Lapsang Souchong is a black tea consisting of Camellia Sinensis leaves that are traditionally smoke-dried over a pinewood fire. A delicious smoky flavoured black tea enjoyed by many and Lapsang Souchong is also used in stock for soups, stews and sauces or otherwise as a spice or seasoning.
The original Lapsang Souchong came about in the 18th century when Fujian villagers were invaded by an army of soldiers passing through their area during a time of unrest. The harvesting of tea was interrupted and when they were able to continue the tea had oxidised too long and was considered ruined. An enterprising farmer smoked the remaining leaves over a pine wood fire in bamboo baskets to try and save them for local use and accidentally produced a tea that Portuguese traders went crazy over. It caught on world wide - i.e went “viral" in a traditional way.
It had a very smokey fragrance and flavour and an ardent following who enjoyed the taste. It has traditionally only been an exported product as Chinese prefer fresh green teas and Chinese domestic Lapsang is much milder and that is all we are currently able to access.
There are two big issues with traditional pine smoked Lapsang Souchong tea that have arisen over the last two decades and affect both the supply and demand sides:
1. Local authorities in China have restricted Lapsang production because of a shortage of the suitable conifer used to make the smoke and the pollution caused by the smoking process as production has scaled up. They were destroying a lot of valued forest to smoke the tea and it takes a lot of smoke over repeated smoking sessions to achieve the traditional flavour in every batch.
2. Heavily smoked foods, e.g. smoked meats, are banned or strictly regulated throughout Europe (under CODEX) to protect citizens from the cancerous smoke residues. These strict regulations are spreading slowly through all countries that would have imported this tea in the past so it is slowly being banned everywhere. This has led to very strict production methods that produce a much less smokey product. There was a small danger of mouth cancer if you drank large quantities of the traditional smoked version, comparable to cigar smoking.
Our Lapsang Souchong is from China, is a black tea with interesting leaf shapes and a very mild smoke flavour that is the result of infusing the tea with smoke flavoured essences during manufacture. It is still a nice drinking tea but not as smokey as the stronger flavoured product we had in the 1990s.
