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Keemun Royal
In China, tea is considered a very welcoming gift and one of the most suitable gifts for honored guests. Keemun Royal gets its name from its unique place in history. Twinings, the British tea company, served a blend of Keemun and Darjeeling to the English Royal Family. According to tea historians, this was the first English Breakfast Tea. Later, while the Queen of England was visiting China, the former President Jiang Zhe Ming presented Keemun Royal (unblended) to her.
Keemun is a unique class of black tea that can only be made from small leaf tea bushes that until the nineteenth century were exclusively harvested to produce green and yellow teas. Whereas most black teas are made with medium leaf varieties and large leaf Assamica varietals that are harvested during summer and autumn, Keemun Royal is harvested during the first two weeks of April.
Authentic Keemun can only be harvested from a specific breed of tea bush. Furthermore, true Keemun comes from Qi Men (Keemun), a small town in the province of Anhui, China. The full name of this tea from Qi Men is Qi Men Hong Cha, and it is the result of a very particular hand processing that involves careful, slow drying over a specific type of charcoal.
Rishi’s authentic Keemun Royal is made according to the traditional hand processing of tender spring tealeaves from the Qi Men area in Anhui. Most Keemun teas are rapidly machine dried, resulting in a carbonized note. The traditional hand processing, charcoal baking, and drying processes are time intensive, but the resulting tea is milder, smoother, and sweeter in comparison to machine-dried tea. By slowly drying the tealeaves, a caramelized sweetness and smooth pine aroma are encouraged to develop. Tea tasters brand the unique aroma of Keemun as "Qimen Xiang" (Keemun Aroma). This small batch of Keemun Royal is the perfect example of the “Keemun Aroma” for tea tasters to train their palates; it is sure to be the very best Keemun of the year.
The Origin of Keemun:
Keemun black tea was created in 1875, during the Qing Dynasty, by Mr. Yu Qian Chen, a government official in Fujian who was later dismissed from his magistracy. He was a tea lover who was familiar with the Fujian black tea process, so upon his departure from Fujian, he returned to his homeland where he established his first black tea workshop on Yaodu Street in Dongzhi County, Anhui province, China. The following year, his business expanded to include more black tea workshops in Qimen County. His tea’s quality was unique as most black teas at that time were made from Assamica breeds and medium leaf tea bushes. This Keemun, made from small leaf green tea bushes, became a hit and was soon thereafter exported. In 1915, Keemun black tea won the gold prize in the Panama International Fair and has since been a traditional gift given to honored guests.
Water: 195˚F / Leaves: 1–2 tablespoons per 8 ounces / Infusion Time: 3–5 minutes / Ingredients: black tea. / Origin: Anhui, China.
*Note: 2 tablespoons of tea can be steeped with shorter infusion times for 5-7 infusions.
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