Gourmet Tea in Anhui Province

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By Helen Xu Fei

Anhui is a mountainous inland province in East China, neighboring the lucrative Yangtze Delta to the east.  The Huai River that traverses north Anhui serves a demarcation line dividing the province into two distinctive climate zones.

Lands south of the river experience a humid subtropical monsoon climate suitable for tea growing. Hill and mountain-laced southwestern and south Anhui is the hometown of many distinctive gourmet teas. In 2014, the province produced 111,000 tons of tea, exported 46,900 tons at a total value of $1,950 million, according to the Ministry of Commerce, PRC.

Anhui has a long tea history. The Tang Dynasty’s Lu Yu ranked several Anhui teas as runner-ups in his classic book on tea, indicating that by the 8th century Anhui was involved in commercial tea cultivation and production. Anhui tea was recognized by tea lovers in the 16th century, when advanced pan-frying process (now mainly adopted in the making of Chinese green tea) overtook the long established steaming process (now mainly adopted in the making of Japanese green tea), and resulted in revolutionary changes in the production and consumption of Chinese tea. Anhui was a leader in this remarkable transition creating quite a few gourmet choices.

Songluo was among the early transitional pan-fried Anhui greens. This full-bodied aromatic tea was created by a monk. According to local annals, the monk came to Anhui and settled down in Mount Songluo close to the southern provincial edge. He picked and processed local fresh leaves according to a refined picking standard and used an advanced pan-fried method learned during a lengthy stay in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

Songluo teas soon shot to fame as the top ranking gourmet style. The processing method was copied throughout the region resulting in substantial supply and national awareness of Songluo tea and Songluo-style Anhui tea. Regional transportation hub Tunxi County in southern Anhui evolved into a prosperous tea trade center. Tea from southern Anhui and the border area of neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces were also shipped to this hub for distribution to the cities and export overseas. Tunxi also developed a sophisticated tea refining industry; shipments of common green tea there were re-fired, re-rolled, and thoroughly-sorted and blended into finished high-value products such as Hyson and Chunmee.

Gourmet Tea in Anhui Province

Gourmet Tea in Anhui Province

Qimen Gongfu (Keemun Congou) Haoya grade

Green teas from Anhui were among the earliest batches shipped to the West. The teas of Songluo were phonetically transcribed in English as Singlo and unrefined Tunxi greens were called Twankay. The tea destroyed in 1773’s Boston Tea Party included two Anhui green teas Singlo and Hyson, which were more expensive than accompanying chests of Fujian black teas. Though prices of Anhui green tea were generally higher than that of Fujian black tea, export demand for the latter increased much faster. Although famous for its green tea production, changing consumer tastes meant that by the 18th century Anhui heavily into black tea production.

In 1875, an Anhui-born tea-tax officer deposed from his official post in Fujian returned to Anhui to start a tea business. Yu Ganchen was much impressed by the lucrative black tea export business in Fujian and the substantial demand, so he decided to produce black tea locally. Yu established a tea shop in Dongzhi County in southern Anhui. He purchased fresh leaves from local tea growers but processed them in the same way Fujian black tea was made. Yu’s black tea was welcomed by the tea merchants in neighboring Fujian, and the next year, he opened a second tea shop in neighboring Qimen County. 

Around the same time, Qimen tea plantation owner Hu Yuanlong decided to invest in black tea production as green tea sales slowed. Hu hired black tea makers from neighboring Jiangxi province (the Fujian method for processing black tea first spread to Jiangxi). He invested in training and product innovation on his plantation and by 1883, Hu’s black tea became the most sought-after black tea in the market. Qimen black tea hence established as a premium type export tea (the English work Keemun is an early phonetic transcription of Qimen). Keemun tea production included a very intricate and laborious refining process, so it was also call Keemun Congou. Congou (Gongfu) connotes the great time and labor expended on refining the tea.

Hu’s expansion into Keemun county and surrounding regions gradually transformed the region into one of the best known in the world. Other tea producing regions in Anhui were not idle in product innovation. Thorough trial and error, quite a few tea producing regions had developed geographical-origin gourmet teas that boosted local tea industry.

