Wild orchid is the comparison tea drinkers reach for with this one, and once you've had a cup it's easy to see why: the liquor pours coppery-orange and light, sweet and smooth rather than sharp or astringent. The tasting notes run pine, orchid, lemon and orange up front, settling into plum, date, honey and a touch of milk further along.
Keemun as a style traces back to Qimen County in Anhui Province, China, a mountainous, forest-covered region with low temperatures, high humidity and frequent fog, conditions that shaped the character tea drinkers still associate with the name. "Keemun" is itself an old English spelling of Qimen. The style is younger than most Chinese tea traditions: it dates only to 1875, when a former civil servant named Yu Ganchen, having recently lost his job, began experimenting with black tea production out of what was reportedly more shame than ambition. What he produced became the template for Keemun tea, and it remains one of China's better-known black teas even though the country's reputation still rests mainly on green varieties like Sencha, Mao Feng and Chun Mee.
This particular tea is produced in the United States, carrying that tradition forward rather than being grown in Qimen itself. Tea & Coffee packs it fresh to order at its Kent-based facility.
An 8-ounce cup holds around 45 milligrams of caffeine, enough for a lift without the jolt of coffee, and the caffeine in black tea has long been credited with sharper focus and steadier energy. Some also point to the antioxidants in black tea as support for oral health, though that's a traditional claim rather than a settled one.
Steep it in freshly boiled water for three to five minutes. Take it with milk or a plant-based alternative, sweeten with sugar or honey, add lemon, or skip all of it and drink it black.
