'Big Red Robe' rock tea the pride of family's 265-year dedication
Huang Shengqiang, 27, points to an open wooden box holding dozens of books, some so old that the pages are yellow, torn and riddled with worm holes - the names and dates faded.
It is the recorded history of his family. Or at least the 265 years since they were forced by war to flee Hangzhou, where they had lived since the Southern Song dynasty.
In 1743 they fled to the Wuyi Mountains in northwest Fujian province to grow and process tea under the name Ruiquan Cha Chang. For generations, their speciality has been Wuyi Rock Tea, a type of Wulong tea.
The most famous Wuyi Rock Tea was 'Big Red Robe' rock tea, about which there were many legends, Mr Huang said. The story goes that hundreds of years ago, a young scholar was travelling to take the imperial exam when he fell gravely ill in the town of Wuyi. A local monk heard about the scholar and brewed him tea plucked from a bush grown in a rocky outcropping. The boy recovered and placed first in the examination. He returned and wrapped his red scholar's coat around the bush for protection.
The tree is still there, not far from the Huang family's one hectare of small tea bushes, and every year a red robe is wrapped around it in celebration.
Mr Huang started in the family business at the age of 10. His job was to take the tea that had been picked - always the bud, four leaves and the stem - and pick off the top four, discarding the stem and the bottom leaf. Sometimes he would pick. It was hard work.
After doing military service and travelling that took him from Inner Mongolia to Hainan , Mr Huang returned to Wuyi to carry on the family tradition.
Much of that has to do with the processing of Wulong tea - a type somewhere between green and black tea - which requires eight steps that can vary slightly.
The first is withering the leaves in the sun after picking. Then they are 'revived' or cooled in the shade, then tossed in rotating drums to bruise the leaves. Next they are 'stir fried' in a heated cylinder for about 10 minutes, then rolled and pressed into strands. After that they are heated to keep their shape, then sorted. Finally, they are roasted in bamboo baskets over a low charcoal fire for about 12 hours.
'I never thought of another line of work,' Mr Huang said, standing among tea bushes. 'I am the inheritor of our cultural heritage, and if I don't go on, it could be lost.'
