100 guides so far, grouped by topic.
Guide
The fastest way to understand Chinese tea is to taste one good example of each type side by side: green, white, yellow, light oolong, roasted oolong, red (black) tea and ripe pu-erh. Buy small samples, brew each at its own temperature, go from lightest to darkest and take notes.
Guide
Coffee lovers should start Chinese tea with roasty, full-bodied teas rather than delicate greens: Wuyi rock oolong, Dian Hong, shou pu-erh, Lapsang Souchong, roasted Tieguanyin, and caffeine-free barley tea for evenings. Brew them strong enough and expect a gentler, longer lift than coffee.
Comparison
Most standard tea bags hold small broken leaf and dust, which brews fast, turns bitter easily and gives one cup. Whole loose leaf tastes fuller and sweeter, changes from cup to cup and can be steeped several times; a mug and an infuser are all you need to switch.
Guide
To taste tea, check it in order: dry leaf, warmed leaf, liquor colour, then aroma, taste, texture and aftertaste, and finally the spent leaf, following the tea across several steeps. The fastest way to learn is to taste two teas side by side, brewed the same way, and write down what you notice.
Guide
Blooming tea (flowering tea) is a small ball of tea buds, hand-tied around dried flowers, that opens into a "flower" in hot water. It's real tea, usually green or white, so it contains caffeine.
Guide
All real tea has caffeine, usually around 12–43 mg per 100 ml. The leaf and the brewing decide how much more than the colour: buds, broken leaf, hotter water and longer steeps push it up.
Comparison
Green, white and black tea all come from Camellia sinensis; processing makes the difference. Green is heated fresh, white is only withered and dried, and black tea, called red tea (hong cha) in China, is fully oxidized.
Guide
Dry tea rarely goes bad, but it goes stale: green, yellow and light oolong are best within about a year, red tea within about three, while white tea, pu-erh and dark tea can improve with age. Only damp or mouldy tea needs throwing away.
Guide
China's "Ten Famous Teas" (中国十大名茶) isn't one official list: different sources name different teas, around 17–18 names in all. The most widely quoted version lists West Lake Longjing, Dongting Bi Luo Chun, Huangshan Mao Feng, Lu An Gua Pian, Junshan Yinzhen, Xinyang Mao Jian, Wuyi rock tea (Da Hong Pao), Anxi Tieguanyin, Keemun and Lushan Yunwu.
Guide
Xinyang Mao Jian (信阳毛尖, "Downy Tips of Xinyang") is a green tea from Henan with thin, straight, downy needles. It tastes of fresh grass and green beans, then watermelon and ripe peach, changing from steep to steep; brew it at 80–85 °C.
Guide
Zhu Ye Qing (竹叶青, "bamboo leaf green") is a bud green tea from the Emei Mountain area in Sichuan, named for its flat buds that stand upright in a glass like tiny bamboo leaves. It's dense and fresh, with a gentle bitterness that turns into a honeyed finish; brew it at 75–80 °C.
Guide
Bitter green tea is almost always a brewing problem: water that's too hot, steeping too long, too much leaf, stale or broken tea, or hard water. Use water at 75–85 °C, short steeps, weighed leaf and fresh, whole-leaf tea.
Guide
Huangshan Mao Feng (黄山毛峰, "Yellow Mountain Fur Peak") is one of China's most famous green teas, from the Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) area of southern Anhui. It's made from a bud and one young leaf, lightly twisted and covered in fine down, which gives it its name.
Guide
Tai Ping Hou Kui (太平猴魁, often translated "Monkey King" or "Monkey Chief") is a famous green tea from Taiping in southern Anhui, near Huangshan, with huge, flat, straight leaves pressed by hand. It tastes smooth and gentle: orchid, fresh greens, a light sweetness and very little bitterness.
Guide
Bi Luo Chun (碧螺春, "Green Snail Spring") is one of China's most famous green teas, grown around Lake Tai in Jiangsu province. It's made from a tiny bud and one leaf, rolled into tight spirals covered in white down, and it's known for an intensely fruity and floral aroma.
