To create this distinctive tea, the black tea manufactured in the large tea-producing area around Wuyi (and from tea growers even further away) is trucked into the smoking sheds deep in the mountains. There it is smoked hard and hot to imbue it with the smokiness desired by the firm to which it will be exported.
A smoking shed is constructed on three levels. Surprisingly, the floors on the top and middle levels are not solid, but are comprised of woven slats of wood that allow one to peek all the way down to the ground level. It also allows the pine smoke to rise up through the floors all the way to the top level.
Fully manufactured tea is laid on mats on the floors and begins to absorb the faint, slightly moist aroma of smoke. From here, the more supple tea is moved downstairs to another area where it is placed in baskets and hung in the smoking chamber for as long as twelve hours.
THE MARK T. WENDELL TEA COMPANY: HU-KWA TEA
During the heyday of the Canton tea trade (1784–1860) foreign traders arriving in Canton were required to stop in the Portuguese colony of Macao. From there the Chinese escorted the foreign ships up the Pearl River to an anchorage in Whampoa. Each ship was then assigned a Hong merchant who was responsible for off-loading the Western goods coming into China and for loading the Chinese goods heading to the West. The emperor appointed the Hong merchants; their job was to keep the exchange of tea, silk, and porcelains moving and to make sure that the “foreign devils” did not venture into China proper. The most famous of these Hong merchants was Wu Ping-Chien (1769–1843), whom the Western traders called Houqua.
American merchant Richard Devens, who is said to have personally met with and purchased tea from Houqua during the height of the China tea trade days, established an importing company in Boston in 1852 and began to sell port, sherry, olive oil, and tea using the mark of “XXX,” which was then a sign of superior quality. In 1904 the ownership of the tea company passed to Mark T. Wendell, Devens’s nephew. Wendell changed the name of this custom-made, tarry, smoky tea from “XXX” to “Hu-kwa” to more clearly underscore the connection between this tea and the venerable Hong merchant. Many Americans were familiar with the name Houqua, as it was associated with fair business practices as well as the finest-quality imported goods from Asia.
Wendell created the iconic black and gold Hu-Kwa packaging, complete with a stylized Russian-inspired crowned eagle. Carrying on a long-standing tradition of tea merchants, Wendell packed the tea into containers by hand and delivered it himself to his loyal customers.
Wendell remained the owner of Hu-kwa tea until he sold the company in the 1960s. Today’s owners, Elliot H. Johnson and son Hartley, continue to supply Hu-kwa tea in the familiar black and gold tins and boxes. The firm sells more than sixty teas, but the bestseller is still the smoky Hu-Kwa, “the master’s poison,” as one Irish maid used to refer to it when placing her employer’s orders.
Rumor has it that when Wendell died, his ashes were placed in a black Hu-Kwa tin and buried.
The tea is exposed only to indirect smoke and never experiences direct heat or flame. The smoke circulates up from specially designed troughs in the floor that direct the moist smoke into the smoking rooms from large fireplaces located outside the building. After smoking, the tea is dried again in tumbler-dryers to fix the finished tea.
It is an acquired taste for sure, but one that appeals to many tea enthusiasts all around the world. Toasty, smoky, tarry, burnt, full-bodied—these descriptors all suggest a certain allure that Lapsang Souchong shares with dark-roast coffee, single-malt scotch, extra-dark hot cocoa, and mescal.
ROSE, OSMANTHUS, AND OTHER FLOWER-SCENTED TEAS
Many exotic and garden flowers may be used to scent tea leaves. Several classics are rose (both mature petals and baby buds), osmanthus (flowering sweet almond), chrysanthemum, orchid, lotus, magnolia, lily, marigold, globe amaranth, and several traditional Chinese choices that you seldom see outside Asia, including bai lan (gardenia) and long zhu (dragon ball).
Three different styles of “presentation” or “blooming” tea, resting on a tray of the white tea budsets from which they were made (Fujian Province, China). These teas are customarily made by adding fresh or dried flowers to already finished black, oolong, or green tea. The scenting is therefore light but very pleasant.
