Da Hong Pao
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Genuine Da Hong Pao is a famous and precious chinese tea. A well-known illustration for it can serve as an example when in 1972, American President Richard Nixon came to the first summit in China. For both countries this was an important historical meeting symbolizing the resumption of diplomatic relations. Then there Nixon was given two hundred grams of tea Da Hong Pao. He did not immediately understand the value of the gift, moreover, was unpleasantly struck by its nondescript appearance.
Nixon-not very well versed in chinese tea quaker, a christian sectarian of scottish origin when he was persecuting communists in his homeland as a member of the Commission to investigate antiamerican activities of the US Senate, suspiciously asked the then chinese head of the state Council of the Communist people's Republic of China Enlai Zhou: why US Secretary of state Henry Kissinger received so many kilograms of tea, and he, the US President, just a tiny bag. Premier Zhou told him that the entire annual production of Da Hong Pao tea is only four hundred grams, and President Nixon was given half of it! Kissinger received the gift of a great cup of tea, but not nearly as rare and stunning.
Nowadays you can see Da Hong Pao's huge offer. Perhaps it is now the most popular brand in the sales of expensive tea. The original Da Hong Pao from antique stories about taoist monks and red cloaks of noble officials of ancient China today is a beautiful mythological wrapper for tourists in the world of tea. The latest information about the sale of the original da Hong Pao dates back to 2002, when twenty grams of It were sold at the Guangdong Trade Fair auction for about thirty thousand dollars. The lot was transferred to the China National Museum, which was the first time in fifty years that a food product was included in its collection.
The modern trade name "Da Hong Pao" refers to tea from the area of Wuyishan in Fujian province in South-Eastern China. In 2002, the national standard GB18745 (National Standard for Wuyi rock tea) was adopted, which characterizes Da Hong Pao as an Oolong of original geographical origin from the Wuyi mountains.
Production of Da Hong Pao
The word "Oolong" originally meant black tea. The literal translation contains a more complex image: "Wū lóng" literally means "black dragon" (烏龍), where 烏 means "black as a Raven's wing". Another transcription of this word - Wulong is also the name of the river that skirts the city of Fuzhou where there is a whole street of tea shops. During the production process Oolong Da Hong Pao is subjected to repeated heat treatment so it looks dark or black and pressed cakes from it sometimes resemble ebonite in color and luster.
At the beginning of the preparation of raw materials, the leaves that are dried in the room are warmed in the oven. Then after twisting it is dried on smoldering charcoal. In the end it is fried and smoked in several stages on wood ash. During the roasting-smoking Da Hong Pao tea is completely turned over every hour so that this process proceeds evenly because each serving contains many kilograms of tea. The process lasts from twenty to thirty hours with breaks of one or two months. This operation is completely manual and therefore very expensive time-consuming and each cycle of it fairly raises the price of Da Hong Pao.
Da Hong Pao is characterized by both low (qing), medium (zhong) and high (gao) degrees of roasting. At a low degree, the leaves are fried only once which leads to a softer and more floral smell. To achieve an average degree of roasting, the leaves need to be additionally fried once or twice. High degree of roasting Da Hong Pao is baked many times.
A single roasting gives a relatively fleeting and at the same time delicate flavor, and multiple roasting brings a more intense bouquet of smells, tastes, and aftertaste. Slightly roasted Da Hong Pao smells of fresh ripe fruit. It has a sweet pleasant taste mixed with a slight tartness. The color of the infusion is usually Golden yellow or orange. As opposed to Da Hong Pao's high degree of roasting it should not be stored for years. High-roasting tea has a thick and aroma that leaves a trace on the bottom of the tea cup. Its taste persists in the mouth for a long time. The smell of burnt coal can be subconsciously repulsive and this is not a prejudice. Da Hong Pao shouldn't have that. It may smell like something toasted-smoked but not ash. Highly roasted Da Hong Pao can and should be stored over time, over the years it only gets better. However do not forget that the quality of Da Hong Pao depends most on the place where its raw materials are collected.
Especially appreciated are small and sometimes just tiny hard-to-reach lands-inconveniences where farmers need to sweat and suffer from soaring moisture climb up the rocky slope eventually filling an increasingly heavy inconvenient huge basket with raw shoots consisting only of buds and four upper leaves. The collection is carried out under an increasingly high spring sun. Raw materials for Da Hong Pao are obtained by hard manual labor.
