The Red Tea That Came Before the Partnership
Not every red tea Baoputang sells comes from Tongmuguan. 凝香雪红 — "Frozen Fragrance Snow Red" — is a Yunnan Dianhong gongfu, and it predates the Jiang family relationship by years: this recipe has been on offer, unchanged, since 2008, long before there was a Wuyishan partnership to speak of.
The leaf comes from Jingdong, in the Ailaoshan nature reserve, picked above 1,800 meters from the area's large-leaf cultivar, one bud and one leaf, spring harvest only. Dianhong as a category is built for fragrance — heavy in golden tips, prone to what tea drinkers call 冷后浑, "cold haze," a cloudiness that forms once the liquor cools, a sign of how rich it is in the compounds responsible for its aroma. This one leans floral and fruity, mellow rather than sharp, holding up through repeated infusions.
It's a useful tea to know about for what it is, not just what it tastes like: the thing Baoputang was already doing well before any of its more famous partnerships began.