Lapsang Souchong Leaf Tea
Black Tea
Loose Leaf
Available in:
125g
1kg
Our Lapsang Souchong tea is created in the mountains of China, where the leaves are dried on bamboo over smoking pine wood fires. This gives the leaves a uniquely deep, rich, smoky flavour. Our Lapsang Souchong has a uniquely deep, rich, smoky flavour
Flavour
How to brew
For the perfect cup, 100 degrees, 2-3 mins
There are several stories about how this iconic tea was created – dating back as far as the mid 17th century or as recently as the mid-19th century. One thing’s for sure: Lapsang Souchong was indisputably born in China.
Our favourite tale is perhaps the oldest. It tells of tea farmers who emptied their barns for passing soldiers to rest. Overnight rains soaked the dried tea leaves, which were due to be sold at market shortly afterwards – so the enterprising farmers improvised and dried it over pinewood fires. Its smoky taste became a sensation.
Today, two things mark our Lapsang Souchong: good tea and good pinewood. We choose a lovely, rounded black tea from Fuijan Province in southern China, which gives a perfectly balanced canvas to showcase that unique smoky flavour.
And to infuse that flavour, we use good quality, properly-treated pinewood fires, so the result is smoky without being harsh and powerful without being bitter. We like to think it’s how those market customers would have enjoyed it, all those centuries ago.
Loose leaf tea adds an extra sense of occasion. Using “orthodox” tea leaves – a larger leaf than those typically used in tea bags – means a slightly lighter flavour which still packs a potent, smoky punch, but with a little more subtlety and delicacy beneath it. They’re ideally brewed in a teapot, which gives them lots of room to move around and benefit from lots of surface contact with the water, and adds a certain something to the ritual of tea-making.