Recently there has been interest in what are known as “presentation,” “display,” or “artisan” teas, known in China as “hui fa cha.” These are bundles of hand-tied buds from special cultivars of Camellia sinensis, which stay supple and can be tied into elegant, striking, and fantastic shapes. Various flower buds are incorporated into the silk-thread-tied tea bundles, which transform into flowers, baskets, and other fun shapes when they “bloom” following exposure to hot water.
Banned during the Cultural Revolution because they were considered wasteful and frivolous, “blooming tea” creations are now part of a renewed appreciation of the artistic enjoyment of tea. “Brewed” in a glass teapot or brandy snifter, these are wonderful to drink and are also a great conversation piece as the centerpiece of a table or on a mantle. Kept under daily refreshed cold water, these maintain their color and interest for almost a week.
LYCHEE AND FRUIT-INFUSED TEAS, FLAVORED TEAS, AND SPICED TEAS
Another time-tested method of incorporating creative flavors into tea is the use of fresh or dried fruit. Almost any fruit can be used, though some appear more often than others: apple, lychee, plum, peach, and apricot; berries (strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry); and of course citrus fruits (lime, lemon, and orange). If the dried fruit or peel is used, then the application falls under the category of fruit-infused tea, whereas if one is simply adding juice, then technically the beverage is a flavored tea. When one starts to combine flavors, the possibilities are almost endless.
It is always interesting to see what other cuisines of the world do to spice things up. In mainland southeast Asia, dragon fruit is often added to tea in dried or pulp form. In France, one will encounter the national favorite cassis (black currant juice). In the Pacific Northwest of the United States, pear (in pulp form or dried) is added to either hot or cold tea, bringing an extra zip of astringency and deliciousness to the cup. And in the Caribbean, it is not unusual to find mango purée being juiced into a tea cooler. Fresh juice can be added, oil can be zested from citrus peel, and pieces of dried fruit can be added all year long; the tea can be drunk hot, cold, or at room temperature.
Spiced tea opens up another range of possibilities, from the classic Indian chai (using at least cardamom, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, and ginger) to the mentholated green tea of Morocco (where dried mint is blended with the tea leaves for brewing and then fresh mint is added at service). While it is unusual to use fresh culinary herbs such as basil and rosemary with real tea, some do work; almost all spices and herbs combine successfully with tea. Some of the most thirst-quenching beverages in the world are combination tea, herb, and spice concoctions.
Now that we have discussed the hows and whys of manufacture, let’s take a deeper look at the places and people that tea has enriched, and how it evolved from being consumed in only one particular part of the world to being the popular beverage it is today, enjoyed worldwide.
FROM GARDEN TO CUP: BRINGING TEA TO MARKET
Every facet of the food industry has countless jobs that are vital to keeping the industry running and functioning smoothly, and for bringing products from the growers to consumers around the world. Tea is no exception: it takes the combined efforts of millions of people in fifty-one countries to bring staggering quantities of tea from bush to cup each year.
After the tea growers and tea producers have brought the leaf to market, tea is either sold at auction or sold privately through export brokers and agents to foreign or domestic tea companies or importers. Import brokers or agents are responsible for bringing the tea into the country of final destination. Sometimes this shipment of tea is consigned exclusively to a large, multinational tea company, while other times the s
hipment will be broken down and sold in large lots to several national or regional tea wholesalers.
Tea wholesalers will in turn sell lesser quantities of tea to smaller wholesalers or to midsized tea companies who market the products themselves. From the small wholesalers tea is distributed to scores of specialty retailers, food co-ops, restaurants, teahouses, and cafés. In tea-exporting countries, the industry relies on the behind-the-scenes work of legions of botanists and soil scientists, plant nutritionists, organic-certification agents, tea researchers, tea estate managers, and tea factory managers to keep things on the right track. Tea tasters, tea blenders, and tea packers are needed in both exporting and importing countries, as well as workers in the chain of distribution, supply, shipping, and freight forwarding. For more, see “Bringing Tea to Market in China” in chapter 4.
