Recently, "Quanzhou: World Marine Trade Center of Song and Yuan China" was successfully included in the World Cultural Heritage List.
For a time, Quanzhou once again attracted the attention of the world. As the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road, Chinese tea went from Quanzhou to the world. As the hometown of China's oolong tea, Quanzhou tea is also uniquely charming.
Quanzhou is the tea town I visit the most, where the tea people tea affair, like the cup of strong fragrance type Tieguanyin, the fragrance is high and timeless, and the aftertaste is long.
In Quanzhou, tea is life. In 2007, I came to Quanzhou for the first time for participating in the first cross-strait tea industry expo. On the way to The Tea Village of Anxi, when the car stopped at the gas station to refuel, I was surprised to see someone sitting around the side of the gas station drinking tea. As I approached curiously, the owner had already boiled the cup, poured the tea, and motioned for me to drink it. This was not a chance encounter. Later, I learned that in Anxi, even in Quanzhou, whether it is a shop, a unit or even a family, a set of kung fu tea sets is indispensable. After the trip to Quanzhou, no matter where you go, it is a must to sit down and have a cup of tea. I realized that in Quanzhou, when guests come, tea is a ritual. In the leisure time, tea is the day. In short, tea is an indispensable part of Quanzhou people's lives.
The tea life of Quanzhou people has also affected all parts of the country with the tea business of Quanzhou people. In the past, tea was sold, especially in the northern region, using counter sales, and customers bought and left, and did not provide tasting services. At the beginning of the 21st century, Quanzhou people used Quanzhou tea life to promote hometown tea. Instead of the counter, there is a tea table with a bubbling aroma, but anyone who enters the store must drink a cup of tea first. According to statistics, there are more than 200,000 Quanzhou Anxi people engaged in tea business throughout the country. It can be said that nowadays, tea sales are tasted first and then bought, and bowls of tea are gradually moving towards thousands of households, which is not unrelated to the promotion of tea life in Quanzhou.
In Quanzhou, tea is the inheritance. In addition to the unique tea plant varieties bred by nature, the Tieguanyin production technique that embodies the wisdom of tea farmers has been passed down from generation to generation and has been included in the national intangible cultural heritage. Although I have interviewed many inheritors of Tieguanyin's craftsmanship, I was most impressed by one I met on the streets of Quanzhou.
It was a business trip to Quanzhou, and local friends knew that we liked tea, and after dinner they took us directly to a tea shop - Lianggu Tea. The store is not big, but it is not small. "In Quanzhou Anxi Gande Town, when it comes to Chen Lianggu, there is almost nothing that tea farmers don't know." A friend introduced. Chen Liang didn't say much, just took out two bubbles of tea and let us taste it. A bubble of black oil, a bubble of thick rope, although I have drunk a lot of Anxi tea, but in the face of these two, whether it is the shape or taste, I actually have a sense of cloud cover fog and do not seek to understand. It turned out that the black and shiny tea called Tieguanyin Honey Tea was a local indigenous craft, mainly for family health care, which was rare on the market. And that bubble rope is thick, named Wild Fruit, is Tieguanyin wild tea, picked for hundreds of years of Tieguanyin wild tea tree tea green, using traditional technology to make, naturally is also rare.
In the small two brewed teas, in the taste of ancient times, it is Chen Lianggu's inheritance and adherence to traditional craftsmanship. Before leaving, he gave me a book entitled "Exploration of Tea Making Techniques", and he himself was one of the authors. Out of curiosity, I consulted his information and learned that he had set up the first Tieguanyin Tea Master Studio in Anxi to train more than 10,000 tea farmers.
For the people of Quanzhou, tea is still nostalgia. With the aroma of tea over the years, this cup of hometown drink has long flowed into the blood of Quanzhou people. During the interview, many CPPCC members whose ancestral home is Quanzhou, Fujian Province, have maintained the habit of drinking Quanzhou tea. The most impressive is Lin Shuzhe, member of the 10th and 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and member of the Standing Committee of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, who brings his hometown tea to share with the members of the national committee every year. And drinking tea and chatting with him at the annual meeting has also become our "agreement". From the characteristics of Quanzhou tea, the custom of drinking tea to the benefits of drinking tea, the words are full of love and nostalgia for hometown tea.
In 2017, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, I went to Hong Kong for an interview, and he rushed from the airport to ask someone to make me tea. Talking about his hometown tea, he found a private tea, which is Tieguanyin produced by Xiamen Import and Export Tea Industry Co., Ltd., full of age-inspired packaging, as if telling a story of the past. It turned out that Quanzhou was a famous hometown of overseas Chinese, and when Quanzhou overseas Chinese living all over the world left their hometown, they took away most of this tea. Until now, this tea continues to be produced and maintains the packaging and taste of that year. For these overseas Chinese, this is the taste of hometown.
As a world cultural heritage, Quanzhou's story of tea is equally exciting. The tea of life, the tea of inheritance, the tea of nostalgia, this "three teas" is just a corner of Quanzhou tea culture. More stories are waiting for you to come to Quanzhou, slowly taste and slowly discover.