Guide
Anji Bai Cha (安吉白茶, "Anji white tea") is a green tea, not a white tea, from Anji county in Zhejiang. It's called "white" because it's made from a special tea bush whose young spring leaves come out very pale, almost white-green.
Guide
Lu An Gua Pian (六安瓜片, "Melon Seeds from Lu'an") is a green tea from western Anhui made only from single leaves, with no buds and no stems, rolled into shapes like melon seeds and dried over fire in bamboo baskets many times over. It tastes fuller than most green teas: toasted seeds, a light smokiness, orchid and a long, sweet finish.
Guide
Real jasmine tea is green tea (sometimes white tea or oolong) scented with fresh jasmine blossoms. The flowers are mixed with the tea at night, when they open and release their fragrance, and then removed; good teas are scented several times over several nights.
Guide
Longjing (龙井, "Dragon Well") is China's best-known green tea, made around Hangzhou in Zhejiang province. Its leaves are pan-fired and pressed flat in a hot wok, which gives them their smooth, sword-like shape and a flavour of toasted beans, roasted chestnut and fresh greens.
Guide
Yunnan white tea is made from Yunnan's big-leaf tea plants; the best known is Yue Guang Bai (月光白, "Moonlight White"), with leaves dark on top and silvery underneath. It's denser and richer than Fuding white tea, with honey, dried apricot and a mushroom-like depth close to young sheng pu-erh.
Guide
White tea tastes soft, smooth and naturally sweet, with very little bitterness: honey, melon, meadow flowers and hay when fresh, dates, wood and herbs when aged. If it tastes like hot water, it was almost certainly under-brewed.
Guide
White tea cakes are white tea, usually Shou Mei, Gong Mei or Bai Mu Dan, lightly steamed and pressed into round cakes, much like pu-erh. Pressing makes the tea compact and well suited to aging: over the years it darkens and turns sweeter, with notes of dates, honey, dried fruit and herbs.
Guide
Aged white tea (lao bai cha, 老白茶) is white tea kept for several years in dry storage until it darkens and turns from hay, flowers and melon to dates, honey, dried fruit and herbs. Leafy grades like Shou Mei and Gong Mei age best; the keys are good leaf, dry storage, a little air and patience.
Guide
Shou Mei (寿眉, "Longevity Eyebrow") is the leafiest of Fuding's four white tea grades: larger, later-picked leaves with few buds, simply withered and dried. Fresh, it tastes fuller and earthier than Silver Needle or Bai Mu Dan; after a few years in dry storage it turns amber and sweet, with notes of dates, honey and herbs.
Guide
Silver Needle (Bai Hao Yin Zhen, 白毫银针) is China's most famous white tea, made only from unopened buds covered in silver-white down, simply withered and dried. It tastes delicate and sweet, of honey, melon, hay and meadow flowers, and it isn't low in caffeine.
Guide
Bai Mu Dan (白牡丹, "White Peony") is a Chinese white tea from Fuding, made from a bud and one or two young leaves, withered and dried. Honeyed and floral, fuller than Silver Needle and very forgiving to brew, it becomes darker and sweeter when pressed into cakes and aged.
Guide
Huoshan Huang Ya (霍山黄芽, "Yellow Buds of Huoshan") is a yellow tea from western Anhui, made from a bud with one or two young leaves, processed like a green tea and then lightly "sealed yellowed". It tastes fresh and sweet, with sweet corn and toasted grain, and it's usually the easiest yellow tea to find.
Guide
Junshan Yinzhen (君山银针, "Silver Needles of Junshan") is China's most famous yellow tea, made only from buds picked on a small island in Dongting Lake, Hunan. Sealed yellowing makes it soft, sweet and almost free of bitterness, and in a tall glass the buds stand upright and rise and sink.
Guide
Meng Ding Huang Ya (蒙顶黄芽, "Yellow Buds of Meng Ding") is a bud-only yellow tea from Meng Ding Mountain in Sichuan, made like a green tea and then slowly "sealed yellowed". It tastes of sweet corn, honey and toasted grain, with a honeysuckle note and a faint ginger-like warmth.
