Got up on that rickety bamboo ladder to bottle up some mountain spring water…. Just kidding. Maybe 10 years ago I would have. Or maybe once I have a successor I can do crazy things like that again. But folks, this is the best tasting mountain spring water in Anxi, and one of the richest in minerals I’ve tasted. Traveling back with a bottle to get the mineral content analysis so we can replicate this water for our Tieguanyin some day… sans climbing up a slippery cliff.
Taciturn, with a dry sense of humor, straighter than an arrow, and previous village doctor, Mr. Lin found himself the new Mayor of Che Shi village, home of the original Tieguanyin. He was appointed by unanimous appointment by the villagers. He will probably end up being the only official in the country not going to bribed. But, he said, he did gain an advantage. Using his status as the mayor, he…
How long have I known the Yan family in Anxi? Hard to remember, but probably no less than 15 years. There was a year this dog was a pup. As far as he’s concerned, I am also an old family member he comes to greet happily when I arrive. His job is clear. He guards the house. If you ask him to guard a pile of tea, he would do that too, without budging even once the entire day. When Mr. Yan comes home, he guards his bedroom door instead of the house. He knows every single villager, and God forbid you are a new customer. You won’t be able to get out of the car.
Today, I scored the family heirloom Tieguanyin from 1996. Guess I’ve been with them long enough now.
Sitting outside in a pleasant, not too mosquito filled night, with Mr. Yan and his grandnephew. I remember young Mr. Wang, his apprentice, from nearly 13 years ago. Now he owns a relatively big tea business, married with two kids, but is just as obsessed and serious about tea as he was as a young apprentice. Lack of lighting and being in the middle of the night is not daunting- he needed to analyze the batches of dark roasted oolongs for whether 30 hours roasting was yet enough- by iPhone light! Then, it was time to bag and seal some teas, and I was instructed, how to feel the correct temperature warmth in the tea out of the roaster, to seal it so that the moisture absorbed from the air was just the right amount. So much to forever learn.
At Xiping, home of Tieguanyin. The village was so much quieter, and at peak harvest season, hardly anyone was around. The reason is that many tea bushes died from the recent subzero temperature, and recent decline in demand with over production caused prices to not rise. And since most teas have more than doubled in price in recent years, Tieguanyin and surrounding oolongs like Yellow Gold, Hairy Crab, and Benshan have all fallen out of favor with the producers.
80% of the population depends on tea for a livelihood in one way or another here in Anxi, the birthplace of Tieguanyin, world renown oolong. To be sure fads come and go every year and a Tieguanyin is not always the most fashionable tea every year. Since the mountain range is so huge, all this raw material has to go someplace. They can get sold to Wuyi to be made into Dahongpao, or Phoenix Mountain to make ‘Phoenix tea’, or even green teas. For most people, they are not going to taste the terroir difference. For Americans, forget terroir- there’s just green tea or black tea in a teabag. Actually, the best example ever- once I was in a restaurant in SOHO, NYC, billing itself as a tea house restaurant. On the menu was: Hot Tea. That’s it. The wine list was a book and coffees were a dozen choices, but this ‘tea house’ had only one option for tea. Phew, glad it was hot. Now, why did I just spend my whole life getting terroir specific tea from the indigenous varietals picked on the perfect day made by the best artisans in the villages, again?