Rocky Da Hong Pao
As a gift Nixon received tea leaves plucked from the "mother trees"growing on the slopes of the rocky mountains. They are called maternal because their cuttings being grafted on other plants have become the genetic basis for the selection of many local varieties bred in recent decades. Today only six mother trees have been preserved. These are not wild plants but varietal crops. You can see them on a local excursion that costs a couple of hundred dollars. All six mother bushes grow in the protected area of the Wuyishan nature reserve of the same name with an area of 72 km2 (included in the UNESCO heritage list). Since 2007 it is forbidden to collect their leaves.
Wuyi shan is both a toponym and a homonym, meaning not only an administrative division and the city of the same name, but also a mountain, a nature reserve, and an old mountain range destroyed by tectonic movements. Such a variety of objects under one name creates ambiguity: the area of the administrative district of Wuyishan, which are allowed to produce certified Da Hong Pao thirty times more area of rocks where the natural conditions are appropriate for its cultivation by original technologies.
In ancient times as a result of the movement of lithospheric plates the rocks near the Wuyishan mountain formed bizarre picturesque precipitous forested cliffs and gorges with numerous reservoirs. Over many millions of years they have been weathered and covered with sand and gravel ground cover. Due to the release of various minerals to the surface in high humidity conditions the loose slopes proved to be an ideal place for growing high-quality tea. The best bushes grow in narrow hollows-gullies of several tens of square meters between overhanging cliffs. This area is called Zhengyan. Simpler and cheaper kind of tea grows on earthen terraces, arranged by farmers on the tops of the surrounding cliffs. All such tea is called rock tea. The vast majority of raw materials for Wuyishan oolongs are collected not in the rocks, but on the slopes of foothills and valleys, where it is easier to cultivate the soil and it has a different chemical composition. This area of foothills is called Banyan.
In comparison with the volume of all tea products in the entire administrative region of Wuyishan the offer of Zhengyan rock tea on the market fits into the first few percent or even a part of one percent. This small amount in itself has different gradations of quality depending on where the slope is facing, the age of the plants, the leaf class and grade, the season of collection, etc. Various rock oolongs are harvested from it, and Da Hong Pao is not the most common of them.
Famous tea gardens are located in Zhengyan, often called by the names of nearby Taoist monasteries or vertices, such as: rock Tiānxīn yán (天心岩), peak "Horse head" Mǎ tóu yán (马头岩), place with very old trees of the same tea factory Huìyuàn (慧苑), Zhú kē (竹窠), Bì shí (碧石), Yànzi kē (燕子窠), Jiǔlóng kē — home of the original Da Hong Pao and its mother plants (九龙窠), Yù huā dòng (玉花洞), Shuǐ lián dòng (水帘洞), Guó fo (佛国), Dòng táohuā (桃花洞), Guilin (guìlín 桂林), the peak Yǎng sān fēng děng děng (三仰峰等等). In the distant past there were hundreds of Taoist monasteries in Wishang, but now only a few remain.
About the quality of Da Hong Pao and its factors
The term "rock tea" in China corresponds to the concept of "yancha". Yancha is valued for its characteristic bouquet, which is based on a rocky soil rich in mountain minerals. In Chinese, it is called "rhyme of stones" (yanyun 岩 岩). This poetic term covers very specific features characteristic of mountain teas and refers to both the purity and transparency of the infusion, the aroma and the feeling of sweetness of the aftertaste.
Teas from the Wuyishan rocks called Zhengyan Yancha or "real rocks" (茶 岩岩 茶), they are relatively expensive, but they are also produced of better quality compared to other teas from Wuyishan called Waishan or "those who are outside the mountain" (山 山 山). The quality of Banyancha teas (translated roughly as "half rock" or something like that) is located somewhere in the middle between them. Often mixtures of them are used for sale with the addition of raw materials from other regions — this allows to write "Da Hong Pao" on the price tag. Pesticides are completely banned in the cultivation of Zhengyan Yancha, and other varieties are treated with them in full.
