TeaHQ

Keemun

An Anhui black tea invented in the 1870s and now the aromatic centre of most traditional English breakfast blends. Its signature is a smoky-sweet, faintly cocoa-and-pine character sometimes called the Keemun note, which sits somewhere between fruit and woodsmoke without being a smoked tea at all.

Black teaModerate intensityAccessible to appreciateForgiving to brew祁門紅茶
Brew at 90–95 °CUse 1–1.5 g per 100 mlFirst steep 180sWestern brewing (teapot or mug)Full schedule and equipment →

Character

Softer and more aromatic than an Indian black, with a cocoa-and-pine sweetness rather than malt. It takes a little milk without collapsing, though it is more interesting without.

Flavour
Chocolate, Woody, Smoky
Aroma
Caramelised, Orchid
Mouthfeel
Medium, Smooth
Complexity
Layered
Notes
cocoa, pine, dried plum, orchid
Aftertaste
Sweet and slightly resinous, lingering longer than its weight suggests.

Moderate intensity: noticeable weight or grip, but neither dominates the cup.

Provenance and production

Origin
China
Region
Qimen
Oxidation
Fully oxidised
Harvest
Spring
Processing
Withering → Rolling and shaping → Oxidation → Drying

History

Created in Qimen county in 1875 by a former official who had studied black-tea production in Fujian and brought the method to a green-tea area. It was a deliberate commercial invention rather than an evolved tradition, and it succeeded fast enough to become a fixture of English breakfast blends within a generation.

Brewing

No caffeine estimate is authored for this tea. TeaHQ does not infer one from its category, because category predicts caffeine poorly — matcha and gyokuro carry more than many black teas.

Common mistakes

  • Confusing the natural smoky-sweet note with the deliberate pine smoking of Lapsang Souchong
  • Boiling water and a long steep, which coarsen a tea whose appeal is aromatic

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Editorially linked

Someone wrote down why these two belong together. The note below is theirs.

  • Russian Caravan

    Cocoa-and-pine sweetness, one as a single origin and one as the blend built around it.

  • Ceylon black tea

    A step from a brisk, familiar blend component to a single origin with real aromatic character — cocoa and pine where Ceylon has citrus and briskness.

  • Jiu Qu Hong Mei

    Two Zhejiang and Anhui black teas with a similar fruity, gently smoky profile. Jiuqu Hongmei is far less known and is sometimes sold as Keemun.

  • Keemun Hao Ya

    A grade of Keemun sold under its own name, which leads buyers to treat it as a separate tea. Hao Ya A and B are the top sorted grades of the same product.

Similar sensory profile

Shares controlled flavour, aroma and mouthfeel descriptors. A looser match — two teas can share descriptors and still taste nothing alike.

  • Jingmai sheng pu-erh

    Shares 4 descriptors with Keemun: woody, medium, smooth and orchid.

  • Menghai shou pu-erh

    Shares 4 descriptors with Keemun: chocolate, woody, smooth and caramelised.

  • Shou Mei

    Shares 4 descriptors with Keemun: woody, medium, smooth and caramelised.

  • Shou pu-erh (ripe)

    Shares 4 descriptors with Keemun: woody, chocolate, smooth and caramelised.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison.

  • Black tea styles compared — Five black teas that share a processing route and almost nothing else. Anyone who has decided black tea is one flavour has met one of these and generalised from it.
  • Traditional tea vs flavoured blends — A single-origin tea and a scented blend are bought for different reasons, and judging one by the other’s standards produces bad conclusions in both directions.
  • Keemun vs Lapsang Souchong — Two Chinese black teas frequently described as smoky, only one of which is. The confusion has cost a lot of people a cup they did not want.
  • Dian Hong vs Keemun — The two best-known Chinese black teas, from opposite ends of the country and opposite leaf types. Both are far younger than their reputations suggest, and neither is an ancient tea.
  • Keemun vs Assam — The two components most likely to be in a breakfast blend, doing opposite jobs. One supplies aroma and one supplies weight.

Journeys featuring this tea

  • Exploring black tea — Someone who drinks black tea daily and wants to know how wide the category is.

Guides covering this tea