Thursday, April 19, 2012

Where are the Keemun Tea Bags?

In the course of managing RateTea, I see all sorts of interesting patterns and trends, and make lots of random observations about the nature of the tea market, especially in the U.S. I've been thinking about Keemun black tea lately, as I recently received three samples of high-quality, loose-leaf Keemun lately. And today, I noticed a marked absence of Keemun tea bags on the U.S. market. As a huge fan of and advocate for loose-leaf teas, I don't get terribly excited about tea bags. But I do find this absence strange.



Pictured here is a diagram showing Qimen county in Anhui province, where Keemun originated, a photo of the loose-leaf Keemun Mao Feng sent to me as a sample from Life in Teacup, and a shelf at a supermarket in Delaware, with no Keemun for sale.

When I think of "mainstream" black teas, what do I think of?

When I think of the standard single-origin black teas which are mainstays of British tea culture (and thus, tend to be widely available in the U.S. as well), I think of Ceylon, Assam, Darjeeling, and Keemun. There are other teas, like Lapsang Souchong, which I also think of, but which I'm excluding because I think of this tea as a bit more unusual, with its strong smoky character.

Keemun is a pretty well-known tea in the mainstream. There are about as many individual Keemuns listed on RateTea as there are individual English Breakfast blends, and about twice as many Keemuns as Irish Breakfast blends.

All of these varieties of tea except Keemun are widely available in tea bags:

Ceylon, Assam, and Darjeeling are all widely available in tea bags, from mainstream brands. Lapsang Souchong is as well, as is Pu-erh and both darker and greener Oolongs.

In spite of the availability of loose-leaf Keemun, there is only 1 entry in RateTea's database for Keemun in a tea bag, and this entry is rather esoteric--a tea bag sold by Lupicia, a Japanese company best-known for selling loose-leaf teas. There may be other Keemuns in tea bags, but there are none that I know of from any of the mainstream tea companies, whose catalogues have been entered into RateTea in their entirety long ago.

Keemun tea bags are sold neither by companies specializing in British style teas (like Twinings), nor by companies like Foojoy or Ten Ren, specializing in Chinese teas, in spite of the fact that Keemun fits into both categories quite well.

What do you think?

Do you think that the absence of Keemun available in tea bags represents a vacant business niche? Do you think that brands that sell tea bags or whole-leaf sachets containing single-region teas would do well to add Keemun to their catalogue? Or is there some reason that there would not be much demand for a Keemun in tea bags?

My intuition is that the first company to offer a Keemun in tea bags would have it be well-received. I could imagine a company like Twinings, Foojoy, or Ten Ren finding it worthwhile to sell Keemun in tea bags, but I could also imagine a brand like Two Leaves and a Bud successfully selling a Keemun in whole-leaf sachets. I think that Keemun in particular might perform well in a western market, perhaps even better than Ceylon or Assam, as it tends to be rich and full-bodied, yet relatively smooth, and I've found that in America, a lot of people like robust tea but want something that is a bit smoother and less bitter.

But I could be wrong; tea companies often do a lot of market research into deciding which teas to carry, and I suspect that many companies have already considered adding a Keemun in tea bags, and concluded that it was not the best business decision.

14 comments:

  1. Is it possible that Keemun source black tea is often sold in teabags labeled "xxx breakfast"? Maybe breakfast tea title is considered more marketable than a word "Keemun" which itself doesn't make much sense.

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    1. This is true with some breakfast blends, for example, Adagio's English Breakfast is a pure Keemun. (Wegmans' on the other hand is a pure Yunnan).

      If Keemun black tea in tea bags is sold as "English Breakfast", it hasn't been labelled as such. On RateTea we're careful to scan the whole commercial description of a tea for information on the origin, and the only single-origin English Breakfast teas from China that are in our database are loose-leaf.

      I can't imagine a company wouldn't want to advertise the fact that they are using a single-origin tea, that seems like a missed opportunity. I suppose it's possible but it seems very unlikely to me.

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  2. Hmmmm...this is a good question. I've got to give it some thought. ;-)

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  3. It's certainly an interesting observation, but it might be prudent to think "Yay! Keemun isn't generally on offer in teabags!" - I would see this as an opportuni-tea to celebrate rather than comiserate, but this is purely my humble opinion of course :o) Think I might pop over to my tea cupboard to look for a Keemun Hao Ya B. Haven't had that in a while. Thanks for a thought provoking blog post.

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    1. Haha, yeah. I'm not a huge fan of tea bags, so it's not like I personally feel anything is missing here. It's mainly that it seemed counterintuitive to me.

