Our Traditional 5x Charcoal Roasted Tie Guan Yin tea is increasingly hard to find in Taiwan, as the trend has been to move towards modern Tie Guan Yin processing, which is a more light/moderate roast. However we were lucky that Farmer Yang’s good friend is one of the last farmers who does the Traditional 5x Charcoal roast. Despite this being a heavy roast, it’s far from over roasted, nutty wood aroma from the masterful roast while retaining a dark plum sweetness from the “Hard Stem Red Heart” cultivar that found its way to Taiwan from Fujian.
We love this tea, not just because it’s delicious, and that it will further improve with age, but also because it’s a rare tea, not made much anymore, that represents the history of Taiwan. Fujian is the Chinese province closest to Taiwan, and is most famous for making heavy roasted oolongs like Yan Cha and Tie Guan Yin. The Fujianese people are so integrated into Taiwanese history, as they’re not only where the Tea culture comes from, but also the Fujianese dialect is the backbone of the Taiwanese language.
Our Traditionally processed Tie Guan Yin is an ode to the origin of Taiwanese tea and culture. Charcoal roasting is a laborious and skill-intensive process involving burning wood, conserving the coals, covering with rice hulls (to prevent smoke from impacting the flavor of the tea) then laying the leaves for roast. The “Hard Stem Red Heart” cultivar is also notoriously difficult to use as it has sap that needs to be extracted prior to processing. Going against the modern trend of lighter roasts, we’re grateful to have a taste of tradition.
As this is a roasted tea, you can hit it with as hot temperature as you see fit. 95-100C is recommended.
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