Red tea · Fujian
Zhengshan Xiaozhong
zhèngshān xiǎozhǒng · 正山小种
“Original-mountain small-leaf” — Lapsang Souchong, the first black tea ever made, from Tongmu in the Wuyi mountains. The classic style is dried over pinewood smoke, for a cup of longan, pine resin and warm sweetness.
- Region
- Tongmu, Wuyi, Fujian — 700–1,800 m
- Harvest
- Early summer
- Oxidation
- Fully oxidised (80–95%)
- Cultivar
- Wuyi xiaozhong bushes
In the cup
Dried longan, pine smoke and a malty sweetness — warm and resinous in the smoked style, honey-sweet and fruity in the unsmoked.
What it gives
A warming, full-bodied red — fully oxidised, low in astringency and comforting, an easy black tea for any time of day.
Zhengshan Xiaozhong — original-mountain small-leaf, known in the West as Lapsang Souchong — is, by most accounts, the first black tea ever made. It was born in Tongmu, a remote village high in the Wuyi mountains of Fujian, sometime in the seventeenth century, when fully oxidising and pine-drying the leaf turned out to travel and keep far better than the greens of the day. Every red tea in the world descends from this idea.
The classic style is smoked: the leaf is dried over smouldering pinewood, taking up a resinous, longan-sweet character that is unmistakable. A modern unsmoked style is now common too, letting the same Wuyi leaf show a cleaner honey-and-fruit sweetness. Zhèngshān — “original mountain” — marks the genuine Tongmu article against the many imitations.
In the cup
Brew it around 90 °C and short, gongfu style, after a quick rinse. The smoked style pours a deep red liquor of dried longan, pine resin and malt, warm and round; the unsmoked is brighter, honeyed and fruity. Both are smooth, full-bodied and gentle — and both reward the unhurried, evolving steeps of gongfu brewing.
How to brew
Zhengshan Xiaozhong
Water
90 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
Rinse, then 10–20 s gongfu
Vessel
Gaiwan or small pot
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