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:

  • Phoenix Sweet Osmanthus, traditional flower scented oolong

    After having tried all of the other Fenghuang oolong in Tea Hong’s catalog, I knew I had to pick up a bag of this. I’m not a big fan of scented teas; but if this was to be anything like the other dancong in the catalog, then I knew it would be a good experience.

    Gui Hua is one of my favorite cultivars, and a good unscented version is hard to find – who knows, maybe one day Tea Hong will carry one 🙂

    I find that; with most scented dancong, the experience doesn’t end up being cohesive… it’s almost like the evolution of flavors moves the two ingredients in separate directions, creating a general lack of harmony in the cup. The front-end is too muted and the back-end is too thin, with a relatively weak middle that isn’t very expansive or deep. For this reason, scented dancong usually doesn’t hit the spot for me.

    This, however, is totally different. The depth of flavor is excellent, with an oily mouthfeel that conveys the characteristic Fenghuang minerality quite well. It’s easily the deepest and most intricately layered version of a scented dancong I’ve come across, with a harmonized integration between the Mi Lan base material and the osmanthus flowers. It’s got excellent strength in the aftertaste, with very long-lasting notes of osmanthus and undertones of honey-soaked lychee. There are some soft bites of citrus fruits which bring some brightness to the flavor profile and a kind of clarity to the minerality.

    Overall a very enjoyable experience.

    NN
  • Black Leaf Special, Phoenix dancong oolong

    Wonderful Aroma

    I received “Black Leaf Special” as a sample, I thought should be this one. Infused it using gongfu parameters and I got a cup of wonderful aromatic tea. It resembled the green Tieguanyin (maybe because they are both green oolongs), but richer complexity with more pronounced honeylike sweetness and fruity fragrance. It is rather light in the mouth but leaves an immediate tangy fresh aftertaste. And based on the feel in my stomach, it really has a rather cool TCM properties. A very wonderful tea especially for the complex aroma.

    Teddy
  • Taiping Houkui Traditional, green tea of shidaye cultivar

    Beautiful and smooth

    I tried a few packs the other Taiping Houkui and my girlfriend liked it. The infusion process has been a show for my friends. Therefore, when this came out, I immediately gave it a try too. The leaves do not look as spectacular as the other one, because they are not as brightly green and not as translucent thin. They are still quite neat. I forgot about it after the show in the party and yesterday I prepared it like any other green tea except perhaps a bit hotter water, the freshness and delightful flavour are really impressive. The unique high class Chinese tea qualities, such as floral, sweetness, cereal, and umami are all there, and not that seaweed taste in the other version. The most impressive part is smoothness. I don’t think I have tried any other green tea smooth like this. Also there is a velvety (?) mouth feel that is also new in green tea for me.

    This is for me the most wonderful green tea.

    Manila Tran
  • Dianhong Classic, traditional black tea

    Complex and Unusual

    Acquired tastes can be perplexing or intriguing, depending on your viewpoint. Count me as intrigued after sampling a pre-release packet of Dianhong Classic. The dry tea leaves have a strangely pleasant aroma of roasted cashews and aged cheddar. When infused, the scent transforms into something altogether different, vaguely akin to the fragrant flower, Freesia. Drinking this tea gives yet a third impression, the hardest of all to describe. To my western palate, it’s like stepping onto the moon – uncharted territory and taste adventure combined. Is it blood orange or river stone? Bittersweet or crystalline? I cannot describe this unusual, slowly unfolding taste. Thank you for the opportunity to sample one of the teas from your new line. For me, Dianhong Classic is a riddle that may never be solved.

    Karen Ager