Travel Guide · Food · 03
Chinese Tea
Tea in China is older than paper, and as a practice it can be as simple or as deep as you wish. A few hours in a tea house will likely change the rest of your trip.
Tea in China is older than paper, and as a practice it can be as simple or as deep as you wish. A few hours in a tea house will likely change the rest of your trip.
A short map of the leaf.
All true tea comes from Camellia sinensis. The six major categories are determined by processing: green (unoxidised, fresh and grassy), white (lightly wilted and dried, delicate), yellow (similar to green with a slow “sealing” step, mellow), oolong (partially oxidised, the widest flavour range), black / red (fully oxidised, deep and warming), and dark / post-fermented (aged, earthy, restorative — Pu-erh is the best known).
A simple rule of thumb: green and white for daytime clarity, oolong for slow afternoons, black for digestion, dark for the colder months. None of this is dogma — trust your own palate.
Six regional teas to seek out.
China's most famous green tea, from the hills west of Hangzhou. Flat, jade-green leaves, a chestnut-sweet finish. Best brewed at 80–85°C.
A floral, complex oolong from Anxi in Fujian. Multiple infusions, each one slightly different. The gateway tea for most newcomers to oolong.
A legendary Wuyi Mountain oolong, deeply roasted, with notes of stone fruit and dark cocoa. Drink slowly, in good company.
A fermented tea from Yunnan, aged from a few months to many decades. Sheng is bright and evolving; shou is dark, smooth, and grounding.
A gentle white tea with notes of honey, melon and dried apricot. Exceptionally forgiving to brew — hard to get wrong.
A classic Chinese black tea — the base of many English Breakfast blends. Smooth, slightly smoky, deeply satisfying.
The short version of a deep practice.
Gongfu (功夫) means skill developed over time. Practised, it is a way of paying attention. Start with a small clay teapot or a gaiwan, a few grams of good oolong, and water just off the boil. The first infusion is brief, the second longer, the third longest. The leaves will give you ten or more infusions if you listen.
A tea house (茶馆) is one of the great pleasures of travelling in China. Spend an afternoon in one, order a pot of whatever is local, and let the hours pass. In Chengdu's People's Park, in Hangzhou by the lake, in a quiet alley in Suzhou — the tea houses vary; the practice is the same.
We can arrange private tea ceremonies with masters in Hangzhou, Chengdu or Wuyishan — the kind you remember for years.