GREEN TEA IS COMMONLY ASSOCIATED WITH China, Japan, and Korea, and black tea with Africa, India, and Sri Lanka, but tea is produced extensively throughout East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. In fact, tea is grown in more than fifty countries, but tea from only a handful of locales delivers the brisk, rich flavors and enticing aromas that satisfy scrutinizing palates. The most famous and distinctive teas come from China, India, Japan, Java, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan. In these countries tea is a cash crop, not a subsistence crop, and it is inexorably linked with and vital to national economic output. Tea production is carried out on a much smaller scale in such locations as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, England, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Georgia, and the United States (in Hawaii and on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina).
An array of freshly brewed oolong teas invites sampling in a tasting room (Fujian Province, China).
Each place contributes varying quantities of tea to annual worldwide production, which for 2004 was a staggering 3,233,216 metric tons of tea. The breakdown of tea production by the top ten tea-producing countries was: China, 835 metric tons; India, 820 metric tons; Kenya, 325 metric tons; Sri Lanka, 308 metric tons; Indonesia, 165 metric tons; Turkey, 165 metric tons; Japan, 100 metric tons; Vietnam, 95 metric tons; Argentina, 63 metric tons; and Bangladesh, 56 metric tons.
For the year, 2004 saw a global tea increase of 2.6 percent over 2003, and for the first time in decades China regained her place as the world’s largest producer of tea, topping the output of that of historic rival India.
Early morning on the Huang Shan, one of China’s premier green tea–growing mountains (Anhui Province, China).
China: The Origins and Unique Traditions of Tea
The West has always been tantalized by the exotic and opulent nature of Oriental material goods—silks, lacquer, porcelains—and the foreign mannerisms of Chinese tea-drinking customs. To us, tea will always be China’s drink, forever associated with this enigmatic culture that fascinates us with its ancient legends, whispering walls, and rich oral tradition. Like all good storytelling, China’s great oral tradition embellishes and underscores the lessons of life with colorful legends of gods, sages, and the natural world. Chinese people believe in a multitude of auspicious symbols and thoughts that are believed to determine prosperity, health, protection from evil, good luck or bad luck, and of course longevity. In this worldview surely all of the mysteries of life can be explained in one or another legend.
The classic China bush Camellia sinensis (Anhui Province, China).
Chinese legend supplies the story of tea’s origin long before recorded history provides actual documentation. Shen Nung, the Second Divine Emperor and Celestial God, known as the Divine Husbandman and Father of Agriculture and Medicine, is said to have taught his people to farm and rely on a diet of vegetables rather than animal meats to maintain health. He is also credited with discovering the medicinal values of herbs, which became the basis for China’s herbal pharmacopoeia. Shen Nung assigned plants, animals, and minerals and foods with therapeutic values of cooling and warmth, hot and cold, which underscore the dual concepts of yin and yang. He also advocated that people drink boiled hot water (called bai cha) for health, something that the poorest Chinese citizen has done during hard times in the poverty-stricken hinterlands of China. Despite knowing of this tradition, we were, however, caught off guard when visiting a modest Buddhist temple in Xishuangbanna, when an elderly monk offered us cups of hot water in simple, well-worn tin cups. His heartfelt welcome charmed us and made the gesture as sincere as if he had offered celestial tea in golden cups. We were pleased to be so well received.
As the Chinese legend goes, one day while Shen Nung was napping, a few leaves from a tea bush blew into his cup of hot water. He found the taste and the invigorating quality of this brew to his liking. He decreed that all Chinese people should from then on drink an infusion of tea leaves for health. Legends aside, however, the first mention of tea was in the Shuo Wên, an ancient dictionary of natural plants and objects. In this book, which was presented to the Han emperor Andi (r. 105–126), tea is referred to as ming and was described as buds plucked from the t’u plant. Other early books refer to t’u as the drink of the Chinese people.