Guide
Oolong doesn't have one taste, because it's a way of making tea, not a single tea. Light oolongs taste floral and creamy, heavily roasted ones taste of toasted grain, caramel, dark fruit and cocoa, with honey, peach and spice in between.
Comparison
Oolong and green tea come from the same plant. Green tea is heated right after picking and stays fresh and grassy; oolong is partly oxidized and often roasted, so it tastes floral, creamy or toasty, takes hotter water and gives more steeps.
Guide
High mountain oolong (gao shan cha) is Taiwanese oolong grown above roughly 1,000 metres: lightly oxidized, lightly roasted, floral, creamy and sweet. Alishan, Shan Lin Xi, Lishan and Da Yu Ling rise roughly in altitude and prestige.
Guide
Dong Ding (凍頂, Tung Ting) is Taiwan's classic roasted oolong from Lugu, Nantou: traditionally rolled, medium-oxidized and charcoal-roasted, with a warm, nutty, caramel-sweet cup. Greener, lightly roasted versions are common today.
Guide
GABA oolong isn't a tea variety but a processing method: fresh leaves are kept without oxygen for several hours so they build up GABA, then usually made into roasted Taiwanese oolong. Good ones taste of baked bread and dried fruit; a cup contains only a few milligrams of GABA, so drink it for the taste.
Guide
Rou Gui (肉桂, "cinnamon") is a Wuyi rock oolong from northern Fujian, named for its spicy aroma: cinnamon bark, sweet spice and dark fruit over a mineral "rock rhyme". It's usually medium to firmly roasted and is the boldest, most aromatic of the classic Wuyi teas.
Guide
Oriental Beauty (Dongfang Meiren, 東方美人) is a Taiwanese oolong from Hsinchu and Miaoli, made from young leaves bitten by the tea green leafhopper. Heavily oxidized, around 60–80%, it tastes naturally of honey, muscat grape and ripe stone fruit, with no bitterness.
Guide
Shui Xian (水仙, "Narcissus") is one of the two great Wuyi rock oolongs: soft, thick and woody, with orchid, baked apple, a gentle roast and a deep mineral finish. Old-bush Lao Cong Shui Xian adds a mossy, woody depth.
Guide
"Milk oolong" is either Jin Xuan (金萱), a Taiwanese cultivar with a naturally soft, creamy note, or an oolong flavoured with a milk or cream essence, often labelled "Nai Xiang". The natural one stays gently creamy and floral across steeps; the flavoured one smells of milk candy and fades fast.
Guide
Feng Huang Dan Cong (凤凰单丛, "Phoenix single bush") is an oolong from Phoenix Mountain near Chaozhou in Guangdong, and it's my favourite tea. No other tea gives so much aroma from the leaf alone: honey, orchid, ripe apricot, lychee, almond, gardenia, with nothing added.
Guide
Tieguanyin (铁观音, "Iron Goddess of Mercy") is a rolled oolong from Anxi County in southern Fujian, China. It comes in two styles: the modern green style, lightly oxidized with an intense orchid and lilac aroma, and the traditional roasted style, darker and warmer, with honey and toasted grain.
Guide
Da Hong Pao (大红袍, "Big Red Robe") is the most famous Wuyi rock oolong: a medium-to-highly oxidized, charcoal-roasted tea with flavours of roasted nuts, dark fruit, cocoa and a mineral finish. The six mother bushes haven't been picked since 2006, so the Da Hong Pao you can buy is a blend of Wuyi cultivars or tea from bushes propagated from the originals.
Guide
Taiwanese oolong covers a wide range of teas, from lightly oxidized, floral high mountain teas (Alishan, Lishan, Shan Lin Xi) to roasted Dong Ding, honey-scented Oriental Beauty and Gui Fei, creamy Jin Xuan "milk oolong" and twisted, fragrant Baozhong. What they share is careful processing and a clean, sweet cup.
Comparison
Green (light) oolong is lightly oxidized and lightly finished: floral, creamy and fresh, with a pale gold liquor. Roasted (dark) oolong has been baked, often over charcoal, for hours or days: toasty, nutty, caramel-sweet and deep, with an amber liquor.
