What Chinese Teas Should I Buy?

Today we received an email from a new customer ‘John’. The email contains many questions that other customers have when they need support on making a choice of teas from our online tea store. Here’s the email from John:

I found your website after reviewing many others that disappointed mainly due to high prices and high delivery costs. You seem to have a great range of quality teas without the excessive costs. I developed a shortlist of teas I would like to try as follows, but would love any feedback or advice you may have on my shortlist before I buy. I am a lover of Oolongs and my wife prefers the more grassy (Japanese style) greens. Thank you!

• Xin Yang Mao Jian
• Yunnan Biluochun Green Tea
• Daughter’s Ring Early Spring Green Tea – Ming Qian Nu’er Huan Tea
• West Lake Dragon Well Tea – Longjing Tea
• Organic Monkey King Tea – Tai Ping Hou Kui
• Anxi Tie Guan Yin
• Alishan Milky Oolong Tea
• Red Robe Da Hong Pao
• Dan Cong Phoenix
• Aged Pu Erh Tea

The Teasenz team has prepared the following answer to help John make a decision:

Chinese Green Teas

Based on your wife’s preference,  we would highly recommend green teas that are ‘grassy’ but at the same time not bitter and they all have a very refreshing after taste:

1. Xin Yang Mao Jian
2. Mao Jian Tea
3. West Lake Dragon Well (if like ‘roasty green’ taste)
4. The Yunnan biluochun I would replace with the Blue Spring Bi Luo Chun
5. The organic Taiping Hou Kui is also good, but this year our ‘Ming Qian Huang Shan Mao feng‘ is excellent, and it deserved to be in our first tea video: How to Brew Huangshan Maofeng Tea Using Gaiwan

Chinese Oolong Teas

For oolong tea, it depends if you prefer more a ‘light’ or ‘dark’ oolong tea.

• Anxi Tie Guan Yin and Milky Oolong are light oolongs, they are more flowery and the taste is somewhat closer to green teas.
• Red Robe Da Hong Pao and Dancong more oxidized oolongs with a stronger smoky taste. The intensity is closer to a black tea. However most Chinese black teas have an aftertaste of honey. These dark oolongs don’t have this feature.

If you aren’t sure which one you like more, we would suggest you try the light oolongs first and slowly start experimenting with darker oolongs.

Chinese Pu Erh Teas

Aged Pu Erh Tea is a good choice! Also consider the following pu erhs:

1. Mini Pu Erh Tea Bar: the leaves of this tea bar is selected by our own team, and we hired a processing company to press it into bars. So it’s natural to say that we like it 🙂
2. Mini Tuo Cha: this tea is a good choice for beginning pu erh drinkers as they contain a mix of different pu erhs. Some of them have an interesting taste of ‘corn’.