To this day most of the tea grown in Anhui tea is specialty green. Here are three well-established ones:

Huangshan Maofeng (Yellow Mountain Fuzz Tip) *

Maofeng and Keemun are the most widely known Anhui teas in China. Maofeng was created around the same era as Keemum tea. As the name indicates, the origin tea is made from a special local cultivar found in Yellow Mountain, a famous mountain range in southeastern Anhui. Fuzz refers to tiny hairs on the surface of leaf bud and leaf. Tea bud and young leaf usually are fuzzier than grown-up leaf. Top grades Huangshan Maofeng are picked in early spring. The tip of tea resembles tiny sparrow tongue, and has a pale yellowish hue. It is tastes refreshingly brisk with a lingering sweet aftertaste.  

*Chinese gourmet green tea name usually starts with the specific geographical origin that contributes to the distinctive character of the tea.

Liuan Guapian (Liuan Sunflower Seed)

This is the only one of Anhui’s gourmet green teas that does not contain tea buds, only individual-pieces of young leaf. It was created in the beginning of the 20th century in southwest Anhui’s Liuan area. Spring tea picked from local mountains was not processed right away but meticulously torn down into the individual bud and single pieces of young leaf. The buds were processed into Yinzhen tea (Sliver Needle), and the young leaves were processed into Guanpian tea. The latter was unexpectedly more welcomed than the former, and is now recognized by gourmet tea lovers as a specialty origin tea.    

The dry tea is dark olive green with soft white sheen. The shape is narrower than a sunflower seed. Harvests of Guapian tea usually started in mid-April as the young leaves has the best flavor for this tea. The tea is a full-bodied gourmet green tea with a dry nutty sweetness and a mellow and refreshing aftertaste.

Yongxi Huoqing (Yongxi Fired Green)

Yongxi Huoquing is a gourmet version of gunpowder tea. It was a historical gourmet tea created in Yongxi Village in Jingxian County at southeast Anhui. The tea is picked in prime spring month April, and rolled into an oily glossy dark-green pellet flecked with yellow. The full-bodied tea is strong and rich with subtle astringency and has a lovely floral aroma and sweet aftertaste.    

Keemun remains the most famous Chinese black tea in international market and has gained support in domestic market. Keemun Congou is a broken leaf tea, supreme grades are short and wiry, containing many tea tips (leaf buds). As the grades descend, the tea leaves became coarser and less tightly rolled and the tips disappeared. Premium Keemun Congou has a smooth and round-bodied mouthfeel, tastes richly mellow with a unique fruity floral flavor somehow resembling honey, apple and Chinese orchid flower.

In recent decades, whole-leaf gourmet Keemun has been created to woo more domestic consumers. Keemun Maofeng tea (Fuzz Tip) and Keemun Xiangluo tea (Fragrant Curl) are two major categories of those whole-leaf Keemun. The former is slender and wiry, while the latter is much curlier in shape. Runsi Ningxiang (Solidified Fragrance) is a superb Keemun Xiangluo produced by Anhui Guorun Tea Industrial Co. Ltd, China’s biggest manufacturer of Keemun tea. The curly tea has lovely golden fuzz and a refreshing flowery fragrance.

Anhui Guorun started as an export Keemun tea manufacturer in 1951. Since that time the company has expanded to become a grower, manufacturer, trader and major exporter of Keemun, Anhui common green and gourmet green tea. Guorun runs large-scale tea plantations in Qimen, Huangshan, and several more gourmet tea origins in Anhui, it also organizes smallholders near Guorun tea plantation bases to form cooperatives that work under the company’s uniformed safety and sustainability rules. It has organic tea certification from IMO certification (Switzerland), and 2,500 hectares of its Keemun tea plantation are designated by the central government as Demonstration Park for Safety Plantation and Production of Keemun Tea.

For those who do not have time to travel around mountainous southern Anhui, Guorun is an ideal stop to come across a large variety of Anhui-origin gourmet tea. Some of the gourmet green teas are less well-known or sourced from remote places that are yet to be aware by general drinkers outside Anhui.