Da Hong Pao: Revealing the Enigma of This Legendary Chinese Oolong

Hey friends, welcome to our channel. Let's begin today's video with a little game. True or false, Da Hong Pao, just like Shui Xian and Rou Gui, is a rock tea from the Wuyi Mountains. Let me know your thoughts by commenting below and why you think it's true or false. I'll review the answer later on in the video. Da Hong Pao is one of the most asked tea for us. I get many emails or social media inquiries asking if we will get Da Hong Pao again and when will that be. As an online tea store, it makes a lot of sense to have Da Hong Pao in our selection because it's one of the most high search volume, very SEO friendly, but we don't have it currently and I want to explain a bit about why so. Da Hong Pao is a very famous Chinese oolong tea. It has legends and fantasy stories and most tea lovers have heard of its name. But in today's video, I'd like to help you understand what truly is your cup better, revealing some unknown stories of Da Hong Pao. If you also love tea like we do, please consider subscribing to our channel and hit the notification bell. We do videos on how to brew teas, tea process, tea gardens and much much more. Da Hong Pao is an oolong tea heading from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian province. Together with many other teas, Da Hong Pao is known to belong to the family of rock tea. This rock tea has a unique way of process and most importantly, they're all originated from the Wuyi Mountains. If you've read our tea magazine Charen, you probably are very familiar with the details of the rise of Tieguanyin in the 1990s. The success of Tieguanyin was groundbreaking. It shook the whole China's tea industry. It's a role model for many teas and we did. Can you name any other famous cultivar from Anxi? Anxi and Tieguanyin is locked in our brain as one. One of the key steps in its success is to simplify. And it's a rule of thumb in marketing. Make your message simple, direct and easy to digest for the target audience. So Wuyi followed this as well. They wanted to make Da Hong Pao and Wuyi locked together just like Anxi Tieguanyin. So for a while, the concept of Yan Cha is not important. All the teas from Wuyi is called Da Hong Pao. Wuyi produced Da Hong Pao. Da Hong Pao is from Wuyi. Simple as it is. This strategy worked great. It helped spread the reputation of Wuyi Da Hong Pao in the tea lover's mind. However, as time goes by, eventually we started to see the side effect. When all the teas from Wuyi is bundled under the single name of Da Hong Pao, it becomes very chaotic for the consumers. Also, when a brand becomes so successful, it's inevitable that there is counterfeit. So in 2002, the very first Wuyi Yan Cha national standard was published. In this standard, it gave a clear definition of the tea terminology, definition, origin, process, even shipping, storage, labeling. The publication of this standard was to help sort out the chaos in the market, help regulate the market. In 2016, a national standard focused on Da Hong Pao was published. In this national standard, the definition of Da Hong Pao and the quality of Da Hong Pao was restated and defined. In its careful wording of the Da Hong Pao definition, it officially admitted that there are three types of Da Hong Pao. First, Mu Shu Da Hong Pao, mother plant Da Hong Pao, referring to that six plants growing on the cliff edge in the Wuyi mountains. You can check out our some vlog videos when we were there. And also the song Nathaniel did is, I think it's a super cute song. Now there's no chance for us to buy or try this Da Hong Pao because the trees were carefully managed, really plucked. It's not something offered to the public. I remember when I first started the business, I did notice there were websites and stores are selling mother plant Da Hong Pao. That was just cute. Second type is Chun Zhong Da Hong Pao, pure Da Hong Pao. This refers to the Da Hong Pao made with the tea plants that were grafted from that six tea plants. This is something we can find in the but it's in relatively small quantity. Because it's name and the quantity, the price is relatively high. The third type is Shan Ping Da Hong Pao, commercial Da Hong Pao. This is what most of us are having in our cups. And most of the times, people are not gonna specifically say this is commercial Da Hong Pao. We just simplify and call it Da Hong Pao. This simply means it's a blend. You could be blending with fresh leaves and process or after tea is processed, you blend all the dry leaf, you blend them and that's the Da Hong Pao. The question that I asked in the very beginning of the video, is it true or false? Is Da Hong Pao just like Shui Xian and Rou Gui? It's a rock tea from Wuyi. Yes, it's a rock tea from the Wuyi mountains. But talking about Shui Xian and Rou Gui, there's a slight difference. When we really just talk about Da Hong Pao in today's the situation in the market, and we're just simply talking about Da Hong Pao, 99% of the time, we're talking about the blend. So it's not a pure cultivar, or Shui Xian and Rou Gui is its own cultivar. Very likely the Da Hong