If every tea has a passport, Lapsang Souchong’s is stamped with the soot of pine needles and the salt spray of the Min River. Bo...

When European tea clippers first rounded the Cape of Good Hope in the mid-seventeenth century, the chests that commanded the high...

When European tea caravans first reached London in the late 1600s, the chests labeled “Bohea” carried a dark, slender leaf that b...

Long before English breakfast tables knew the malty kiss of Assam or the bright snap of Ceylon, a single Chinese leaf sailed out ...

Ask most tea lovers to name the first Chinese black tea and they will probably cite Keemun or Yunnan Gold; historians, however, p...

Ask most tea lovers to name China’s gift to the globe and they will answer “black tea.” Yet few realize that the very first blac...

Ask most tea lovers to name the first black tea ever created and they will pause; mention Lapsang Souchong and the same faces lig...

If every tea tells a story, Lapsang Souchong whispers legends of mist-wrapped cliffs, itinerant merchants, and the moment when Ch...

Ask most tea lovers to name a Chinese black tea and they will answer “Keemun” or “Yunnan Gold.” Fewer realize that every modern ...

Long before Assam, Ceylon or Earl Grey entered the Western lexicon, the first sip of what Europe would call “black tea” was carri...