Tuesday January 6, 2009 | 7 comments
Seventeenth in a series on the teas of China.
The Chinese scent green, oolong and even black teas sometimes, often with flowers unknown to the rest of us with exotic names like: bailan (magnolia), chulan (chloranthus), daidai, youtze, milan and—my favorite—osmanthus, a rare flower used in some of certain famous perfumes. Osmanthus tea is black but has the body and astringency of green tea and a light, fruity flavor. Unlike jasmine, China’s best-loved huacha or flower tea, rose congou is produced only for export. It is scented in much the same way as jasmine, one supposes, with the difference that the flowers used are roses and base tea used is black. It usually smells like a bouquet of roses instead of tea and is oftener used in blends than drunk alone.
Among the few black teas Chinese themselves enjoy is Lichee. The lichee is one of south China’s most famous fruits—not nuts—and poets have likened its flesh to white jade for smoothness and color. For over a thousand years this perishable delicacy has been known in China as Feizi Xiao or Feizi’s Smile. The story is one of the Tang emperors was madly in love with the concubine Feizi, who is considered one of the great beauties in all Chinese history. To see her smile, the Emperor would have fresh lichee, her favorite fruit, brought by relays of horsemen riding day and night to his capital. Lichee tea is a black tea flavored with the sweet-tart juice of this exotic fruit.
Lapsang Souchong is scented, certainly, but with smoke and not with flowers. It is a black tea cured like a ham, in rooms filled with pinewood smoke. This smoke does not simply coat the leaf but impregnates it, ready to rise and greet you the instant you open the tea canister. 
Disbelieving Chinese friends have sworn to me that a barbarity like smoking tea could never be practiced in China, where Lapsang Souchong is apparently all but unheard of. I show them the page from the English writer Jason Goodwin’s book, A Time for Tea, where he describes tracking Lapsang to its place of origin on an obscure Wuyi mountain called Puonshan. It is black as homemade sing with a character you either like or detest on its own not-uncertain terms. The liquor is a rich, red syrup and the aroma one you could not miss in a high wind. That great lover of Lapsang Souchong, Sir Winston Churchill, always added Scotch to his. During the years of the China trade embargo, Taiwan supplied such devotees with a not half-bad version called Tarry Souchong, which is sometimes still to be found.
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I first tried lichee tea during my last trip to China. It was unexpectedly wonderful. My favorite however is jasmine green. I just can’t let a day go by without a cup or two of this delicious tea. I have to say for those who haven’t tried jasmine whole leaf tea – you must give it a try. It’s so much better than tea bag tea. My personal favorite is Royal Jade Snail. Just looking at the hand crafted tea is like looking at a piece of art.
Lapsang souchong is certainly powerful stuff. I get a craving for it every now and then, but it’s not one I can drink regularly! It is most useful for cooking though – there are lots of recipes online that use it in marinades, and for dishes like tea-smoked chicken etc. On a trip to New Zealand last year I sampled a chocolate truffle flavoured with Lapsang souchong – it was strong, but delicious, and the smoky flavour paired beautifully with the creamy chocolate filling!
Mr. Pratt, someone who said she is a friend of yours stopped by the store; I’m sorry, can’t recall her name but she lives in Rainbow, Ca and is into natural healing and knows more about tea than anyone I’ve met. She said a group of friends had just broken an old ‘green Pu-errh’ “tail”..but it wasn’t spelled ‘tail’. I believe she said it was the way it was weighed and spelled in a strange way. She told me she knew you after I mentioned reading you here at T Ching. She asked if we had ‘green Oolong’ and then proceeded to explain the amount of oxidation required to classify it as ‘green Oolong’. I must admit, couldn’t prove any of this by me but she was very interesting and said she would be back.
It’s always a thrill to watch the reaction from customers standing at our tea counter when I pull the lid off the tin of Lapsang. The comments and expressions from the onlookers can range from comic disdain to affable inquisitiveness. After a brief explanation that no, this is not a tin filled with Indian Moccasins, but a pine wood smoked tea most take a step closer to peer into the tin.
How does it taste they ask? Great if you like the taste of smoked tea.
I have come to understand that there are two grades of Lapsang – one that has been smoked with pine needles and the other with pine wood. The needle smoked version is supposedly inferior to the wood smoked version.
Is this an urban myth Mr. Pratt or is there some actual science behind this?
“That great lover of Lapsang Souchong, Sir Winston Churchill, always added Scotch to his.”
Oh, what a brilliant idea!!! Depressed minds think alike. Thank you for mentioning it, and also for assuaging my fears that LS was actually smoked over burning tires…. LOL
When we were in China a potential supplier, who owned a family farm in Fujian, gave us a couple of bags of black Lychee tea that was just out of this world. I consider it more like a dessert tea.
See JNP’s comment and information on Lapsong Souchong from another recent post.