Gushu Dian Hong, The Rare Yunnan Black Tea made from Ancient Tea Tree | HOJO Online Speciality Tea Shop

The characteristic of Gushu Dian Hong is its intense aftertaste, and this is far better than ordinary black tea.

Dian Hong means Yunnan Black Tea

Yunnan black tea is called “Dian Hong” in Chinese.
“Dian” means Yunnan, and “Hong” means black tea.
Gushu means Ancient Tree in Chinese. After all, Gu Shu Dian Hong means Yunnan Black Tea.

Rare black tea made from ancient tea tree planted in mountains, unlike ordinary black tea made from garden tea

Generally, most Yunnan black tea or Dian Hong available in tea stores are made in Feng Qing country. The Feng Qing county produces the major portion of Yunnan black tea.

Feng Qing county is dominated by Han Chinese which is very rare because other counties in Yunnan are generally dominated by the ethnic minorities.

In Yunnan, ancient tea gardens which consist of old tea trees often belong to ethinic minorities. They inherited from their ancestors.

On the other hand, most Han Chinese own gardens that consist of younger tea trees. It is because they have lived there not as long as the ethnic minorities. For this reason, the majority of tea gardens in Feng Qing consists of younger tree and gardens are managed in modern style like Japan, Taiwan, Indian or Sri Lanka tea gardens. Tea is grown with fertilizers and tea trees are regularly pruned.

Because of these reasons, tea from Feng Qing has generally lighter aftertaste.

Tea gardens in Feng Qing. It is managed in modern style.

Black tea made by the quality materials that are originally meant for making raw pu-erh tea

We particularly wanted to produce black tea from an ancient tea tree. So we look for the garden in a remote village, near the Myanmar border. The elevation of the garden is at 2100-2200 meters. The garden was owned by Ethnic minority, the Ye race. The tea garden was kept natural way and they use no fertilizer, no pesticide and no pruning of tea trees was carried out.

Usually in Yunnan, the owner of tea garen prefers to use these quality tea leaves for producing raw pu-erh tea, because quality raw pu-erh tea commands a higher price in tea market. .

After surveying the tea garden, we directly purchase the fresh tea leaves from the owner of the garden and hand it over to the black tea manufacturer to process it into black tea.

Picture of the production area of Gushu Dian Hong

Gushu Dian Hong made with the traditional Yunnan black tea process

The standard Dian Hong is made by rolling and intensive fermentation after short withering.
Because of short withering, tea leaves still contain higher moisture, and upon rolling, the fermentation, enzymatic oxidation takes place deeply.
For this reason, the color of the brewed tea leaves is copper red.
It gives a mild flavor and soft taste. A lot of people tend to think that black tea is astringent. They will probably be surprised by the soft drinking sensation and lingering sweet taste of this standard Gushu Dian Hong.

Because this tea is fermented well, with bold drinking sensation, and it goes very well with milk too. The milk enhances its natural sweetness, and it taste like a dessert.

One more interesting features of this tea is its flavor. As tea is grown without any pesticides and fertilizer, so it was easily attacked by planthoppers. Thanks to this, it has a soft-touch of honey flavor. We also call it muscatel flavor.
It also has flavor like menthol or brown sugar thanks to its intense fermentation.

Tea leaves were plucked when they were young. As such, it is soft and gentle in taste.

We made it from 1 bud and 2 leaves in order to get a soft and creamy drinking sensation.

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Gu Shu Dian Hong (Yunnan Black Tea) / 古树滇红 （云南古树红茶）