The Imperial Court's Red
A blend of naturally grown Yunnan black tea and imperial grade ripe tea
We have created an entirely new HOJO original tea by blending naturally grown black tea with ripe Pu-erh tea.
The sweet aroma of black tea and the deep, mellow flavor of ripe Pu-erh tea make this a well-balanced tea. It is also delicious as a milk tea.
To make it easier to brew, they are shaped like mini teacups (compressed to about 5g each), so you can easily brew delicious tea just by placing them in a teapot.
We recommend drinking it immediately, but if you let it age for a while, you can enjoy a different aroma.
High-quality ripe Pu-erh tea will never smell moldy.
Some people dislike aged tea because it smells like "old furniture," "rotten wood," or "moldy," but aged tea that smells moldy is very low-quality aged tea, and is the aroma of tea that has had a problem with the fermentation process.
When you drink high-quality tea, you feel a certain level of emotion. At HOJO, we repeatedly taste a large amount of tea, striving to introduce good quality tea.
Product Details
We have created a completely new tea by blending naturally grown black tea and ripe Pu-erh tea. The result is a well-balanced tea with the sweet aroma of black tea and the rich, deep flavor of ripe Pu-erh tea.
A collaboration between Imperial Pu-erh tea and naturally grown black tea
The blend of black tea and ripe Pu-erh tea was more delicious than I had imagined, and I have personally enjoyed blends of the two types of tea for a long time.
I didn't just want to enjoy this deliciousness myself, I wanted others to enjoy it too, so I recommended it to many friends and customers. However, it didn't catch on for the following three reasons.
- You need to get two teas
- You have to blend it yourself
- The flavor of pressed ripe tea and loose black tea is not consistent because the tea extraction speed is different.
The two ingredients are compressed into a mini-toucher to ensure a uniform blend.
I wanted to solve all three of these problems and make my Yunnan black tea and Imperial Pu'er tea blends easily available to everyone.
However, when the two types of tea leaves are blended in their loose state, the size of the leaves of the imperial grade ripe Pu-erh tea is smaller, so they cannot be blended evenly with the larger leaves of the black tea.
For this reason, we decided to compress the tea blend rather than loose tea.
However, we were concerned that if we compressed the tea into 200g or 357g mochicha, the black tea leaves would be damaged when the tea leaves were crushed, and that the mixture would become uneven, so we decided to shape it into mini toucha.
Each mini teapot weighs about 5g, so by simply putting it in a teapot, I can enjoy the aroma and taste I intended, which is very convenient.
The black tea is made using high-quality tea leaves from Ichimeichiba.
The ingredients used for the black tea were one bud, one leaf tea leaves picked around March 20th.
Although one bud and two leaves will produce tea with a stronger flavor and aroma, we have deliberately chosen one bud and one leaf tea leaves as the raw material for our black tea in order to achieve a smoother mouthfeel.
The black tea is grown in a natural tea garden at an altitude of 2000m in Lincang, Yunnan Province. The tea used is grown without the use of pesticides or fertilizers, and without removing any grass growing on the ground.
This is a very rich, medium-bodied black tea that is delicious even when drunk as a black tea.
In order to source black tea made from the very first leaves picked in the spring, we travel to Yunnan before the tea season begins to ensure we sourced early-picked tea.
The aged tea is made using imperial-grade imperial gold halo.
For the ripe tea, we used Imperial Court Jinhao, sold by HOJO.
This tea is also made from naturally grown tea from Lincang. After aging for 2-3 years, this tea develops a sweet aroma similar to that of dried jujube.
For this reason, I think that you can enjoy a different aroma from this black tea + Pu'er tea if you let it age for a while rather than drinking it immediately.
The name "Imperial Dianhong" was decided.
The end result was even more beautiful than we expected, and we were able to achieve the taste and aroma we were aiming for.
It is named "Gong Ting Dianhong" because it is a blend of Gong Ting Jinhao, a royal-grade ripe Pu-erh tea, and Yunnan black tea.
Dianhong (pronounced "Dianhong" in Chinese) is another name for Yunnan black tea. Dian is an old word that refers to Yunnan Province. In other words, Dianhong means Yunnan Province red, or Yunnan black tea.
Milk tea is also delicious
Although Imperial Dianhong is good to drink straight, it also goes very well with milk.
We recommend brewing it strong using as little hot water as possible, then mixing it with plenty of milk and drinking it.
To put it simply, it has a soft texture like silk and a sweet taste even though no sugar is added.
Purchasing specialized in naturally grown tea
We have been visiting Yunnan Province every spring since 2010. Through our many years of staying there, we have built many connections with famous tea-producing areas. However, what we value is not the fame of the producing area, but tea with a clear taste and a long aftertaste. For this reason, we focus on remote mountain villages, select tea plantations with old trees and fertilizer-free tea at high altitudes, and purchase them through our own distribution route. For more information, please see the following page.
In Yunnan, thousands of producers produce tea that uses ingredients from other regions but is advertised as being from a famous region, and it is available everywhere, including airports, convenience stores, and supermarkets.
However, what complicates the situation is the reverse phenomenon that counterfeit tea made from tea from remote areas is of higher quality than the real thing. This phenomenon is particularly common with Pu-erh tea from Lincang, and is well known among local purchasing professionals. For more information, please see the following page.
Yunnan has long-established brands such as Dayi and Zhongcha, which are famous because the tea produced before 1990 is highly regarded.
So what makes these ancient teas so special? Many people assume it was because of the long aging process, but in fact the tea used back then was high-quality tea leaves that were grown naturally without fertilizer.
Therefore, even if the tea made today is aged for a long time, it will not have the same quality. For details, please see the following page.
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