Yesterday, we tried a couple of interesting teas with the guys 🌟 One of them was Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong (正山小种) ‘sweet potato’. It is classified as a red tea (which we call black tea in the West).
It’s a late-April harvest from the Wu Yi Mountains area (elevation 500–550 meters) in the northern part of Fujian Province.
History
The name of the tea translates to ‘tea from the right mountains,’ which relates to the period after the Opium Wars in the early 20th century. External capital flowed into China, intensifying competition, including in the tea industry. Many new types of tea appeared, including red teas that were not authentic Xiao Zhong. To protect the trademark and quality, the real Xiao Zhong was called Zheng Shan, meaning ‘true’, while teas similar to it, harvested from surrounding mountains, were called Wai Shan Cha (外山茶), meaning ‘tea from the outer mountains.’
It’s worth noting that in today’s Chinese tea market, the issue of substituting real Xiao Zhong with a similar tea from ‘outer mountains’ remains unchanged. This can be said about almost any quality material.
This tea is the #1 red tea in China and the oldest variety of Chinese tea overall!
Methodology
When preparing Xiao Zhong, the tea leaves are smoked over pine needles or wood, which is the main reason for the rich and distinctive aroma of this tea. The pine trees grow alongside the tea in Wu Yi Shan, Fujian Province.
Organoleptics 🐽
The dry leaves mesmerize with a bright aroma of coffee beans and the pastry “sweet potato.” When warmed, it releases a dark hot chocolate, rye bread, and a wealth of sweet raisin notes like those found in Easter cake. In the wet leaves, the rye aroma intensifies, and the raisins take on a slightly fermented quality, like in kvass. After steaming, delicate baked notes and an oyster shell mineral quality emerge.
The taste carries all the above descriptors, with rye bread and a generous amount of raisins standing out the most.