Guide
Dan Cong (单丛, "single bush") is an oolong from the Phoenix Mountains of Guangdong, China, famous for natural aromas that mimic flowers and fruit: orchid, honey, almond, gardenia, ginger flower. It's the most perfumed tea in China, and the easiest to ruin: a few seconds too long and the fragrance turns bitter.
Guide
Wuyi rock tea (岩茶, yancha) is a family of roasted oolongs from the Wuyi Mountains in northern Fujian, China. The best-known are Da Hong Pao, Rou Gui and Shui Xian.
Comparison
Tieguanyin and Da Hong Pao are both oolongs from Fujian, but they sit at opposite ends of the oolong spectrum. If you like green tea and fresh flowers, start with Tieguanyin; if you like coffee, whisky or dark chocolate, start with Da Hong Pao.
Guide
Golden Monkey (Jin Hou, 金猴) is a Chinese red (black) tea of golden, downy buds and young leaves twisted into curls said to look like monkey paws. Sweet, malty and chocolatey, with almost no bitterness.
Guide
Keemun (Qimen Hong Cha, 祁门红茶) is a red tea, what the West calls black tea, from Qimen county in Anhui, made since 1875 and often called the most elegant of Chinese red teas. It tastes of orchid, plum and honey, with a clean, dry, slightly winey finish.
Guide
Jin Jun Mei (金骏眉, "Golden Eyebrow") is a bud-only Chinese red (black) tea from the Tongmu area of the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian, created in the mid-2000s. It's unsmoked, sweet and delicate: honey, flowers, baked sweet potato and a silky texture, best brewed at 85–90 °C.
Guide
Dian Hong (滇红, "Yunnan red") is a fully oxidized red tea from Yunnan, the tea the West calls "black tea". It's malty and sweet, with cocoa, honey and baked sweet potato notes, and the best grades are covered in golden buds.
Guide
Lapsang Souchong, called Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong (正山小种) in China, is a red tea from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian. The best-known style is smoked over pine; the finest versions are often unsmoked, tasting of dried longan, honey and sweet potato.
Guide
Anhua county in Hunan is one of the best-known homes of Chinese dark tea (hei cha): giant Qianliang logs pressed in bamboo, Fu bricks with deliberately grown "golden flowers", and the loose San Jian teas. They're smooth, woody and sweet; brew them with boiling water and short steeps, or simmer them.
Guide
Liu Bao (六堡茶) is a Chinese dark tea (hei cha) from Wuzhou in Guangxi, southern China. Like ripe pu-erh, it goes through a piling stage that transforms the leaf, and it's then aged, traditionally in bamboo baskets, often for several years before sale.
Guide
Fu brick (茯砖, Fu Zhuan) is a pressed dark tea (hei cha) from Anhua in Hunan province. Its signature is the "golden flowers" (jin hua, 金花): small golden-yellow specks inside the brick, which are a mould, Eurotium cristatum, grown on purpose during a special "flowering" stage.
Guide
Shou (ripe) pu-erh is dark, smooth and mellow: earth, wet wood, walnut, cocoa and dates. Young sheng (raw) is bright and bitter-sweet, with apricot, flowers and honey, and aged sheng turns to wood, camphor, dried fruit and incense.
Guide
To break a pu-erh cake, insert a pu-erh knife or pick into the edge of the cake a few centimetres deep, parallel to its surface, then twist and lever gently so a chunk lifts away along the natural layers. The goal is whole leaves in small chunks, not crumbs.
Comparison
"Wet storage" (or traditional storage) means pu-erh aged in hot, humid conditions, historically in Hong Kong and Guangdong warehouses; it ages quickly and turns dark, earthy, woody and sometimes musty. "Dry storage" means aging in drier, ventilated conditions; it ages slowly and keeps the tea brighter, fruitier and cleaner.
Guide
Sheng (raw) pu-erh changes slowly with age: bitterness and sharp astringency soften, the liquor moves from pale gold to orange and then chestnut, and new aromas appear, such as dried fruit, dates, wood, camphor and incense. Most of the harshness fades in the first four to six years; real depth usually takes ten years or more.