Pao we're having have some Shui Xian, have some Rou Gui, or even other rock tea plants. I just want to point out, there's nothing wrong with blending. Blending is a step of tea process. A blended tea doesn't simply make that a good tea or bad tea. You know me. For me, I have to look at the tea itself. There's no simple terms that decide it's good or bad. So same with the pure Da Hong Pao. If it's a pure Da Hong Pao, it also doesn't really mean it's a guaranteed good tea. But because of the impression people have, yes, you've got to pay extra money for that pure, for that kind of impression we have. So talking about Chinese tea is actually a very vast market we're talking about. When we talk about Da Hong Pao, Tie Guan Yin, or any other teas, it sounds like we're talking about one tea. But underneath this one tea, there are so many different qualities. Every farmer's factories or brands, they have their own quality level. And even within one season, the individual farmer could have produced Tie Guan Yin or Da Hong Pao with very different qualities. So it's really hard for regular tea consumers and tea lovers to really know this nuance of the tea quality. So my philosophy of running Zhen Tea is to act like a goalkeeper, using our expertise to help you eliminate that wondering phase. Is this vintage Pu'er really from the 80s? Or is that a counterfeit? Or is this Shi Feng Long Jin really from Shi Feng? So those are the things that we handle. And when you buy from us, you can be sure that whatever is in your cup matches what you think you bought. And I never say I only bring you the best tea in the world. Those are just a promise I cannot keep. Something irrealistic. So my focus on what tea we carry is the best value. I know value. Something that sounds so not fancy, so not high-end. But I think it matters. What I care is the price of the tea and its quality matches. That's why you will have some very accessible daily teas in our store, as well as some rare teas that you just cannot find anywhere else. In terms of Da Hong Pao, the pure Da Hong Pao is usually labeled as Beidou or Qidan, which Beidou we had carried in the past as well. The issue of this category of Da Hong Pao is a lot of time overpriced. And people often just emphasize on it's that cultivar, it's grafted from the mother plant. But it's oolong tea and rock tea. The process really matters. You could really ruin a tea by a bad process. So a lot of times what we've tasted is expensive tea, good material, but the making is very mediocre. And the result, in our opinion, is an overpriced tea. Then we have this more common Da Hong Pao, which is a blend. Again, I want to say blend doesn't mean it's bad. The essence of blending is supposed to be duplicating or mimicking the essence of Da Hong Pao. But how many people really know the true taste of Da Hong Pao? So a lot of times it becomes a way to sell some low-end leftover teas. And also because like Shui Xian Re Gui, those single cultivars now are very strong in the market. They themselves sell really well. The legend about Wuyi is no more just about Da Hong Pao. So the chances of people using good material to make a very nice sip of Da Hong Pao is slim. So in this category, we see a lot of price points that we feel like is very reasonable, but the quality is just not there. If you recall, we also did carry Da Hong Pao at some point of time. So for me, it's not really I have to have a tea in my store or something. We have always been sampling and tasting all kinds of raw tea, all kinds of Da Hong Pao. But when we see something that is up to our standard and matches my philosophy of my shop, yes, I will carry some. But I don't know when. I hope soon. But I cannot promise a time. This is actually also very similar to Shi Feng Long Jin, a very popular green tea. Every spring, people were asking, will you have this this year? It's also a very hyped tea. I'd love to have them. The good quality ones are very, very phenomenal. A lot of people have them. I've seen those just on websites and pictures. Just from the picture, I know they're not even from Shi Feng, but they're labeled Shi Feng Long Jin with that price. So I personally don't see the point of doing that. Yes, sometimes we carry it. Sometimes we don't. That's pretty much what happens to our website and our tea selection. Again, I'm really thankful for all the emails and inquiries. It really helps me know what you wanted to try. And so that we can shift our focus to those teas trying a little bit harder to get even more samples. Just in terms of specific teas, I can never really give a promise that this tea will always be here or this tea will be back at a certain time. Every tea, we all do retaste. If a tea you notice has been many years in our store, it means they've been good. Yeah, I just want to take the chance to explain how we work here. This is today's video. If you have any questions about Da Hong Pao or anything else, please feel free to leave me a comment below. And if you enjoyed this video, give me a thumbs up and consider subscribing to our channel and hit the notification bell. Until next time, keep steeping!