A Few Ways to Select a Tea

Select a tea by category, region, taste or TCM character

At TeaHong.com, we try to put ourselves in our customers’ shoes. Different people have different priorities. Each sees the world differently. Naturally when it comes to selecting a tea, your criteria may not be the same as that of any other tea drinkers. That is why we group our tea products in different ways so you can see them in the context that is closest to how you think when selecting a tea.

Selection by
Tea Category

Selection by
Tea Region

Selection by
Taste Preference

Selection by
TCM Character

Our Tea Master’s personal favourites

Before doing your own selections, you may also want to check out what our Tea Master’s very own favourites here.

Or refer to his best loved oolongs here:

by random order

Selection by Tea Category

The most common way to group different varieties of tea is by the category of processing method with which they are produced. Some call it Tea Classification, others Tea Categorisation. We think the later label is semantically more accurate.

Many connoisseurs and tea specialists organise their collections with this concept.

The above chart shows the five main categories: Green, Black, White, Pu’er ( Post-Fermentation ) and Oolong teas. Click the pie chart to browse the category of tea, click on your choice and enjoy the browse!

Need more info about a category before seeing the products? Here are some articles:

Our tea regions

Fenghuang / Phoenix

Tea farmer withering tea leaves in the afternoon sun

Huangshan/ Anhui

Tea picking on the hill side terrace

Minnan-Mindong, Fujian

Wang's peak farm

Nepal, the Himalayas

Tea Regions of TeaHomg.com: Nepal / Himalayas

Taiwan

Master Li talks about ant problem in his wild Red Jade tea field

Wuyi-shan

A tea field in Wuyi

Yunnan

Thick linen are being put on piles of tealeaves for post-fermentation in Yunnan

Zhejiang

Tea Hong: Finest Hand-roasted Green tea: Longjing Spring Equinox

Selection by Taste

Teas are like raw gems. The true taste of each awaits the revelation made possible by the way you make it. Your personal need matters. It may change according to mood, time of the day, and occasions.

tasting

Tasting is the ultimate way to learn about a tea

Experience and explore

Begin by tasting a few selections using various infusion styles to gain more specialist understanding of the finesses and differences. Relate this with your personal preferences and you will gradually carve out a direction in building your own repertoire of tea. This will be your very own line that best suits your taste and your needs. With repeated usage your senses and perceptions will deepen. This will empower you with the connoisseur skill to easily master yet more varieties to continue to gain levels in the vast world of tea.

Selection by TCM Characters

This is for those who understand the needs of answering the voice of the body. A well customised and balanced collection not only helps to maximise tea’s health benefits, but also tea’s gastronomic qualities. At Tea Hong, we categorise our collection by traditional Chinese medicinal character.

Check out trending best sellers

If all these other ways of thinking about how to select a tea are not for you, perhaps you can see what other people are buying. These are some of what’s trending now:

Information on a tea page

Detail information on each tea page includes a description, taste profile, infusion tips and a few properties described with icons. This article gives a general orientation in case you want to prepare yourself before browsing.

Customer Reviews

Yet another way to get an idea is to see how other customers see our products. Read a few random reviews they have posted in this site, and click on the link to go to the product page:

  • Dianhong Classic, traditional black tea

    Delightful Taste
    My wife and I tried to discern the taste profile of Dianhong Classic 2019 as described by Leo Kwan and reviewer Karen Ager, but our taste buds were not refined enough to match their descriptions to the taste we experienced. Suffice to say that we found this tea delightful and calming, and we enjoyed it very much! We brewed gong fu style and the high quality of tea was maintained through many rounds of brewing, varying the rounds with increasing steeping time and temperature!

    Jeffery Leong
  • Snow Orchid, bouquet Phoenix dancong oolong

    If you’re a fan of Anxi or Taiwanese oolongs, you should definitely check Snow Orchid out. It might replace your current-favorite oolong.

    The leaf quality is superb, the aroma of the dry leaf is intoxicating, and the experience in the cup is unlike anything else out there. I’ve had quite a few different examples of freeze-dried Fenghuang oolong and this is the best one by far. Employing Ya Shi as a cultivar was a great choice, it naturally has a buttery silkiness to it that is amplified by the processing techniques here, and it has created something unrivaled even in the larger, and more generalized, world of oolongs. You just won’t find any other oolong quite as rich and decadent as this one.

    It’s super thick and creamy, it oozes rich and gooey notes of fruits and flower with explosions of milk & whipped honey that are somehow front-and-center, yet also manage to support all of the other notes without drowning them out. I get some fruits reminiscent of citrus and pears, with hints of mangoes, melons, and eventually berries as the session progresses. There are some apparent, mineral-rich undertones that are gentle and stitch the whole experience together, reminding me that despite how velvety and smooth this tea is, at the end of the day it’s a high-end Fenghuang oolong, and so it will carry that characteristic bright minerality with it that all good dancong should have.

    I’m surprised by the persistence of this tea. It has remarkable stamina when brewed up gong-fu style and will hold its composure very well across the full session, never falling apart. The color of the soup retains its clarity and does not become hazy. This is definitely a marathon runner, and it will go the extra mile where other freeze-dried dancong will fall apart and become bitter.

    The leaf quality is superb. These are thick and wholesome leaves, processed uniformly and gently to retain the full spectrum of oils and aromatics that are produced within the leaves.

    A quick word on processing: if the “zao qing” is done improperly, the freeze-drying technique will create brittle cell walls, which physically fall apart in the presence of near-boiling water. The cell walls disintegrate, the leaf starts to break down, and the resultant extraction becomes cloudy with tiny, almost microscopic bits and pieces of what used to be the constituents of the cell walls. Therefore, the real trick with freeze-dried Fenghuang oolong is to figure out how to pair the manual/mechanical processing techniques (“rattling”) with the freeze-drying in order to create something that releases tons and tons of flavor, but does not physically fall apart during extraction.

    Tea Hong’s Snow Orchid achieves just that. I see why it took over a decade to fine-tune the process… it’s not easy to make something like this, and the mastery of the technique shows in every single second of the session.

    NN
  • Alishan Guanyin, deep baked Taiwan oolong

    Like return to old days

    This guanyin like I drank with father when I was a boy. Sweet memories total recalled. I search east and I search west, until I found this. Very delicious good taste

    Ai Han Ngau
  • Pasha 2013, matured Pu’er shengcha cha bing

    In short: One of the best, if not the best, Pu’er teas I’ve tasted.

    In some way this is the Pu’er version of Honey Orchid Supreme, so I think most people who love that tea will also like this one. It has strong notes of honey and some fruity undertones of peaches, orange, and apricots. The first infusions have some woody / mossy notes that remind me of an old forest. In the later infusions this gets replaces by a very pleasant and soft sweetness that gives the tea a very optimistic energy. The Cha Qi of this tea increases concentration while still calming the body.
    The aftertaste that remains in the mouth after drinking the tea is probably the best I’ve had from Pu’er teas. It’s sweet and fruity without any dryness or bitterness. It stays in the moth for quite long.

    I usually brew this tea in a Sheng-Pu’er-seasoned Zini Yixing clay pot, because the clay thickens and softens the tea even more to enhance the mouth feel. But it also brews very well in porcelain or silver. It has become one of my favorite teas.

    Tobias D