Guide
Tangerine pu-erh is ripe (shou) pu-erh packed into a hollowed-out tangerine and dried together, so the tea and peel flavour each other. It's made in Xinhui, in Guangdong, from a local tangerine famous for its dried peel.
Guide
"Fake pu-erh" rarely means tea that isn't tea. It usually means tea that isn't what the label says: an exaggerated age, a famous mountain name on ordinary leaf, plantation leaf sold as old-tree, shou blended into sheng to make it look aged, oven-dried leaf sold as proper pu-erh, or a counterfeit copy of a well-known factory cake.
Guide
Pu-erh comes only from Yunnan province, and within Yunnan three areas matter most: Xishuangbanna in the far south (home to the Six Great Tea Mountains, Yiwu, Menghai and Lao Ban Zhang), Pu'er prefecture (Jingmai and others) and Lincang in the west (Mengku and Bingdao). Each area, and often each mountain and village, gives a different character.
Guide
To brew pu-erh gongfu-style, use 3–5 g of leaf in a 100 ml gaiwan, rinse once with boiling water, then steep for about 5 seconds for young sheng, 7–15 for aged sheng or 15–30 for shou, adding 5–20 seconds each round. Use boiling water for shou and aged sheng, and about 90 °C for young sheng, whose steeps should stay especially short.
Guide
Store pu-erh somewhere dark, odour-free and stable, at roughly 60–70% relative humidity and 20–30 °C (68–86 °F), with some air circulation. If you only plan to drink the tea within a year or two, almost any closed box in a cupboard is fine.
Comparison
Sheng (raw) pu-erh is pressed and left to ferment slowly over years or decades; shou (ripe) goes through a fast, controlled wet-pile fermentation that takes about 6–8 weeks. Sheng tastes bright, bitter-sweet and alive; shou tastes dark, smooth and earthy.
Guide
Chaozhou gongfu cha (潮州工夫茶) is the traditional way of brewing tea in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and the root of modern gongfu: a tiny clay pot packed with Dan Cong, boiling water from a clay kettle on a charcoal stove, three tiny cups and very fast, even pours.
Guide
What most people call the Chinese tea ceremony is gongfu cha: good loose-leaf tea brewed in a small teapot or gaiwan with many short steeps and shared in small cups. It's about attention, not a fixed ritual, and you can host one at home.
Guide
Good loose-leaf tea can be steeped several times: most teas give 2–3 good steeps in a mug and about 5–12 or more gongfu style, depending on the tea. Add a few seconds to each steep, and stop when the tea turns thin or flat.
Guide
Most off tastes in tea come from brewing, water or storage, not from the tea itself. Sour usually means water too cool or stale tea, flat means stale leaf or the wrong water, weak means too little leaf, and bitter means too hot, too long or too much.
Guide
You don't need a gaiwan to brew loose leaf tea well: put about 2–3 g of leaf in a large basket infuser in a 250–300 ml mug, pour water at the right temperature for the tea, steep 1.5–3 minutes, lift the infuser out and re-steep the leaves once or twice.
Guide
Grandpa style means putting a small amount of loose tea straight into a glass or mug, pouring hot water over it and drinking, then topping up with more hot water when about a third is left. No strainer, no timer, no second vessel. It's how many people in China drink tea all day, from a glass jar or thermos. The secret is using much less leaf than you'd think, about 2–3 g for a 300 ml glass, and choosing teas that stay pleasant after long contact with water: Chinese green tea, red tea, Taiwanese and roasted oolongs, white tea and ripe pu-erh.
Buyer's guide
To start gongfu tea you need four things: a 100–120 ml porcelain gaiwan, a digital scale that reads to 0.1 g, a kettle, and a small pitcher with one or two cups. That's an inexpensive kit if you already own a kettle. A tea tray, a pu-erh knife and a strainer are useful extras. Big boxed "complete gongfu sets" are usually a worse buy than those four items chosen separately.
Guide
To cold brew tea, put loose leaf in cold water and leave it in the fridge for 8–12 hours, then strain. A good starting ratio is about 2 teaspoons of leaf per litre (roughly 5–10 g, depending on the tea). Cold water pulls out sweetness and aroma but very little bitterness, so the result is smooth, sweet and almost impossible to ruin. The best teas for it are Taiwanese high-mountain oolong, Oriental Beauty, white tea and red tea. Green teas work too, but they can turn slightly bitter, so keep their time shorter.
