Three black teas from the birthplace of black tea
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The first black tea ever recorded
In 1732, a new kind of tea that was black in colour of the leaves but yielded a red liquor was traded in an area called Xing Cun in Wuyi in the northwestern part of Fujian. It was the first ever documented evidence of the appearance of what currently understood as black tea.
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No further written materials or artefacts can be found from that same era as to the production details or taste of that tea. Some suspected that it must have been the more abundant tea plant that was widely used for export production of that era: Meizhan. In the 90’s a cultivar is developed from this bustard of tea ( a lot of Meizhan production plants in use have sexually propagated ancestries ) to reconstruct the tea that could have been first traded in the 18th century. The epicentre of it all is Tongmuguan, where not only the long craft tradition and the terroir for black tea production, but also for its historic significance — it is right above the water route for tea trading via Xing Cun.
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Tea Hong’s Tongmuguan One is a quintessential representation of the best quality of this Meizhan black tea.
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In a painting from a series of nine paintings of tea cultivation and processing, the artist depicts a transaction of tea already packed in wooden chests in a house next to a winding river. The chests are labelled “Xiao-zhong” (red circle) and “Wuyi” (green circle). The winding river ( a main river in the Wuyi Shan region is nicknamed Nine Bend River is painted next to tea fields with dome shaped mountains in the background. This is an abstraction of a typical landscape in the Wuyi area. Gouache on silk, with oxidisation/mould ruining some of the areas, late 18th century. Wellcome Collection 25248i, London
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