What our customers say

Da Hong Pao with deeper baking

Hello Mrs Ngo,

Both firing styles have their own followers and that’s why we are trying out which is more preferred by our customers. There is also a direction that we go both way, though this will not be too easy for us to maintain our inventory. I’ll certainly make a score for you for preference of the deeper baking style and hope your group will win before we decide which way to go.

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!

The best white peony

I have bought White Peony from a number of shops and this is definitely the best in terms of taste, aroma and even appearance of the leaves! Before I found out this site, I had followed the instruction from other sources to use lower temperature water for steeping white peonies. Now I know they are all wrong! With 90C water the true taste of white peony can be so much more enjoyable! Thank you Tea Hong! Thank you Leo!

Zhenghe White Peony King

I have had Bai Mudan and Shou Mei white teas, but never a Zhenghe Bai Mudan (always the more common Fuding variety). I was very interested in this Zhenghe style, since the description seemed to fit my preferences more than the Fuding. Opening the package, the aroma is rich and full, kind of like hay, and sweet (a little difficult to describe). The overall appearance is a nice mix of silver, gray, and withered green. The taste is indeed full, deep, rich, and a little sweet, without the floral qualities. It also seems to bring out more of that taste that makes white tea distinctive as a style. This is the best white tea that I have had.

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.

Thirsty Pebbles

What’s all this talk about Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA)? I ordered this tea based on the lovely description of its taste and the tantalizing photo of the tea itself. I had no idea that the name refers to an oxygen-free, nitrogen-rich fermentation process that boosts levels of naturally occurring GABA. This compound is said to offer possible benefits to the central nervous system. Lord knows, my nervous system could use a gigantic chill-pill. But that’s not why I love this tea. Here’s why: The dry GABA nuggets offer up a heady aroma while the brewed tea’s color and flavor suggest apricot. It’s woody, not sweet. On the second infusion, the leaves plumped up so big, they almost lifted the lid off my gaiwan. I probably used too much tea and underestimated its penchant for water. That was my mistake, but a happy one. The transformation and the taste were both thoroughly enjoyable.