Chunbo Myung Black Tea

Chunbo Dawon is also known as the ‘Heavenly Treasured Tea Estate’ and Boseong County is known as the capital of Korean tea and Chunbo Dawon is located in the South of this beautifully mountainous, misty part of the world.

The estate begins at 1500 metres above sea level, on hills that are almost at 45 degrees and is known for its traditional hand-made teas. The tea trees are all grown organically and only the buds and very youngest leaves are selected to make its widely recognised award-winning teas.

The Estates owner Mr Pyong-Sik Moon planted the estate in the year 2000 and by 2003 had opened and was operating several retail stores. In 2004, the tea won an excellence award at the very first Korean Tea Cupping Competition. From 2009 the estate has had full organic certification, covered by the FDA in the US, European organic certification and Japanese organic certification (JAS) and teas are exported to all of these countries.

Since 2010 Chunbo Dawon has won many certificates and prizes for its excellent tea including winning the grand prize at the 2014 World Tea Expo which was held in Seoul, South Korea. I was actually n the judging panel for this part award and was one of 11 International judges. After tasting this tea our decision was without hesitation unanimous. These teas are simply the best large leaf black teas that we have tasted from a judging range of over 600 teas.

Korea produces about 5000 tonnes of both green and black teas per year and the majority are of a high quality and made in the strictly traditional manner, with hand-preparation and rolling being the order of the day. This black tea undergoes orthodox methods of withering, rolling, oxidizing, drying and grading and the bushes put forth new growth on average four times per year.

We have selected the First Flush April production tea from 2015 as our Korean tea offering. Our First Flush tea displays well-balanced characteristics of theaflavins and thearubigins which are responsible for the red colour of tea as well as the back bone of its flavour and astringency.

I visited Mr Moon again in November 2015 and finally took the plunge and bought some of his tea. Formay tea is very, very expensive and indeed is the most expensive tea that we sell. We have packed it into 50g packs and have purchased only 2kg of this highly prized black tea.

Love green tea? We also sell the Chunbo Myung Green Tea here.