      What are your favorite sources of Keemun, by the way?

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  4. I'd never thought about this until you mentioned it. I like Keemun but sadly my most recent one was horribly disappointing. Loose leaf but purchased from the only teashop we have; just boring, and flavorless. I suspect it was not exactly fresh.
    Anyway, I found a few companies that offer Keemun in bags; they are Culinary Teas, Dean de Luca, and Twinings did offer one, but it was included in their "Clearly Refreshing" range, which has been discontinued. That makes me think that Keemun didn't work well for Twinings, at least not in a bag. Because I don't see any evidence that they included it in any other range.
    Here are the links I've found:
    http://www.culinaryteas.com/Teabags/Keemun_Panda_Grade_1_Tea.html
    http://www.deandeluca.com/coffee-tea-cocoa/tea-by-type/black-tea/dean-and-deluca-keemun-tea-bags.aspx
    Also: "Imperial Tea Garden" "Baltimore Coffee and Tea Company" "Kungaloosh - never heard of them in PA. and some sites in the UK. But - actually - looking at Adagios they do also offer their Keemun in pyramid tea bags if you so desire.
    So, I'd say it looks like it is available but it's not a hot seller. I actually don't think it's as well known as Ceylon, or Darjeeling, or Assam - maybe the name doesn't ring enough bells...

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  5. This post has made me crave Keemun tea for the past couple days. Unfortunately, I don't have one on hand right now, even looseleaf (and since I have about 30 different teas open I'm not allowing myself to buy more as of yet...)

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    1. Aww, I'm rather sorry! =P

      I actually get that way too. It had been such a very long time since I had had Keemun, I was getting a bunch of sample offers but no Keemun so I asked if companies could switch out some of the teas I was less of a fan for, for Keemun.

      I find that Keemun satisfies me in a way very different from how a lot of other black teas too. It's almost the opposite of a Darjeeling. The Keemun feels more warming and satisfying and the Darjeeling more cooling and refreshing.

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    2. I'm satisfying my cravings now with some Hu Hong from TeaSource (via bulk bin at the local co-op, where I was able to buy just a half-ounce). It's from Hunan and I'm not sure if it really tastes like a Keemun black, but it's close enough to what I was looking for. And it fits your description of being the warming, satisfying "opposite" of the Darjeeling 2nd flush I was drinking earlier.

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  6. As someone who loves Keemun tea (in tea bags, for convenience), I will tell you that Twinings did offer Keemun tea bags. Slowly, but surely, they retreated. They removed from the U.S. market about two years ago, so I had taken to ordering from the U.K, until they quit offering it by itself and included it only as part of their "clearly refreshing" teas. I have ordered tea bags from other outfits, generally being disappointed. Finally, I happened onto Dean and DeLuca and have found my fix. My only hope is that D&D keep offering the product. For me, it is all that I drink.

    I first decided to explore Keemun after seeing that it was part of the blend in Twinings Prince of Wales tea.

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    1. This is interesting! Thanks for sharing!

      If you really want Keemun, there are so many fantastic providers of loose-leaf Keemun which I could recommend.

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  7. Great post and very useful comments. I appreciate the discussion.

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  8. I find it interesting that you noticed a paucity of both Keemun teabags and Keemun tea here in the U.S. I am an American in my 50s, and I grew up on "Twinings China Keemun" tea. It used to come in a black tin (loose leaf) or in a light yellow box (teabags). It has always been my favorite breakfast tea. Sometime in the 70s, Twinings discontinued selling Keemun in North America. I have done extensive searching both online and in stores all over the U.S. and in Canada, but it simply cannot be found. I guess us Yanks just can't appreciate a really good cup of tea, and the folks at Twinings (and all the other mainstream tea companies) have capitalized on that fact. I have lately been ordering samples from a number of "purveyors of fine tea", but compared to the Twinings I remember, they all are tasteless. If you can recommend some good Keemun providers, I would be most appreciative.

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    1. I'd love to give some recommendations! If you are open to brewing loose-leaf tea, there are some fantastic options for Keemun.

      Harney & Sons has some great options, selling several different grades. A company direct-shipping from China, with very good Keemun, is TeaVivre. I also have had multiple good Keemuns from Upton Tea Imports. Some really top-notch examples include the Spring Keemun from Andrews & Dunham, the Keemun Mao Feng from Life in Teacup (a tiny company with an inconsistent stock, not sure if they still have it), Joseph Wesley black tea. And Foojoy sells some good low-end Keemun in tins.

      For more detail read my keemun reviews on RateTea.

      I hope you and others find this useful!

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