Today, China cultivates tea in most every province except for such regions as Mongolia, Qinghai, and Tibet, where dry environments and harsh climate do not support the natural needs of green crops. Nonetheless, this leaves eighteen provinces and the island of Hainan to contribute to the massive collective output of tea. The large tea provinces in the east are stacked geographically one atop the other, defining a substantial portion of the coastline of China, touching first on the Yellow Sea, then the East China Sea, and finally the South China Sea. In the south and west the tea-producing provinces surround China’s innermost core, leaving only the agriculturally challenged provinces of the north devoid of tea. China’s long history of tea development and centuries of isolation from the rest of the world has resulted in a system of tea cultivation and production that in many ways remains unchanged from the way tea was produced during the Ming dynasty. Unlike all other tea-producing countries, China’s tea gardens are found in small patches high in the mountains. The gardens terrace down the mountains in small groupings and are cut off from one another by sheer geography. Numerous tea gardens were planted in small patches here and there during the Tang dynasty, and China’s tea gardens have proliferated since then as a loosely connected network of isolated gardens in their natural environment. It is always a joy for us to see patches of tea growing interspersed with plantings of rice, taro, and green vegetables on the village outskirts that we pass as we twist and turn our way along bumpy, broken roads in search of tea.
In China village tea farmers grow a majority of the tea. Their freshly plucked leaves are taken to the village tea factory or local cooperative factory for processing. This is an antiquated system of tea production compared to modern standards employed elsewhere, but it is one that still works for China. Many of China’s fine green teas are still handmade, based on this traditional production methodology. So much diversity and regional variation exists in Chinese green teas today because of the continuation of these traditional techniques.
Small, wild tea gardens occupy patches of land in the mountains of eastern China (Anhui Province, China).
China’s immense landmass contributes many unique local teas to the marketplace, each of which is the result of tea-manufacturing and tea-drinking traditions that are strongly rooted in custom and local practices. Regional preferences can be strong in this vast country, and taste preferences differ greatly. Tea production is more complicated than just tossing, bruising, and drying fresh leaf. Factors that contribute to the unique differences in tea are a combination of soil, climate, altitude, air, water, tea bush variety, the care in which the tea was processed, and the taste preferences of the local residents. Each tea-producing region is famous for unique teas whose leaf style, processing, and inherent flavor have been perfected by generations of tea workers.
Each batch of tea from the same tea farm will be slightly different from the previous one as the season progresses. Every day is a new
day when it comes to tea production, and part of the joy is that tea will always have a new dimension of style and flavor to reveal in the cup. In China tea is appreciated for the seemingly endless variations of taste and aroma that it offers. The art of tea brewing and tea appreciation is built on these anticipated variations and differences. In Asia, where the choices from one region are plentiful, comparisons can provide seemingly endless fodder for tasting and conversation. And when comparisons need be made between different regions of the same province or different parts of the country, it’s no wonder that one sits in a Chinese teahouse for hours on end.
Tea drinking in China still fulfills a need to engage all of the senses in the brewing and the drinking. Tea culture in Asia is not about quaffing a hot cup of caffeine on the run, but about keeping tea culture alive, enjoying the delicious taste of tea, and being in the moment of appreciating the rich, sophisticated tea traditions that were developed centuries ago by scholars and emperors. Tea culture also encourages the participants to visually appreciate the beauty of the tea leaves, the skill of the person preparing the tea, how the tea is brewed and poured, and the attractiveness of the teawares selected for use.
THE MAJOR CLASSES OF TEA PRODUCED IN CHINA
All six major classes of tea are produced throughout China from approximately 340 different plant varieties of Camellia sinensis. Each province does not produce all classes of tea but instead excels in certain styles of production. As a result, most residents develop a strong taste preference for the style of tea that is made in their village. In the east, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi Provinces manufacture primarily green tea. The historic specialties of Fujian Province are the exotic and ethereal white teas, the sweet-smelling jasmine teas, the tarry, smoky Lapsang Souchong, and the fine fruity, earthy oolong teas. In the west, Yunnan Province produces both wonderful black and green teas but is most famous for pu-erh tea, a fermented specialty produced in both government-run tea factories and small village tea factories operated by Dai and Bulong villagers. Sichuan, known for tongue-tingling hot and spicy food, contributes elegant black and tender budset green teas to China’s market basket.
The Story of Tea Page 14
