Lipton's China Black

[Bonita]

I have recently become "hooked" on Lipton's China Black tea. It has a smooth but smokey taste that's addictive. However, the only place that seemed to have this type of tea outside of a restaurant supplier was Australia. I live in the far north of Canada, so that tea would have to make quite a trip. I've tried to find a tea that's similar and was sent Lapsang Souchong. This has a smokey taste but it's also very piney. I might get used to the taste of this, but I'd rather have something with smoke without the overwhelming taste and aroma of the pine. Any suggestions?

[Space Samurai]

You could try a good keemun, like keemun hao ya. If you want to pm me with your address, I'll send you a small sample.

[Elle]

Yep, "chinese", "smoky" and "tea" probably means a smokier keemun. The first one I got from Adagio was so smoky that I even used some in a poultry brine.

The mythos behind the lapsang souchong is that its smoky taste comes from exposure to the smoke from old caravan fires on its trips up to Russia where it's popular; these days it's dried over fires.

[scruffmcgruff]

I heard lapsang souchong was first created by accident when a tea merchant's stocks were soaked by a storm. The merchant had to improvise and tried drying everything over a fire. He expected his customers (Russian caravaners) to hate it, but they said it was better than ever and bought even more the next year.

Then again... this story sounds an awful lot like the Earl Grey legend, so who knows if it's true or not.