--- title: Qimen url: 'https://howtotea.me/teas/black/qimen' markdown: 'https://howtotea.me/teas/black/qimen.md' lang: en date: '2026-10-23' description: 'Qimen (Keemun) is a black tea from southern Anhui, made since 1875. Its floral, honeyed aroma, gongfu Qimen and Mao Feng, processing and brewing.' --- # Qimen 祁门红茶 Editors · October 23, 2026 · 6 min read Black tea from southern Anhui, known in the West as Keemun. Until 1875 Qimen County produced only [green tea](https://howtotea.me/teas/green). Today its black tea is known for an aroma of flowers, honey and fruit that China calls the "Qimen aroma". ![Dry Qimen: long thin dark leaves, tightly twisted](https://howtotea.me/images/c/o/v/e/r/cover-2d36d9c4.webp) Photo: [Whiteness](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keemun_FTGFOP_(2).JPG), [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), cropped 祁门红茶 Qimen qí mén hóng chá [Black tea](https://howtotea.me/teas/black) Province: Anhui, Qimen County Cultivar: local small-leaf Qimen zhuye Made since: 1875 Oxidation: full Dry leaf: thin, tightly rolled, black with a sheen Liquor: mellow, sweet, flowers and honey **90°**, water **5 g**, per 120 ml **5–7**, infusions Qimen (祁门红茶, Qi Hong for short) is a [black tea](https://howtotea.me/teas/black) from Qimen County in southern Anhui, part of the city of Huangshan. In Europe it goes by Keemun, an older romanization of the county's name. Tea has grown here for a long time, but black tea came late, a century and a half ago. It was the aroma that made it famous. ## From green to black A record from 862 on works along a local river says that around Qimen seven or eight families in ten lived by tea. For a thousand years that tea was green. What changed it was the market. In the 1870s Chinese green tea was losing ground to Japanese tea in America, while Europe's demand for black tea grew faster than Fujian makers could supply it. In 1875 Yu Ganchen, a former official who had served in Fujian, came back to the county. He had seen Fujian black tea, a descendant of Wuyi's [Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong](https://howtotea.me/teas/black/zheng-shan-xiao-zhong), selling well there, and he opened a workshop on the Fujian model. At almost the same time a local man, Hu Yuanlong, switched his factory in the village of Guixi to black tea. Locals still argue over which of them came first. At first the new tea was sold in Jiujiang, later in Hankou, and from there it went abroad. By the common account, it won a gold medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. It has been ranked alongside India's Darjeeling and Ceylon's Uva ever since. ## The county and the bush The county is almost entirely mountainous, and forest covers more than 80 % of its area. About 1700 mm of rain falls a year, fog is common and sunshine scarce. The soils are red and yellow-red, acidic and loose. Qimen is made from a local small-leaf bush, Qimen zhuye zhong, and clones bred from it. Its leaf is smaller and thinner than that of the Yunnan large-leaf variety used for [Dian Hong](https://howtotea.me/teas/black/dian-hong), so the liquor is lighter and the aroma higher. [Huangshan Mao Feng](https://howtotea.me/teas/green/huangshan-mao-feng), a green tea, comes from the same prefecture. Under the Qimen Black Tea Association standard, only tea made within the county itself may be called Qimen[1](#fn:1). Neighboring counties make similar black tea, but by that standard it is not Qimen. ## The Qimen aroma What buyers pay for here is qimen xiang, the "Qimen aroma". The standard describes it in three words: flowers, fruit, honey. Europeans pick out rose, plum and cocoa in it, and sometimes a light smokiness, though nobody smokes the leaf. Chemists have studied it too. As early as 1978, Japanese researchers found several times more geraniol, the rose-scented compound, in Qimen than in Ceylon tea. A later comparison of the world's four most famous black teas named phenylacetaldehyde, a honey-floral note, as Qimen's key