Gran Lapsang Souchong

This tea is grown and manufactured in the Wuyi Mountains in the Fujian province of China. The word Souchong (Xiao Zhong) means 'sub-variety', in this case a variant of black tea.

Once the leaves are harvested, a complex manufacturing process begins. Withering is carried out over cypress or pine fire, with the leaves heated in pots and rolled up.

Once this is done, they are pressed in cloth-lined wooden barrels to oxidize until they release a pleasant fragrance. In the next step, the leaves are roasted once more, this time on bamboos hung in rows over a pine fire so that they reach the optimum point of drying while absorbing the aroma of the smoke.

Legend has it that the smoking process was discovered by accident during the Qing dynasty when an army unit passed through a town called Xingcun and camped at a factory stocked with fresh tea leaves ready to be brewed.

When the soldiers left, the workers realized that they would not be able to dry the leaves in time to take them to market, so they used pine wood for fires to dry the tea faster. They managed to deliver on time and, in parallel, create a new product.

Interestingly, this was Sherlock Holmes's favorite tea.