China – Birthplace of the Tea Culture
products and quality. Benefit from our know-how, our expertise and our longstanding contacts,
and with the help of our Chinese colleague Ying Zhou, get inspired by this important country – the birthplace of tea.
To find the best tea qualities in this huge country, we opened an office in China around 15 years ago, which is run by our Chinese tea expert Ying Zhou and other staff. Today, numerous trips and visits on both sides have given rise to a close, almost friendship-like bond between the Hamburg Wollenhaupt team and Ying Zhou‘s team, who handle the Chinese market for us from the Hangzhou office.
For this year’s catalogue, we asked Ying Zhou to present some of her very personal “favourite teas” from our catalogue assortment. So you can look forward to getting tea recommendations from a very authoritative source!
Ying Zhou: “My Organic Favourites”
GREEN PU ERH SHENG CHA ORGANIC TEA
"In contrast to the well-known black Pu Erh, this green organic variety is a real rarity. Only minimally fermented, it has a delightful fresh, grassy taste profile, and anyone who loves Chinese green tea specialities will be thrilled to score some of this tea despite its small production volume. For me, an absolute tip!"
GOLDEN BUDS ORGANIC TEA
"This exquisite black tea in organic quality impresses me (each and every year) with its unique appearance, distinguished by many golden-brown, hand-processed tips and its slightly sweet and mild character along with a hint of cocoa. There is a reason why only very small quantities of this tea are produced each year. A definite must-try!"
KEEMUN STD. 1132 ORGANIC TEA
"A very popular classic black tea in China, and now the organic quality is also becoming a favourite. Since it can be prepared with a wide range of regional water qualities, I like to drink it during my frequent trips to China and look forward to enjoy its characteristic sweetish, mild taste everywhere."
Ying Zhou: “My absolute Jasmine Must Have!”
JASMIN TAI MU LONG ZHU
"For lovers of Chinese jasmine tea, this exquisite scented speciality is an absolute MUST. The carefully hand-rolled tea pearls are traditionally ‘flavoured’ (scented) only with original jasmine blossoms. During the ‘dance of the tea leaves’ in the infusion, a wonderful, intensively floral jasmine aroma unfolds in the cup. Delicious!"
Ying Zhous Passion
Ying Zhou is not only trained and certified as a Senior Tea Taster on the highest level, she is also quite knowledgeable about her homeland of China, is very well-connected and has many contacts, including to remote tea estates which produce exceptionally good qualities along with specialties. With deep passion and expert skill, Ying Zhou is always on the search for new teas for our product range. Considering the impressive variety of white, yellow, green, black and dark teas in China, this is quite a challenging task, and one which Ying Zhou equates to a mission. With great enthusiasm, she maintains close personal contact with tea gardens and owners. She also assists smaller gardens with earning the certifications that are essential for our markets, some of which are still not well known in China because the majority of
Chinese tea remains in the country and is not exported.
Ying Zhou: "My tea-highlights for special occasions“
ANJI WHITE TEA
"Anji white tea specialty from “Anji County”, not far from my hometown of Hangzhou. Picked locally and exclusively by hand for just a very short time. The Anji white tea leaves only develop their mild, fresh aroma in April/May, literally “delighting your tongue with the taste of spring”. An absolute visual and flavour highlight that I also like to bring as a gift on special occasions."
YELLOW TEA STD Y1008
"This yellow tea, called ‘Huang Cha’ in China, is produced in a very complex and elaborate process, where the fresh tea leaves go through a four-stage process – fixing or steaming, smothering, rolling and drying. The smothering in particular, either dry-smothering or wet-smothering, gives this speciality its specific, sweetish honey and brisk note. It is rare even in China and just few tea lovers have the chance to taste and
enjoy ‘Huang Cha’. Only a very small quantity of the already limited production volume is exported."
