Keemun (Qihong), the Champagne of Black Teas
The name Keemun comes from Qimen county in southern Anhui province, where almost all the mountains
are covered with tea bushes. It is a variety of black tea, and since all black tea is known as red tea
in Chinese, the Chinese name is Qihong. For taste Keemun is considered matchless, a flavor that
almost sings. Its fragrance, known throughout the tea trade as the "Keemun aroma," haas been compared
to that of the orchid or rose.
Qimen county produced only green tea until the 1880s. It owes the change to a young civil of official
who lost his position when his superior fell into disgrace. Then he remembered his father's advice,
which he had disregared in his pride at passing the exam and becoming an official: a skill is a better
guarantor of a living than precarious officialdom.
The young man went to Fujian and learned the black tea process. On his return he set up three factories
using the new technique on the smae leaves hsi neighbors were making into green tea. The method was
perfectly suited to the leaves, produced by the loose, easily drained soil and the area's warm, moist
climate. His first product in 1895, fine, darkgreen strips with a distinctive flavor, hit a wave of
black tea popularity in England. Soon other local factories switched to black.
Keemun became world renowned and captured the black tea market from India's Darjeeling. In 1915 KEemun
was another Chinese winner at the Panama Pacific International Exposition. Though in recent years tea
connoisseurs have taken more to broken black, Keemun black has held its own and remains the "king of red tea"
Keemun is originally one of congou-type teas. That is , it requires a great deal of gongfu (disciplined skill)
to make into fine, taut strips without breaking the leaves.