If you encounter Tie Guan Yin in a northern Chinese teashop, the leaves will likely be bright green, exuding a fresh floral aroma. If you wander into a tea shop in Hong Kong, the leaves may instead range from dark brown to pitch black, giving off a strong roasted fragrance. Between these two expressions lies not only a difference in style, but competing visions of the real Tie Guan Yin. Amid these debates, the heart of Tie Guan Yin can become difficult to see.
The roasted Tie Guan Yin from Hong Kong tea shops epitomises humility. Humble, unpretentious, comforting are all adjectives that come to mind when tasting them. The owner of Ming Heung Tea Co. in Kowloon says that his goal has always been to provide "medium quality tea at a good price." They import base teas from Fujian and blend and roast them to local tastes. Indeed, the base material of these oolongs from Hong Kong vendors Fukien Tea Co., Cheung Hing, and Ming Heung is mediocre. You won't find any complexity in these teas. However, you will find skilful blending and roasting that makes these teas more enjoyable than their base material would suggest. To be blunt, without heavy roasting these teas would be unpalatable.
This style of Tie Guan Yin remains popular in Hong Kong. Most of the shops in Hong Kong import their base teas from Fujian export companies which are based in Xiamen. According to the owner of Ming Heung, this is one reason why you will rarely find Phoenix Dancong (or good ones at least) in Hong Kong tea shops, despite the large diaspora of Chaoshan people living there. Years ago, the only reliable transport of oolong tea to Hong Kong was by ship from Xiamen. Dancong was too difficult to transport through the mountainous terrain of the Chaoshan region in Eastern Guangdong where dancong originates.
To this day the selection of oolongs available in Hong Kong is quite limited, with Tie Guan Yin being one of the most common sights on a dim sum table. Apart from taste, there are logistical reasons for its populaity. Tie Guan Yin's ball-shape makes it easy to import from Fujian and to store in bulk in restaurants.
As an agricultural product, the quality of these base teas imported from Fujian varies from year. Hence a key concern for the roasters in Fukien, Cheung Hing, and Ming Heung is consistency. Their shops have been around for at least 60 years, sometimes longer, and they have regular customers who expect a consistent product. Their customers also expect certain prices, which is why these shops use mediocre base teas.
To create a consistent Tie Guan Yin from year to year, these shops adopt two methods: blending, and heavy roasting. Blending involves mixing various batches of tea together. Sometimes younger teas will be blended with older teas. Sometimes more aromatic batches will be blended with batches that have a better texture. When visiting Ming Heung last year, the owner was testing a batch of this year’s Tie Guan Yin, which was highly aromatic but quite thin and watery. The owner explained that to ensure a consistent texture he would have to blend this batch with some older batches before roasting.
Heavy roasting can cover up the flaws in a single batch of tea, but it can also mask the differences between separate batches. Fukien Tea Co roast their Tie Guan Yin in electric ovens for over 60 hours. This standardised approach to roasting is partly why thetea remains of a consistent quality. Both Fukien and Cheung Hing still roast their oolongs in house. They used to use charcoal, but regulations on Hong Kong Island now prevent this. Shops like Ming Heung are located on the Kowloon side, and so they still charcoal roast. They decide when the roasting is finished by crushing a ball of Tie Guan Yin in their fingers. If the tea turns to dry dust easily, and does not show any green colour, then the roasting is sufficient. Other shops like Dragon Tea House use better raw leaf and commission the charcoal roasting in Fujian before it is shipped to Hong Kong.
Viewed in this way, the dark, heavily roasted style of Tie Guan Yin of Hong Kong is the result of a particular commercial history, a particular supply chain, and a particular approach to managing product variability from year to year. Nevertheless, many tea drinkers attach greater philosophical significance to this spectrum of Tie Guan Yin styles, sometimes along with dubious health claims. The various styles of Tie Guan Yin can be held to such strong convictions that, from the type of Tie Guan Yin a tea drinker keeps in their teapot, you can often discern their entire chadao (their broader worldview of tea.) If someone likes heavy roasted Tie Guan Yin, there’s a good chance they drink aged puerh tea, heavy roasted rock tea, and aged oolong, and perhaps not much else. If someone likes light fragrance (qingxiang) Tie Guan Yin, chances are they also enjoy green tea, aromatic dancong, or other light oolongs.
