Dian Hong Jin Ya
Dian Hong Jin Ya, is also known as Yunnan Gold. It is a tippy tea, meaning that it is high in leaf buds, and is named for the fact that its leaves are golden in color. The degree of golden color varies as a function of the amount of tips, as well as the production process: teas with a more golden appearance tend to have a greater portion of tips, and thus a higher caffeine content. This tea is a type of relatively high- end gourmet Chinese black tea sometimes used in various tea blends and grown in the Yunnan Province, in China.
Dian Hong Jin Ya…
Was “discovered” during the Sino Japanese War. Because black tea production close to the East coast of China was hindered by the Japanese invasion, China had to look elsewhere for production. Tea was a crucial export to help China obtain foreign support against the Japanese. At this point Feng Shaoqiu, a tea expert from the China Tea Trade Company and responsible for the popularity of Keemun black tea, was tasked with the mission of finding a new region for producing black tea. Sheltered in the Southwest of China, he discovered that the tea from Feng Qing, Yunnan was an ideal area to start producing black tea for export. The soil in the area was rich and there was already a bounty of diverse tea bushes. They set up a factory and began to produce a large amount of tea. China wasted no time and began exporting Dian Hong in 1939.
Yunnan Province…
Is the south western most province in China. It is situated in a mountainous area, with high elevations in the northwest and low elevations in the southeast. It spans approximately 394,000 square kilometers and has a population of 45.9 million. Yunnan borders Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Tibet in China, and also borders Vietnam, Laos, and Burma.
According to historic records, Yunnan has a history of more than 2,100 years since it domesticated the aboriginal tea (known as the ‘wild tea’). The earliest records about tea plantation in Yunnan can be traced back to Han dynasty (206 B.C.– 220 A.D.), during which teas were typically produced in a compressed from similar to modern pu-erh tea.
Tea producing climate…
Yunnan Province features rough terrain which is dotted with cloud-veiled mountains and crisscrossed with meandering rivers. There are 120 tea-producing counties in Yunnan which has 128 counties in all, among them the 23 key tea-producing counties are in mountainous area with an altitude of 1,000 – 2,000 m. The province has a generally mild climate with pleasant and fair weather because of the province’s location on south-facing mountain slopes, receiving the influence of both the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the growing period is long. Much of the province lies within the subtropical highland or humid subtropical zone, with mild to warm winters, and tempered summers, except in almost tropical south. Average annual average temperatures range from 15°-18℃ and the temperature difference between day and night goes up to 10℃. The tea picking in Yunnan focuses on the early march to the end of November, 9 months in all for tea production in whole one year. All of this equals to the perfect ideal conditions for tea cultivation.
The ABC's of Tea 