In accordance with the Chinese national standard GB18745-2002, cliff tea bushes in Wuyishang are divided into many varieties, grouped into four categories. Dancong (单 丛 奇 种) and Mingcong (名 丛 奇 种) - these two groups of varieties that originate directly from the parent trees (武 夷 采茶 or Wuyicaicha) and groups of varieties of later selection bred since the eighties of the last century - Shuixian (⽔ 水仙) and Rugui (⾁ 肉桂). Most of the sold Da Hong Pao contain Shuixian with Rugui in mixes with each other or other teas — these varieties occupy the largest planting area they are just relatively many. These are very good teas, but they are not Da Hong Pao in its original form. Shuixian or "Narcissus" in translation, is usually cheaper, and most of the pressed pancakes allegedly "Da Hong Pao" are made from it. Rugui is a very popular variety, the area of its planting has grown thousands of times over the past decades.
In the late 1970s, the land previously owned by peasant communes was distributed to farmers, and the raw materials for Da Hong Pao are now produced by individual farmers whose families own allotments scattered along the mountainous slopes. This means that a great many sources of raw materials with their own characteristics can be used even for the production of Da Hong Pao.
Despite the fact that later in 1996 many local farmers were resettled during the formation of the reserve some of the plots in it are still a source of precious raw materials for rock oolongs. The highest quality Da Hong Pao is now produced there from seedlings of varieties distributed by the Tea Research Institute with genetic material taken from the parent trees: Qidan, Que She, Cai Cha or Bei Dou. There are also hybrids of these varieties, they also bring extremely high quality raw materials.
Since the question of the existence of the original Da Hong Pao remains debatable today many self-respecting brands do not use this brand and sell tea of native varieties produced by the original technology inherent in Da Hong Pao and these are good markers for choosing the best quality tea. First and foremost among them are Qidan and Bei Dou.
Qidan and Bei Dou.
Qidan is the original name of the tea, and Da Hong Pao (big red robe) is its nickname. In early spring, from a distance, its bushes look red because of the purple color of the edges of the leaves of the tops of their shoots. Qidan is usually used as a quality-enhancing ingredient in Da Hong Pao blends, and it is difficult to find it pure.
Bei Dou Yi Hao or North Star of the 1st generation is a slightly more affordable type of raw material for Da Hong Pao. Bei Dou was bred in the Da Hong Pfj laboratory from mother plants (mu ben) by breeder Yao Yue Ming. After a lot of adversity, Yao secretly continued his research with very limited resources and obtained two varieties, one of which is known as Bei Dou #1 and Bei Dou #2. Bei Dou is usually grown in the Zhengyan area, where there is also a peak of Bei Dou (the original region of Bei Dou).
Yao started looking for the real Da Hong Pao from the 50s. According to his early research, the real Da Hong Pao may have been located in one of three places: Bei Dou Feng (Feng means "peak") and two samples of cuttings were collected here with the names Bei Dou No. 1 and Bei Dou No. 2, Hou Iyan Feng and Tian Xin Yen. Then he collected samples of cuttings from three of these places. All samples were lost at the early stage of the Cultural revolution, and he was forced to leave his research laboratory. In the early 60s, he was appointed a rice farmer and re-visited three locations. The trees were almost dying. He tried to save a few cuttings from tea trees in three places and secretly grew them in his spare time on a rice farm. He died in 2007. Thanks to him Da Hong Pao production is now flourishing in Wuyishang.
About the taste of Da Hong Pao
Yes of course Da Hong Pao is the king of oolongs known for its sweet and smoky soft taste which leaves a persistent aftertaste even for a few minutes after it is swallowed. Very intense full-bodied distinctive tea. It surprises with notes of toasted and caramelized cereals, as well as a subtle hint of smoke and a characteristic fruity note. Successive infusions further enhance the fruit and floral notes of the tea, giving more and more sweet lingering flavors.
Da Hong Pao is ideally brewed at 950 C, starting with 20-30 second infusions, gradually increasing the exposure time. First, the taste will be sharper. It can be described as a woody, as a hot tree, perhaps chestnut, but then it flows into vanilla-honey with stone fruits and flowers.
Complex floral flavors and aftertaste with warm fried notes may seem to be too strange for beginners, but this first impression is deceptive. This tea has many layers and they open gradually without ceasing to surprise both the width of the spectrum and the depth. As if something in your mouth changed the smell and taste from the orchids and honey to chocolate and smoked oranges, peaches, light tart bitterness, dried leaves. This tea is very invigorating.
Just like tea - "Da Hong Pao" is also called Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum bungeanum) - a popular seasoning in China. This is a more common use of the name "Da Hong Pao" in Asia, which is a good thing to keep in mind just in case.