Lapsang Souchong
A Wuyi black tea finished over smouldering pine, giving the most polarising flavour in tea — campfire, tar and smoked fish to its detractors, resinous sweetness and dried longan to its admirers. It is also, by most accounts, the oldest black tea, made in Fujian before the category existed anywhere else.
Character
Dominated by pine smoke, under which sits a genuinely sweet, dried-fruit black tea. The smoke fades over a year or two of storage, and many people who dislike it fresh find an older packet far easier.
- Flavour
- Smoky, Woody, Sweet
- Aroma
- Caramelised
- Mouthfeel
- Full bodied, Rich
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Notes
- pine smoke, tar, dried longan, campfire
- Aftertaste
- Long, resinous and smoky, coating the palate for some time.
Moderate intensity: noticeable weight or grip, but neither dominates the cup.
Provenance and production
- Origin
- China
- Region
- Wuyi Mountains
- Oxidation
- Fully oxidised
- Roast
- Medium
- Harvest
- Spring
- Processing
- Withering → Rolling and shaping → Oxidation → Drying
Authenticity: Two quite different products share the name. The heavily smoked export style is what most Western drinkers know; the unsmoked or very lightly smoked Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong drunk in China is a different tea entirely, sweet and fruity with little or no smoke. Neither is a fake, but a buyer expecting one and receiving the other will be surprised.
History
Made in the Tongmu valley of the Wuyi mountains, and the earliest black tea for which a production tradition is documented. The pine-smoke drying that Western drinkers associate with the name was a solution to wet weather and the demands of long sea transport; the tea sold locally in Tongmu today is largely unsmoked, which surprises people who know only the export style.
Brewing
Western brewing (teapot or mug)
1–1.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion
Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)
4–5 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 5 authored infusions
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
- Steeping it as long as an Assam, which makes the smoke overwhelming
- Buying a large quantity before tasting it
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.
- Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong (unsmoked)
The same name covers a heavily smoked export tea and an unsmoked domestic Chinese one. Buyers regularly receive whichever they were not expecting.
- Smoked Lapsang Souchong
Two names for the pine-smoked style, used interchangeably in the market despite one being a place and one a process.
Similar sensory profile
Shares controlled flavour, aroma and mouthfeel descriptors. A looser match — two teas can share descriptors and still taste nothing alike.
- Aged Liu Bao
Shares 5 descriptors with Lapsang Souchong: woody, sweet, full bodied, rich and caramelised.
- Aged Shou Mei
Shares 5 descriptors with Lapsang Souchong: sweet, woody, full bodied, rich and caramelised.
- Aged white tea cake
Shares 5 descriptors with Lapsang Souchong: sweet, woody, full bodied, rich and caramelised.
- Anhua dark tea
Shares 5 descriptors with Lapsang Souchong: smoky, woody, sweet, full bodied and rich.
- Chen Xiang Tie Guan Yin
Shares 5 descriptors with Lapsang Souchong: sweet, woody, full bodied, rich and caramelised.
- Hong Shui oolong
Shares 5 descriptors with Lapsang Souchong: sweet, woody, full bodied, rich and caramelised.
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.
- 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.