Keemun

Keemun (Qimen)

What it is

Anhui made only green tea until the 1870s, when a local man — the record names Yu Ganchen, though Hu Yuanlong is also claimed — went to Fujian to learn black tea manufacture and brought it back to Qimen around 1875. He was answering a commercial problem: Indian black was taking the export market Chinese green had held.

In the kitchen

Its tannin is low enough to infuse dairy without drying it out: 15 g in 500 ml of hot cream, 12 minutes off the heat, strained, gives a ganache base. In the pot, 90 °C rather than boiling keeps it on cocoa and plum.

Goes with

Dark chocolate Prune Cream Cherry Hazelnut Vanilla

Same species

Assam tea Ceylon tea Da Hong Pao Darjeeling tea Earl Grey Genmaicha

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