Ep 19 - Smoked Lapsang Souchang - Tastes Like Smoked Pine Needles

The host and one of the tea importers from Trident Cafe and Teas, Jake Dirnberger, and filmmaker, Josh Hyde, steep a Smoked Lapsang Souchang. This Lapsang Souchong is smoked over a pine fire in a special split-level room for about 15-20 hours. The leaves are then rolled and withered until they are almost completely oxidized. The large dark leaves plucked from a Wuyi cultivar outside Fujian’s famous Tong Mu Guan Village are much higher in quality than most Lapsangs on the Western-facing tea market. The wild harvested tea leaves are from trees around 80 years old. The smoke is very balanced with the tea’s natural sweetness. The taste is suggestive of hickory-smoked bacon or ham, with a strong piney and honey sweetness which round it out. This is a highly comforting, highly warming black tea which strikes a very nice balance between sweet and savory. Find the highest quality teas at Trident Cafe and Teas. Trident Cafe and Teas sources directly from tea farmers and maintains long term relationships with their farmers worldwide. These relationships have created one of the highest quality tea supply chains in the U.S.