Yingde Hong Cha
Yingde Hong Cha (Yingdehong) is the black tea of Yingde in northern Guangdong, a relatively modern style built on large-leaf assamica and best known through its star cultivar, Yinghong No. 9. The cup is rich and bold with a pronounced cocoa-and-sweet-potato sweetness and low astringency, which makes it both a fine clear tea and a natural partner for milk. The variable that matters most is cultivar: Yinghong No. 9 is the grade everyone is really after.
Yingde black at its best is rich, smooth and distinctly cocoa-like, with sweet-potato and honey notes, a full body and very little astringency, brewing a deep red-amber liquor. The key quality marker is the cultivar: Yinghong No. 9 grades are the prized expression, often with golden tips and a fuller, sweeter, more aromatic cup than generic Yingde leaf. Look for tidy, well-twisted leaf with golden tips and a clean cocoa-malt aroma. Because the style takes milk well, a lot of plain commodity Yingde exists, so the jump to a single-cultivar Yinghong No. 9 lot is where the character really shows. A flat or merely strong cup with no cocoa sweetness is a sign of low-grade leaf.
Yingde sits in northern Guangdong province, and its black-tea industry is a twentieth-century development rather than an ancient one. Crucially, it was built on Yunnan large-leaf assamica: Yunnan tea trees were established in Yingde in the mid-1950s, the first Yingdehong was produced in 1959, and Yinghong No. 9 was later selected and bred from that large-leaf population by the Guangdong tea research institute. That Yunnan genetic backbone is why Yingde black tastes like a close cousin of dianhong despite coming from a different province.
Gongfu: 5 g per 100 ml, 90 to 95°C, around 15 to 20 seconds for the first steep, ascending; the better grades give 6 or more infusions. Western: 3 g per 200 ml, 90 to 95°C, 2.5 to 3 minutes, with milk an entirely valid option. As with dianhong, keep below a full boil so the cocoa-honey sweetness is not flattened.
Standard Yingde black runs roughly €12-28 (about $13-30) per 100 g. Single-cultivar Yinghong No. 9 grades with golden tips reach €30-55 (about $32-60) per 100 g.
Prices reviewed June 2026
Dianhong (Yunnan)
The closest relative and not by coincidence: Yingde black was built on transplanted Yunnan large-leaf assamica, so it shares dianhong's cocoa-honey-malt profile from a different province.
Keemun
The classic small-leaf Chinese hongcha for contrast: Keemun's wine-like, fragrant delicacy against Yingde's bold cocoa richness.
Assam
Another large-leaf, milk-friendly black; Assam runs brisker and more astringent, while Yingde is smoother and more chocolatey.
Yingde black tea is essentially a Guangdong tea built on Yunnan genetics: its prized Yinghong No. 9 cultivar was selected from Yunnan large-leaf assamica trees brought to Yingde in the 1950s, which is why a Guangdong black can taste so much like a Yunnan dianhong.