
the home of Keemun. The area produced only green tea up
until 1875. Having been dismissed in disgrace from his post
as a junior mandarin in Fujian and not daring to face his
father, a young man named She Ganchen cam home only after
learning how to produce the black congou Fujian exported
to England. He persuaded his father that congou could be
profitably made in Qimen, little dreaming it would in fact
become world famous. It has been prized ever since She Ganchen
sold his first in 1875. All Keemun is distinctive and much
of it is superior. Then you discover Keemun Mao Feng and
Keemun Hao Ya, which are simply superb-perfectly formed
leaf, black as asphalt after dark, with taste as delicate
as bird song. These are handmade teas for which reservations
are required, sol little is produced. Their unique Keemun
flavors are so nuanced and layered that one feels adding
milk or sugar would be sacrilegious, faint praise impossible.
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2003 All Rights Reserved, In
Pursuit of Tea, Inc.
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