Testimonials

This tea is an enigma. It’s a Pandora’s Box of flavors and sensations that shows a different side of itself every time you brew it up. Like a chameleon, it is very colorful and dynamic, and constantly shifting around as the soup cools, or as the leaves are being warmed back up as more water is poured into the brewing vessel.

It’s also a very sophisticated and elegant experience. The complex nature of Ya Shi Xiang as a cultivar is perfectly captured in Tea Hong’s Orchid Literati – it would be difficult to find a deeper, rounder, and more wholesome expression than this, despite Ya Shi being a popular cultivar.

It's not just the additional layers of flavor that make Orchid Literati stand out as one of the very best Ya Shi you could ever hope to find, it’s the additional dimensions. Much like watching an old movie on a flat-screen, in black-and-white, then watching that same film re-mastered in 3-D with ultra-high definition colors, so too does this Orchid Literati re-master and upgrade my experience with a cultivar that I know and love.

Besides the sheer breadth and depth of the flavor profile, one thing that really stands out to me about Orchid Literati is how clearly the terroir comes across – I can taste the soil and feel the minerals which fed these trees, and that alone is deeply quenching for my dancong-drinking soul.

It’s not difficult to find a “good enough” example of Ya Shi because it’s an easily-approachable cultivar and there are a lot of really good examples out there… but quality of this caliber is exceptionally rare, and for the price point this sits at, it’s a no-brainer to pick up a bag (or two) and experience the magic for yourself.

Excellent tea

果如所言，2014的宋種，確較往上幾年好飲、且更耐沖泡，沖至六七泡，後勁淩厲，餘香猶在。

With this tea, I got other people into tea 🙂

This tea is delicious. It's fruity, peach-y, floral, complex, interesting, and has a great mouth feel. The color of the liquor...just wow. It's like peach juice, or plum juice, or something like that. It's perhaps the most attractive looking liquor of any tea I have had yet. This is a tea that I would consistently keep in my personal stash at home.

I actually have a fun story about this tea! So, here in the United States, especially where I am from (Ohio), there are not a lot of people who drink tea (let alone good quality loose leaf). I am always trying to get new people into tea when I have the opportunity. Recently, an opportunity came for me to do so - I made and served tea gongfu style at a Chinese New Year event at my university's medical center that my school's Confucius Institute held. The event included several different tables set up to show off different aspects of Chinese culture. At my table, I had my gongfu setup and brewed tea for the medical students walking through the lobby. I had a sample of the Honey Orchid Supreme that I brought with me, and I pulled it out when I started to get a lot of people around my table. I brewed it up in front of everyone, showing off the beautiful color of this tea in my glass cha hai. I only had around 3g or so left from the sample, and I was worried that it would be too light. However I adjusted the timing, and when I poured some tea into my cup and tasted it, I experienced a wonderfully fruity, aromatic, and interesting flavor, very smooth. I quickly poured out some cups for others to try. The people that first tried it told me that they were amazed that tea could taste like that, and that they had no idea tea could be so naturally fruity and delicious! These people had most likely only ever had tea bags before, so this tea really amazed them. Some people that I handed the tea to stood by the table and talked with me for more than an hour, asking me about the tea and about how they could do this at home. I was able to introduce several people to the work of good quality tea this way, and I made sure to let them know where I got the tea - Tea Hong. I hope these people got inspired to go home and start exploring the world of tea and gongfu brewing, and perhaps they will order some tea from Tea Hong and be wowed some more 😉

Anyway that's my story, I hope it wasn't too boring 😉 I was able to share the experience of tasting great quality tea with these medical students who had likely never had such tea before. I hope I can inspire more people to get into gongfu brewing like this. Great teas like this one have the ability to change people's opinions about tea in general, and inspire others to start exploring the world of tea!

Smooth and minty

This is a wonderful Ruby 18. It is very smooth, with a strong minty taste. Just what I was hoping for. High quality stuff.

Stunning & memorable (2011 version)

This is an outstanding tea that is unlike and better than any other Wuyi oolong I've tasted (with the possible exception of Tea Hong's Sacred Lily). It infuses forever, and somehow manages to display lasting aromatic characters alongside power and intensity, but with no element dominant and no intrusive charcoal. Every mouthful is pleasurable. It's worth every cent.

One of my favorite yan cha right now

This tea is a very nice yan cha. It has a good presence of yan yun with a good smokey high fired wuyi fragrance with woodsy tones. The infusion taste is very refreshing as an initial taste, while giving you a sweet after taste that lingers in your mouth. It makes the back of my tongue water, and has nice hui gan. I really like it.

