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:

  • Bamboo Leaf, traditional green tea

    Complex and intriguing… this is definitely the type of tea you want to drink a few times before you feel like you’ve had it even once. The flavor profile is sophisticated, especially considering how easy and straightforward it is to brew up.

    This Zhu Ye has a crisp and clean mouthfeel, like mineral-rich mountain spring water, with a pleasant lingering sweetness that gradually builds up and slowly fades away. It has just the right amount of bitterness to keep the flavor profile on the slightly-dry side, but without sacrificing the delicacies of its otherwise sweet layers of flavor.

    There’s a vibrant and apparent note of nettle; to me it’s the focal point of this tea, and it really ties the whole flavor profile together. I get overtones of pine needles with hints of green peppercorn & juniper berries, a mossy and slightly starchy body that has notes reminiscent of fresh peas and corn kernels, and undertones of truffles with cornflowers. This tea has a pungent earthiness, yet also a distinct silkiness, that makes for a really intriguing contrast of flavors and sensations.

    Notes of nettle weave their way seamlessly in and out of the whole flavor profile, adding a subtle herbaceous spiciness that is quite powerful yet so gentle at the same time.

    The aroma coming off the bottom of an empty cup, as it cools, reminds me of clover honey. It’s got a clear and focused sweetness, with subtle hints of nettle creeping back up and becoming stronger as the cup cools down completely to room temperature.

    The color of the soup is bright and clear, with tiny hairs suspended in the cup. In later steeps, the broth turns a bit hazy but the mouthfeel remains light and resists turning excessively bitter, even after a long final steep.

    The leaf quality is superb, it’s worth watching these leaves open up as they brew, and definitely worth looking closely after they’ve taken a nice long bath. It’s clear they were plucked well and processed uniformly.

    This is a powerful tea, with all of the correct nuances in the right places.

    NN
  • Celeste Green Gaiwan

    This quickly became my favorite Gaiwan.

    The design is wonderful and reminds us to connect with nature. It is easy to decant due to the perfect shape of the lid.

    The only wish I would have is for a slightly smaller version of the same design, maybe around 100ml for smaller gongfu sessions.

    Tobias D
  • Bulang Maocha 2016, Pu’er shengcha

    when is it available again

    when is it available again

    Ming
  • Honey Orchid Supreme, classic Phoenix dancong oolong

    The fullness, complexity, and vibrancy of this particular dancong are what made me really fall in love with tea. Before it I was just very fond of tea. It really was Milan Xiang, particularly of this quality that totally hooked me to tea. That very night in the mountains in Phoenix, amongst the noise of the local Fenghuang dialect and clinking tableware in a local restaurant with the farmers and producers, I began to question myself, if I could help multinational corporations communicate their brands and products, why couldn’t I make such quality better understood? Why would coffee and wine have their social-economic role so widely accepted above and beyond this no less amazing product? Ironically, one of the projects on hand was helping the International Coffee Organisation to promote coffee in China. That was perhaps the point when tea was elevated in my plan from a side business to my full career. It was when we were still using the Nokia phone and film camera, when information was still passed on through the printed pages and I had to use html to create a webpage. That was 25 years ago. After all these years of learning and trading tea from many regions, Milan Xiang still has its very special place in my heart. It is still my dearest tea. And I still have a lot to do in promoting tea.

    Leo Kwan