Chinese Top 10 Famous Tea – Grade AA (Da Hong Pao / Big Red Robe)

This is a really excellent green tea particularly for the price. You don’t need many leaves to make a refreshing cup.

Da Hong Pao or Big Red Robe tea is one of the most highly prized of all Chinese teas. The tea is grown in the world renowned tea region of the Wuyi Mountains of Fujian Province, China. The production process is lengthy and must be undertaken with great care in order to insure the excellence of the tea.Da Hong Pao is picked once a year, usually in May and June. The customary practice for leaf picking is a single bud along with with 2—3 leaves. The picked tea leaves are then spread evenly in the sun, using the heat of sunlight and the drying impact of flowing fresh air to evaporate the water contained in the leaves. After withering, the tea leaves are moved inside and slowly cooled down.The tea leaves are then shaken and rolled in a bamboo sieve, releasing their sugars and the other important components of the tea leaves, facilitating their oxidation. Various hand and mechanical methods are then used to roll, knead and twist the leaves, forming their distinctive cord shape. The leaves are then heated and dried, halting oxidation and sealing in the distinctive flavor and aroma of the tea.This Da Hong Pao is soft and elegant. It has a combination floral and almond-like flavor with a sweet honeyed finish. I brewed it in cup with a teaspoon of leaves steeped in water heated to boiling and then allowed to cool to 185-195 degrees. Steeping time was 3-4 minutes. Although the flavors are relatively soft, they have a complexity that is unique to this tea. The color of the tea liquor is a deep auburn orange and its aroma is sweetly floral. This is a delicious tea that can be steeped again and again until its flavor is exhausted, each additional steeping lasting longer each time. How frequently you re-use its leaves depends on your personal preference.This is one of the finest Da Hong Pao teas that I've ever sampled and I recommend it unreservedly.

First of all, all tea should have a manufacturing date or expiration date on the package. I couldn’t find one for this product.Secondly, it’s low quality da Hong pao, because it lack the unique sweet fragrance of da Hong pao, and the leaves are broken, and small.

For a non Chinese native, I consider myself somewhat of a Dragon Well (LongJing) expert. As my favorite green tea by far, I have been drinking it for 20 years and have watched the price go up and the quality to have become dubious—much counterfeit Dragon Well is exported. Fakes abound in China, too. In more than a dozen visits to China, I have always bought Dragon Well there. The grade of this version is listed as AA, yet that’s not the ultimate barometer of quality in real world tastings.This one has muted flavor. I would not call it stale, nor fresh. Although a high AA grade, there are a fair amount of stems, although that, too, is not the only barometer of quality. More than anything, a fresh, newer green tea is key. For this tea I steeped one extra minute to try to infuse more flavor yet it remains muted. As far as I can tell, the amount of tea included in the nicely packaged box is not listed at this time of my review. In general, green tea pricing is quite similar in China to what is offered here.Assuming you like it, here’s how you can get up to speed on Dragon Well gradings available: B, A, AA, S, and the highest end SS. I have visited tea growing communities in China and have learned that far more important than grade is freshness! If Dragon Well is fresh, it’s among the finest and most enjoyable teas in the world. I hope you will come to appreciate the exquisite flavor.

This is delicious tea. I’m sure that this is not the original mother Red Robe bushes because that tea is VERY rare & VERY expensive - one of the most expensive on Earth. I'm pretty sure this is Cloned Red Robe. The leaves come from bushes that were grown from cuttings of the original bushes. There are also “commodity blends” of leaves from the cloned bushes and other tea leaves.This makes a really good tea. The leaves are long & in very good condition. The flavor of the tea is woody & fruity with no bitterness. It's a pretty golden red tea.To brew: 2 tsp leaves: 8 ounces waterI heat fresh water to 200F. I pour some of the water over the leaves to rinse & wake them up – dump water immediately. Then pour the water over the leaves & steep for 1 minute. Pour & enjoy.I can get at least 5 infusions from this tea.The presentation is very good – this would make a wonderful gift for a tea drinker.

This is a really nice blend of oolong tea, one of the teas loaded with health benefits. It’s high in polyphenols, well-known antioxidants. There are a lot of interesting facts about polyphenols, but I won’t get into them. There are all kinds of interesting claims about an assortment of health benefits. Tea always manages to be high on the list of healthy beverages. My husband, who enjoys trying out new teas, was quite interested in trying this oneI brewed him a cup and let it steep for about five minutes. The recommended brewing advice is to add 0.1 ounce and let it steep. He doesn’t know about the subtleties of tea, but knows what he likes. He simply declared, “I can’t get a really good taste out of it.” Translation is that is a probably a very good, high-quality tea worth trying, but doesn’t have a strong flavor.