odorant[2](#fn:2). Qimen is withered and oxidized slowly, and technologists tie the delicacy of its aroma to that. ## Gongfu Qimen and new styles The classic is gongfu Qimen, one of the whole, carefully rolled teas that China groups as gongfu hong cha. Primary processing follows the usual black tea sequence of withering, rolling, oxidation and drying. Then comes jing zhi, refining. Workers sort the dry leaf by size on sieves, cut the long pieces, winnow out light particles and pick out stems by hand, then dry the leaf again and blend the lots into an even grade. Gongfu Qimen comes in eight grades. The highest, the "gift" grade, is made from a bud with a barely opened leaf, the lowest from a bud with four leaves. Good leaf is thin and tight, black with an oily sheen and visible golden bud tips. The export trade uses its own names, Hao Ya for one. Over the last thirty years the county has come up with three new styles. Makers dry Mao Feng whole and slightly curved, roll Xiang Luo into a spiral and draw Jin Zhen ("golden needles") out straight. None of them is cut, so the leaf stays whole. Analyses find more [aroma compounds](https://howtotea.me/science/chemistry/aroma) in gongfu liquor than in any of the new styles, but Mao Feng is smoother and sweeter. ## Flavor The liquor is bright red and clear. The flavor is mellow and sweet, with little astringency and a floral finish. Next to Dian Hong, Qimen seems finer: Dian Hong has more body, honey and malt, Qimen more perfume. The difference is easy to taste if you brew both at the same temperature and steep time. For decades the plain grades went into European blends and milk tea. The top grades are best drunk straight. ## How to brew A 120 ml porcelain [gaiwan](https://howtotea.me/teaware/brewing-vessels/gaiwan) suits Qimen: porcelain holds no odors, and the white walls show off the color of the liquor. Keep infusions short, [gongfu cha](https://howtotea.me/brewing/methods/gongfu-cha) style. The [water](https://howtotea.me/brewing/basics/water) should be soft; in [hard water](https://howtotea.me/science/water-and-extraction/water-chemistry) the aroma is the first thing to go. ![Qimen: dry leaf, the brewed tea and a porcelain teapot to brew it in](https://howtotea.me/images/l/i/s/t/-/list-i-nastoj-a130fc37.webp)Illustration How to brew 5 g of leaf per 120 ml, water 90 °C (194 °F), 85–90 °C for Mao Feng. First infusion 10 seconds, each one after that 5 seconds longer. The leaf gives 5–7 infusions. In a large teapot, use 3 g per 250 ml and steep for 3 minutes. If the liquor turns bitter, shorten the infusion rather than using less leaf. The Qimen aroma is brightest in the second and third infusions; by the sixth, what remains is sweetness. ## Common questions What is the "Qimen aroma"? It is the Chinese name for the bouquet of Qimen black tea: flowers, fruit and honey. Chemists find more rose-scented geraniol in it than in Ceylon tea and name phenylacetaldehyde, with its honey-floral note, as the key odorant. How does Qimen Mao Feng differ from gongfu Qimen? Gongfu Qimen is the classic thin, rolled leaf that goes through long refining on sieves. Mao Feng is made from a bud with one or two leaves and dried whole, with a slight curve. It is lighter and sweeter, while gongfu is denser and more aromatic. Can you drink Qimen with milk? Yes. Europeans have long drunk it that way and put it in blends. Plain gongfu Qimen stands up to milk, but Mao Feng and the top grades are best drunk straight, or the aroma is lost. Notes 1. T/KBTA 001-2024 "Qimen Black Tea", group standard of the Qimen Black Tea Association. [↩](#fnref1:1) 2. Kang S. et al. Identification and quantification of key odorants in the world's four most famous black teas. Food Research International, 2019. [↩](#fnref1:2) --- ## Navigation - Parent: [Black tea](https://howtotea.me/teas/black.md) - Previous: [Dian Hong](https://howtotea.me/teas/black/dian-hong.md) - Next: [Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong](https://howtotea.me/teas/black/zheng-shan-xiao-zhong.md)