Lapsang Souchong Tea - an acquired taste!

We continued on our tea tasting today with one of our more exotic teas, namely Lapsang Souchong.

It has a magnificent smokey aroma, which combined with its wonderfully large rolled leaves creates a lasting impression. Once tried, never forgotten!

Of course such a tea has to come with its own legend of discovery and I'm pleased to say that our research didn't let us down.

The Legend goes as follows. During the Qing dynasty, an army unit passing through Xingcun (Star Village) camped in a tea factory filled with fresh leaves awaiting processing. When the soldiers left and the workers were allowed back to their businesses, they realized that if the tea was to arrive at market in time, they couldn't allow the leaves to dry in the normal way. So they lit some open fires of pine wood to speed up the drying process. Not only did the tea reach the market in time, but the smoked pine flavor created the taste and aroma we experience today.

Once you get past the smoke and tar flavours, the tea has a rich and malty flavour, and brews to a deep red colour. Although this tea can be drunk with milk, there seems little point as it is totally overwhelmed by the other flavours.

Once again I felt quite frustrated in my research at the lack of detailed information on this truly historic tea. There is no growing information easily available, apart from the fact that it is grown in the vast province of Fujian, and that the tea originally came from the Zheng Shan part of Mount Wuyi. This is fine, but where does this tea particularly come from?