Debates over the actual processing spectrum of Tie Guan Yin can often feel like jumping to conclusions about what is better. Its important to pay attention to historical context and the fact that there are excellent teas at both ends of this spectrum. Excellent qingxiang Tie Guan Yin depends on how well the producer does the withering and shaking steps, while excellent nongxiang Tie Guan Yin requires charcoal roasting skills. Better examples of each style require good material. In general, good material and superior tea-making techniques are prerequisites to style. Once you have found teas that meet these requirements, specific styles largely become a question of preference.
As for our own Tie Guan Yin preferences, we pay close attention to the selection of tea tree varietal. Tie Guan Yin is not monolithic, it can be made from many different varietals, but we have a clear preference for one of them: Hong Xin Wai Wei Tao, or the Red Heart varietal.This is the original Tie Guan Yin varietal with a unique orchid sweetness and aftertaste. It is this varietal, more than oxidation levels or roasting techniques alone, that made Tie Guan Yin famous in the first place. The character of this tea tree varietal lies at the heart of what defines Tie Guan Yin.
Hong Xin (lit. Red Heart) is named for its large buds and top leaves that possess a purplish-red hue. The second part of its name Wai Wei Tao (lit. Peach Crooked Tail) refers to the tip of the leaf curling over like the top of a peach.
This varietal is exceedingly difficult to propagate, which is one reason why Tie Guan Yin is now made from many different cultivars like Qing Xin, Mei Zhan, or Mao Xie. Hong Xin is from Xiping Village, and most of the older gardens can still be found there. There are many elaborate legends for the origin of the varietal, but its the ecology of Xiping that really explains the quality of Tie Guan Yin from this area. Fog all year round, red soil, and sharp temperature drops at night-time are three factors theorised to explain the superior quality of Hong Xin from Xiping.
When you compare charcoal roasted Tie Guan Yin from other cultivars, against Hong Xin, the advantages of Hong Xin are obvious. This is why we have emphasised the varietal in naming our new Tie Guan Yin, because we think it’s the key point of this tea, rather than the roasting style.
Having said that, the roast on this tea is very well done. It was initially a heavy roast, but after three years in storage it has settled completely, yielding a sweet and mellow tea with just enough of a roasted nut flavour. There is no metallic taste as you can often find in lower quality Tie Guan Yin, nor is there too much sourness (which you can often find in even higher quality Tie Guan Yin). This combination of orchid sweetness from the varietal and a settled charcoal roast results in a tea that is very easy to appreciate. There’s a good balance between roasted flavour and the flavour of the underlying tea. The latter is something which other heavy roast Tie Guan Yin, especially those from Hong Kong, often lack.
Perhaps most importantly, this tea is not expensive either. We rarely feel that Tie Guan Yin at higher prices is worth it. There rarely seems to be advantages over yancha at the same price point. This Tie Guan Yin is appropriately priced. More expensive ones are not worth it, but cheaper ones are also not worth it. Cheaper Tie Guan Yin may enable you to stock up on higher quantities, but it is easy to accumulate too much tea.
For brewing roasted Tie Guan Yin like this, we recommend the Chaozhou gongfu method, as demonstrated by the owner of Ming Heung in the above photo and video. Use 8g in an 80ml or 100ml teapot, and boiling water. Tie Guan Yin like this needs a lot of heat. This method is designed for brewing as hot as possible and therefore maximum extraction of the tea.
Perhaps most importantly, this tea is not expensive either. We rarely feel that Tie Guan Yin at higher prices is worth it. There rarely seems to be advantages over yancha at the same price point. This Tie Guan Yin is appropriately priced. More expensive ones are not worth it, but cheaper ones are also not worth it. Cheaper Tie Guan Yin may enable you to stock up on higher quantities, but it is easy to accumulate too much tea.