Elegant, complex fragrance

The first time I had this tea I used the standard infusion parameters. It came across like the Snow Orchid, unsurprising as they are both categorized as bouquet Phoenix oolongs. But from smelling the infused leaves, I can tell that this Orchid Gratus is gravitating towards the traditional Phoenix style. The infused leaves also shows more oxidation than Snow Orchid.
Then I tried it with 4g/100ml in 40 seconds. Wow, it reminds me of the Big White but without the faint sweet potato/peach aroma, yet somehow more complex. Smelling the tea is like smelling a good perfume, it is almost like there are many different fragrance combined together in a cup of tea. I'd say the aftertaste is not long, therefore I would twirl the tea in my mouth a little bit longer before swallowing it to enjoy the beautiful fragrance.

This tea is like medicine for the soul. It’s a very complex and intriguing experience, worthy of having a focused session where you can really pay attention to the intricacies that would otherwise get lost in the midst of a busy mind.

This is a very powerful dancong, with an incredibly thick and sappy flavor profile that is reminiscent of blooming jasmine and fresh-cut chrysanthemum flowers, drenched in eucalyptus, Chinese liquorice, and wintergreen oils, then rolled in pine needles and left on top of a wet rock to bake in the heat of a hot summer day before being soaked in mint-infused pear blossom honey.

That may sound like a strange description, but this is such a complex tea. It marries powerful, resinous, and sappy textures together with bright, lively, and crisp florals into a harmonized experience that perfectly balances the yin and yang found only within the top tiers of dancong.

Tea Hong’s Ye Lai has a powerful mouthfeel with a graceful presence, and a strong minerality with a lingering sweetness that is persistent, seemingly emanating from the gums and coating the entire throat.

Everything about this tea is superb and should not be missed. I am careful to not even drink plain water for at least an hour after my session; the sensation on the palate is divine.

This tea became one of my favorite floral Dan Congs. Most of the mostly floral Dan Congs from other vendors that I've tried have the tendency to taste quite one-dimensional. So after a few infusions their taste becomes less complex and less interesting. This tea is quite different because its taste becomes more complex in the later infusions. It starts with a very strong floral aroma and in the second or third infusion some slightly fruity and honey-like undertones add more interesting dimensions to the taste that still don't distract from its elegant and calming floral aroma. The aroma is very clear with lots of high notes that give it a quite noble taste.

I prefer to brew it in Chaozhou clay to preserve the high aromatic notes while giving the tea a thicker more honey-like texture in the mouth feel.

It is a great tea to relax and calm the mind. It is quite easy to brew, doesn't turn bitter when brewed too hot or too long. This makes it a great tea to have during philosophical conversations with friends.

Ask Yourself

When seeking evenness of mind and a better disposition, ask yourself which tea might help you face the day with strength and calm. No tea may be more suited to the task than Alishan Guanyin.

Nine grams of this beaded beauty produce a liquor the color of an orange-amber sunrise. The vessel lid offers the smell of warm vanilla and a refined perfume of iris, oak moss and cedar wood – a scent worthy of dabbing onto the skin.

This tea whispers balance; its gentle steam patiently waiting to be inhaled. Ask, and Alishan will deliver perfectly even doses of quiet insight to both nostrils. A fresh morning breeze wafts over with subtle, smoldering hints of a distant bonfire.

Next is a fleeting mouthful of sweet summer peaches dissolving into a slightly smoky, spicy-clean aftertaste balanced on the tip of the tongue, mid-palate and throat.

Notice the transformation of the tiny, toasty tadpoles as they make a magical metamorphosis in your mug. They swell into wild, squiggly creatures of dark slate green. Balance gives way to spontaneity as these friendly, appealing leaf-beings inspire your free spirit. If you don’t believe me, ask them yourself.

Tea Master's Pick

Opening a package of Keemun Traditional Supreme will transport you into a library full of fine leather-bound books. The infusion will yield a glossy, mahogany liquor tasting of figs, almond blossoms, and sanded timber. One can easily imagine a sea captain bringing this tea across the ocean to his titled patrons, reserving some first for his own personal use. The taste of Keemun Traditional Supreme stays reminiscently on your palate long after the drinking is done with just enough caffeine to set your sails to the wind.

One of the few teas that made my heart skip a beat, or shed a tear in pure admiration. Everything about this tea is graceful, refined and elegant. I was shocked since the entry is quiet and subdued, but the mid to late palate is so smooth and gentle with veritable depth. I've never thought that an oolong could emulate a gushu pu'erh. Too many plantation teas smack you in the face with their sappy, candy-like fragrance. This one is the definition of minerality and long aftertaste.