Your First Chinese Tea Flight: 7 Teas That Teach You the Whole Map

The fastest way to understand Chinese tea is to taste one good example of each type side by side. My beginner's flight has seven teas: a green (Longjing), a white (Bai Mu Dan), a yellow (Huoshan Huang Ya), a light oolong (Tieguanyin), a roasted oolong (Da Hong Pao), a red (black) tea (Dian Hong) and a ripe pu-erh. Buy small samples, brew each at its own temperature, go from lightest to darkest, and take notes. In one afternoon you'll know which direction your taste leans.

I'll be honest: I wasted my first year with Chinese tea buying randomly. A jasmine here, a pu-erh there, never two teas at the same time, so I never really understood what made them different. What finally changed that was one Saturday when a friend set out seven small gaiwans and said, "Taste these in order." By the fourth cup I understood more than in the whole previous year. This is that flight, adapted for your kitchen table.

The seven teas#

Want to go further later? Add a young sheng pu-erh and a Phoenix Dan Cong. They're wonderful, but a bit much for a first session.

What you need#

• Samples: 10–25 g of each tea. See how to use tea samples.
• One gaiwan (or two, to go faster) and small white cups: see Chinese tea cups.
• A kettle with temperature control, or a thermometer.
• A scale that reads to 0.1 g.
• Water: filtered or soft bottled.
• A notebook, plain crackers and water between teas.

Brewing each tea#

Gongfu, 100 ml gaiwan. Three steeps each is enough for the flight.

Full numbers for every type: gongfu brewing chart.

How to run the tasting#

1. Go from light to dark. Delicate teas first, strong ones last.
2. Smell the dry leaf, then the wet leaf, then the empty cup.
3. Note three things per tea: aroma, taste, texture. One word each is fine.
4. Rate how much you liked it, from 1 to 5. Honestly.
5. Drink water and eat a plain cracker between teas.
6. Take a break halfway, after the yellow tea. Seven teas is a lot of caffeine: small sips, and don't do it on an empty stomach.
7. At the end, look at your top two and read about their categories.

More on the method in how to taste tea.

A simple tasting sheet#

My notes from the day it clicked#

The flight my friend poured, in my own words from my tasting log:

• Longjing: "beans, chestnut, bright".
• Bai Mu Dan: "honey, hay, gentle".
• Yellow tea: "like green, but sweeter and rounder".
• Tieguanyin: "lilac! creamy". The first tea I wrote an exclamation mark for.
• Da Hong Pao: "toast, caramel, stones". The one I went back to buy.
• Dian Hong: "honey, malt, sweet potato".
• Shou: "forest floor, cocoa". Not for me that day; it is now.

Where to go next#

Common mistakes#

• Brewing everything with boiling water. The green and yellow teas will turn bitter.
• Too many steeps of each. Three is enough for a flight.
• Starting with pu-erh. It will overpower everything after it.
• Judging a whole category by one bad cup. Try a second example before deciding.

My honest take#

Don't spend your first months buying randomly, as I did. Spend one afternoon on a flight like this one. You'll learn the whole map at once, and you'll know exactly where to go next.

The bottom line#

Taste seven Chinese teas side by side, from green to ripe pu-erh, each at its own temperature, and take simple notes. It's the quickest way to understand Chinese tea and find your own direction. Start with my beginner's guide.

Read next: Chinese Tea for Coffee Drinkers.