What Is High-End Tea?

Previously written, source: https://laolv.org/what-is-high-end-tea

Since 2015 we have been emphasizing forest tea; Houyue's slogan is "big-tree tea from the forest" - many crowdfunding partners will know this.

What makes forest tea good? Ecology!

This is why, in my good-tea formula article, I give material a 90% weight. Material is mainly ecology; only once ecology is guaranteed does tree age matter - whether it is ancient tree is actually not that important (of course, under equal ecology, ancient trees do taste somewhat better). The remaining 10% is processing. Example: Laobanzhang is generally powerful with a bitter base, but if the plot's ecology is good, even it can taste clean-sweet and crisp, similar to Yiwu. Even ordinary Laobanzhang material - say, the summer tea of a bitter plot a farmer complains about - can be processed into a clean-sweet flavor with not a trace of bitterness, Yiwu-like (though thinner than the better material; I have evidence and samples if you are interested).
This is also why, around 2017, I kept challenging "tea art". In a sense tea ceremony is technique; the tea itself is the point. Mastery of ceremony is nice, but for a truly good tea it hardly matters - great tea has no weak point, anyone can brew it deliciously. Obsessing over ceremony while ignoring the leaf puts the cart before the horse. Let us focus on the tea itself.

The high-end taste of tea always comes from good ecology plus correct processing.
For those interested in tea-making, we can discuss it separately. This article's main purpose is how to taste high-end tea. I have touched on similar points in several articles but not comprehensively; here I develop them.

1. Calm flavor.

Calm flavor is the main parameter in what I call the good picture of tea.
Tea whose taste is not calm is not high-end. Examples: Mannuo - full-bodied and fragrant but without cool charm; Laomane - bitter base, thick and slippery; most Laobanzhang - powerful but lacking charm; and many more such teas - Rhinoceros Pond, Hekai, most Bulang Mountain teas, even most Menghai teas.
Most Lincang teas please the mouth but lack bottom charm, feeling hollow. Contrarians, note the prefix "most": a few exceptions exist, yet even places like the five Bingdao villages have seen their overall ecology decline sharply; Molie Lower Village, which I used to love, is no longer calm either - the trees have almost all been cut.
Calmness is the ultimate expression of ecology. Tea flavor becomes calm, the region becomes famous, farmers cut trees to increase output, and the flavor stops being calm - this seems to be the fate of every famous mountain, and it is why Bulang Mountain teas fell in price the most this year.

Calmness refers not only to taste but also to climate stability - calm climate.
A dozen years ago, after finishing Yiwu tea we could rest a few days before doing Menghai ancient trees.
In recent years, by the time Menghai ancient trees are done, Yiwu's young trees have only just begun to be picked.
Yiwu mingqian (pre-Qingming) tea is only a time point; most mingqian teas are not high-end at all.
Why did this change? Because Menghai's ecology has shifted greatly, raising temperatures; with insufficient shade, tea sprouts early, and uncalm climate makes uncalm flavor.
Are there ecologically good places in Menghai? Yes: Nannuo Mountain, Zhanglang, Banpen and New Banzhang still carry overall clean-sweet, cool charm.

2. Complete sweetness.

1. Sweet completely: when you drink, it is sweet at entry, sweet as it stays, and sweet lingering after - all three stages sweet makes sweetness complete.
2. Sweet and crisp: clean-sweet without the crisp, mineral note is not yet high-end.

Only when all three stages are sweet to the point of crispness do you have ultimate sweetness.

3. Complete cool charm.

There must be cool charm - present while drinking and lingering after.
The old phrases "wind between teeth and lips" and "springs welling beneath the tongue" are the ancients telling you tea's high-level feeling; that feeling is the ultimate cool charm.

4. Calm body-feel.

I have long wanted to write an article on body-feel, but these years my state has been off and I remain anxious; a body-feel article written now would not be calm enough, so I have held off. Here I will briefly say what calm body-feel means: drinking the tea must not burden the body - or at least not burden it noticeably.

1. No damp-cold.

If material is poor or processing inadequate, even Mobaotang will carry damp-cold - it is just that places with good ecology offer finer material with less damp-cold. Choose good material and process it fully (shou tou) - that is the way. This applies not only to raw tea: ripe, black and white teas all need to be processed thoroughly too.

2. You can drink a lot without fatigue.

Easier to understand: a tea you can drink three to five brews a day, from morning to night - several liters or even over ten liters - and still keep drinking without tiredness, still wanting more - that is good tea, "drink a lot without fatigue". A tea that makes you feel you must push back with your body's strength has poor body-feel.

3. Calm body-feel.

Tea that causes palpitations, headaches, a tight head, bloating or anxiety all has poor body-feel.

5. How do you create high-end-tasting tea?

Two paths. First: keep choosing premium famous-mountain material. Personally I think this path will only get harder - famous mountains today are either insanely expensive (Mobaotang) or expensive and mediocre (Laobanzhang). If you have more money than sense, go ahead. If you have a stable high-end clientele and brand advantage, you can take this path too. But there is a huge risk: the farmers. Farmers, after all, are also tea merchants. In famous-mountain tea, 90% of profit stays with the farmers; farmers grow richer and richer while merchants barely survive - that is already the reality. If you can outcompete the farmers, you may keep this path.
The other path is blending. Look across the whole province. For example, Lanlan, which I formally launched this year, is a cross-regional blend led by Yiwu with Jingmai Mountain and Nannuo Mountain as supporting cast - benchmarked against the best Yiwu flavor, cool in fragrance and charm. It is not Mobaotang, but the goal is to out-taste Mobaotang.

Blending has several big advantages

1. It avoids the ups and downs of the famous-mountain market and the risk of competing head-on with farmers.
2. Starting from material selection with unified processing, you can produce a calm, pure high-end flavor. A high-end blend has no dissonance; drinking it feels like drinking a pure ancient-tree tea - no abrupt notes, no ups and downs of taste, calm and clean flavor, sweet to crispness, complete cool charm, calm body-feel - like Lanlan this year.
3. Stronger customer loyalty. Your own blend has its own flavor style; there is almost no similar tea on the market, strong exclusivity, and dependable customer loyalty.
4. Better value for money.

First-grade Mobaotang costs tens of thousands of yuan per kilogram; blending with forest teas from other mountains cuts cost dramatically - about 10% of the cost can produce comparable or better flavor.
And you cannot even buy real first-grade Mobaotang. Your odds are about the same as winning the lottery: total output is a few hundred kilograms, yet the market sells tens of thousands of kilograms. Why would you get the real thing? Blending detaches from the mountain concept; the focus is on a specific tea of a specific brand (or person), with no extra selection cost.
Blending delivers better value!

6. My choice.

Force creates miracles; blending creates good tea.
Before 2023 I was studying what good tea is and how it should be made.
After 2023 I began studying how to make good tea and experimenting with blending.
In 2025: forest material, fully processed craft, careful blending - finally good tea.

Lan (orchid) is the flower of deep forest valleys. Its fragrance is cool, its charm is cool; cool in fragrance and charm - that is the nature of the secluded orchid. Houyue has a tea, cool in fragrance and charm, hence the name "Lanlan".

This is the 35th article of my Talking About Tea on Paper series. Click for more Talking About Tea on Paper articles.