Guide
The best water for tea is soft, fresh and clean-tasting, with a low but not zero mineral content. For most people that means filtered tap water or a low-mineral bottled spring water. Very hard water dulls aroma, darkens the liquor and leaves a film on the surface; distilled and reverse-osmosis water have almost no minerals and make tea taste flat. Use freshly drawn water, don't reboil it, and match the temperature to the tea.
Comparison
Gongfu brewing uses a lot of leaf in a small vessel with short steeps of seconds, repeated 5 to 10 times or more; Western brewing uses a little leaf in a big pot or mug and steeps it for minutes, once or twice. Gongfu shows you how a tea changes from round to round and gets more out of good leaf; Western gives you one consistent, easy cup. Neither is correct. Gongfu is better for tasting and for oolong, pu-erh and fine teas; Western is better for convenience and everyday drinking.
Chart
There's no single gongfu ratio, but the starting point is 3–7 g of tea per 100 ml of water (less for red tea and pu-erh, more for oolongs), boiling water for shou and dark teas and cooler water for green and delicate teas, and a first steep of 5–20 seconds, adding 5–20 seconds each round. The chart below adjusts that starting point for every type of Chinese tea.
Guide
To use a gaiwan, fill it only to where the rim starts to flare, hold the rim between your thumb and middle finger, rest your index finger on the lid knob, tilt the lid to leave a small gap, and pour everything out in one quick, confident motion. Keeping the water below the rim and pouring fast is what keeps your fingers cool.
Guide
Jianzhan (建盏) are dark tea bowls and cups made from iron-rich clay and glaze at the Jian kilns in northern Fujian, prized in the Song dynasty for whisked tea. Known in Japan as tenmoku, they suit darker teas like red tea, pu-erh and roasted oolong.
Comparison
A shiboridashi (絞り出し) is a small Japanese handleless teapot: a shallow bowl with a lid and a pouring lip. Compared with a gaiwan, it's easier to hold, pours more cleanly and burns fingers less, and it works beautifully for Chinese gongfu brewing.
Guide
A gongfu tea tray (cha pan, 茶盘) is a slatted tray that sits under your teaware and catches rinses, warm-up water, overflow and drips. Bamboo is the easy first choice, and you don't strictly need one: dry brewing with a pot stand and a waste bowl works on any table.
Guide
The cup changes how tea tastes and smells: delicate green and white teas suit wide, thin white porcelain; red tea, dark tea and roasted oolongs suit thicker ceramic; fragrant oolongs shine in narrow-mouthed cups or an aroma-cup pair. Gongfu cups are small, usually 30–60 ml.
Guide
A tea pet (cha chong, 茶宠) is a small figure, usually of unglazed clay, that sits on a gongfu tea tray and gets "fed" leftover tea. Over months the clay slowly darkens and develops a soft sheen; it doesn't change how your tea tastes.
Guide
For most tea drinkers, the best kettle is an electric kettle with adjustable temperature, a stainless steel or glass interior and a keep-warm function. Temperature control matters most for green, white and yellow tea; keep-warm matters most for gongfu.
Guide
Clean a Yixing teapot with hot water only: empty the leaves right after the session, rinse inside and out with hot water, brush gently with a soft brush kept for tea, and let it dry completely with the lid off. Never use soap, detergent, a dishwasher or scouring pads: unglazed clay absorbs them and gives the taste back to your tea.
Guide
Most "Yixing" teapots sold online aren't made of real Yixing zisha clay, or are made of clay mixed with additives and dyes. There's no single test that proves a pot is real: look at the surface, smell, lid, maker's information and the seller's reputation together.
Guide
A fairness cup (gong dao bei, 公道杯, also called cha hai, 茶海) is a small pitcher you pour each gongfu steep into before serving. Its job is to mix the tea, because the first drops from a gaiwan or teapot are weaker than the last.
