Keemun

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in China. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Qimen — 100–600 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• Camellia sinensis var. sinensis — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Small, narrow, serrated leaves on a shrubby bush with good cold tolerance. Slower-growing and lower-yielding than assamica, and associated with more aromatic, less tannic character — which is why it dominates in the categories where aroma matters most.

• Zhu Ye Zhong — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Small, thick, dark leaf on plants that vary bush to bush, as any seed population does. Being a population rather than a clone, it flushes unevenly, which is one reason Keemun manufacture is as much about sorting as about oxidising.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Oxidation — Allows polyphenol oxidase to act on leaf polyphenols after cell rupture, converting them into the larger coloured compounds that give oxidised tea its colour and body.
4. 4. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Orthodox black tea — Rupture first and let the reaction run. Heat arrives only at the very end, to stop something that has already been allowed to finish.

  Where it is practised: The whole of the fine black tea trade: Darjeeling, Assam's orthodox lines, Sri Lanka, Nilgiri, Nepal, Kenya's orthodox factories, and the Chinese gongfu black teas of Fujian, Anhui and Yunnan, which run the same shape with markedly gentler settings.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: 2-Phenylethanol, Beta-damascenone, Beta-ionone, Carotenoids, Geraniol, Strecker aldehydes, Theaflavins, Thearubigins.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Oxidation
  • converts Carotenoids
  • converts Catechins
  • converts ECG (epicatechin gallate)
  • converts EGC (epigallocatechin)
  • converts EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
  • converts Epicatechin
  • converts Linalool
  • creates Beta-damascenone
  • creates Beta-ionone
  • creates GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Tea cream
  • creates Theaflavins
  • creates Thearubigins
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
  • raises Geraniol
  • raises Nerolidol
  • lowers Anthocyanins
  • lowers Theogallin
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

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.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  4–5 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 5 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

• Mug infuser brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 95–101 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Mug infuser basket

  Open in the brew assistant

• Flash-chilled iced tea

  2.5–3.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Cold brew tea

  1.2–2 g/100 ml · 4–10 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Samovar service

  3.5–6 g/100 ml · 92–98 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Samovar, Podstakannik (glass holder), Tea glass

  Open in the brew assistant

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

When the cup goes wrong

Written against black tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 19 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• My chai catches on the pan or boils over — A scorched note runs through the finished drink, or the pan foams over the moment your back is turned.
• My chai is harsh and drying rather than rich — The drink is strong enough but unpleasant with it: a rough, drying grip on the tongue and a flat cooked note, rather than the round sweetness a good chai has.
• My chai tastes of hot spiced milk rather than tea — The drink is pleasant and sweet and the tea is nowhere in it — no colour to speak of, no briskness, and nothing that would tell you tea had been involved.
• My iced tea has gone cloudy — Tea that was clear when hot turns hazy or milky once chilled.
• My iced tea tastes watery once the ice melts — The tea is good for the first mouthful and thin by the bottom of the glass.
• My milk curdles or separates in the tea — Flecks or threads appear when the milk goes in, or the surface breaks into small islands, and the drink looks grainy rather than smooth.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

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.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• 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. Put the two side by side
• 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. Put the two side by side
• Keemun vs Assam — The two components most likely to be in a breakfast blend, doing opposite jobs. One supplies aroma and one supplies weight. Put the two side by side
• 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. Put the two side by side
• 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. Put the two side by side
• Zhu Ye Zhong vs Zhu Ye Qing: two 'bamboo leaf' names with nothing in common — Both names begin with the characters for bamboo leaf and the resemblance stops there. Zhu Ye Zhong is the Anhui landrace behind Keemun black tea; Zhu Ye Qing is a Sichuan green made only from very early buds. Anyone assuming the second is made from the first has assembled a plausible and entirely wrong sentence.

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• The Canton System — The arrangement under which all European maritime trade with China was funnelled through one port and one licensed merchant guild for roughly eighty-five years — the bottleneck through which effectively every pound of tea Europe drank had to pass.

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

• What is black tea?
• Why black tea tastes malty
• Floral: orchid, jasmine, lilac and the family that covers half the catalogue
• Roasted, nutty, chestnut and cocoa: the aromas heat makes
• How the famous-name teas acquired their names
• The Qing export industry, and how fast it fell