Guide
A Yixing teapot is a small, unglazed teapot made from zisha (紫砂, "purple sand") clay from Yixing in Jiangsu province, China. For a first pot, choose a 100–150 ml zini pot from a reputable seller, and dedicate it to one type of tea.
Guide
To season a Yixing teapot, rinse it thoroughly with warm water and a soft brush (never soap), fill it with hot water a few times to flush out kiln dust and clay smell, then brew a couple of sessions of the tea you plan to dedicate it to. Some guides still say to boil a new pot in water and then in tea; others find a clean pot needs only rinsing and use, since boiling can crack thin pots.
Buyer's guide
The best gaiwan for beginners is a glazed porcelain gaiwan of about 100–120 ml, with a clearly flared rim, medium-thick walls and a lid that sits level.
Guide
"Lotus tea" can mean four drinks: lotus leaf tea, whole lotus flower tea, lotus seed-heart tea or lotus-scented green tea. The first three are caffeine-free; the scented tea is real tea and contains caffeine.
Guide
Rose bud tea (mei gui hua cha) is an infusion of dried rose buds, most often from Rosa rugosa and related Chinese roses. It's caffeine-free, softly floral and lightly sweet; blended with red tea or shou pu-erh it gains caffeine.
Guide
Chenpi (陈皮, "aged peel") is tangerine peel dried and aged for years, most prized from Xinhui in Guangdong. Caffeine-free on its own, it's bright and zesty when young and sweet, woody and mellow when old, and a small piece is a lovely addition to shou pu-erh or aged white tea.
Guide
Buckwheat tea is roasted buckwheat steeped in hot water; the Chinese ku qiao cha is usually made from tartary buckwheat, a hardy mountain crop. It's caffeine-free and tastes nutty, toasty and gently sweet: brew about 3–5 g per 300 ml at 90–100 °C for 3–5 minutes, and mind that buckwheat can cause serious allergies.
Guide
Kuding tea (ku ding cha, "bitter nail tea") isn't made from the tea plant but from the rolled leaves of certain hollies or privet: caffeine-free, famously bitter, with a sweet aftertaste that follows. Use very little leaf and water below boiling, because hot water makes it much more bitter.
Guide
Osmanthus tea (gui hua cha) is made from the tiny dried flowers of Osmanthus fragrans, which smell of ripe apricot, peach and honey. Pure flowers are caffeine-free; osmanthus oolong and osmanthus red tea are real tea scented with the flowers and do contain caffeine.
Guide
Chrysanthemum tea (ju hua cha) is a caffeine-free infusion of dried chrysanthemum flowers: floral, softly sweet and gently herbal, with a honeyed finish. Brew 4–6 small flowers (or one large flower) per 300 ml at 90–95 °C for 3–5 minutes and top up two or three times.
Guide
Ginkgo leaf tea (yin xing ye cha) is an infusion of dried Ginkgo biloba leaves: caffeine-free, grassy, hay-like and slightly bitter. Unlike most herbal teas it raises real safety questions, so buy from a regulated producer, drink it only occasionally, and never brew leaves picked from a tree.
Guide
Barley tea (da mai cha in Chinese, boricha in Korean, mugicha in Japanese) is roasted barley steeped or simmered in water: toasty, nutty and caffeine-free, with a light bitterness a bit like weak coffee. Use about 10 g per litre, simmer it for 5–10 minutes or cold-steep it overnight; note that barley contains gluten.
Buyer's guide
The best gifts for tea lovers are things they'll use every week: a simple gongfu set and a sampler for beginners; a variable-temperature kettle, a handmade cup, a jianzhan or a tea pet for enthusiasts. When unsure, give tea, not teaware.
Guide
A tea sampler is a set of small amounts of different teas, usually 10–25 g each, so you can taste before committing to a full bag or a pu-erh cake. Choose clearly labelled samplers with a theme, taste them side by side and take notes.
Buyer's guide
The best places to buy pu-erh online are specialist vendors that source directly from Yunnan: Yunnan Sourcing, white2tea, Crimson Lotus Tea, Farmerleaf and Bitterleaf Teas. Start with samples from two of them, not a whole cake.