When you think of Jiangxi, what is the first thing that comes to mind? I think most people will think of the Tengwang Pavilion in Nanchang, or the Pingxiang Wugong Mountain, which has been very popular in recent years.
But when it comes to Tea in Jiangxi, many people shake their heads, because Jiangxi doesn't seem to have any famous tea leaves.
In fact, Jiangxi's tea production history is very long, as early as the Han Dynasty, there were people on the Lushan Mountain to plant tea. Lushan Mountain is above 1400 meters above sea level, with abundant rainfall and more rain and fog. As the so-called "alpine clouds and mist produce good tea", Lushan provides an excellent growing environment for tea.
In fact, not only Lushan, the whole of Jiangxi is regarded as a major tea-producing province in the whole country, and the representative varieties are: Magu tea, Jinggang emerald green, Jing'an white tea, Shangrao white eyebrows and so on.
Of course, the most famous of them is "one red and four green", which are Ninghong Kung Fu Tea, Wuyuan Green Tea, Lushan Cloud Mist Tea, Dog Brain Tea, and Fuliang Tea.
Many people may not be familiar with these teas, because compared to the top ten famous teas, Jiangxi's red and four green fame is really a little small.
However, just as the so-called one side of the water and soil to raise one side of the people, in the eyes of Jiangxi people, the local tea leaves are exactly the most suitable for local people to drink.
Jiangxi's tea may not be famous in today's tea market, but in history, jiangxi was a well-known tea distribution center and tea trading town throughout the country.
It may be thirty years of Hedong and thirty years of Hexi, the Jiangxi tea market that once been brilliant for more than a thousand years is no longer the grand scene of the past. But I think as a tea person, it is necessary to tell you how brilliant the Jiangxi tea market was in those years.
All this has to start from the Tang Dynasty!
"As far as the Sui Dynasty died for this river, it is still thousands of miles away from Lai Tongbo. If there is no Water Temple Dragon Boat Incident, there is not much Gongyu Theory. ”
- Don Pi Ri Xiu, "Bian River Huaigu"
I believe that there are not few people who have read this poem, and the Tang Dynasty Pi Rixiu's "Bian River Huaigu" is about the Sui and Tang Grand Canals that the Sui and Tang Emperors painstakingly excavated. At that time, due to the shortage of grain in the Sui Dynasty, the Sui Emperor used the strength of the whole country to dig the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.
Although this river made the Sui Emperor bear the insult of coveting pleasure, it really dredged the transportation between the north and the south, which was a great achievement.
It was precisely because of this river that China's north-south trade was officially active, and northerners began to contact tea from the south.
Although Jiangxi was not the runoff of the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, Jiangxi and Fujian at that time were the largest tea producing areas in the country, and Jiangxi was close to Hangzhou, the starting point of the southern section of the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, so all the tea merchants of the Tang Dynasty had to come to Jiangxi to wholesale tea.
There is a sentence in the great poet Bai Juyi's "Pipa Line" that reads: "Merchants weigh profits and light separation, and the former moon floating beam buys tea." It shows that Fuliang County in Jiangxi was an important tea trading town at that time. Moreover, Shangrao Hekou Town, south of Fuliang County, is a large city that has risen due to the tea trade!
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic of China, it was also a brilliant period in the Tea Market in Jiangxi, and Ninghong Kung Fu Tea surpassed Fujian Keemun Black Tea and became a well-known black tea nationwide. With both yield and quality, Ning Hong became the top tea at that time.
Unfortunately, Jiangxi's tea began to decline in the middle of the Republic of China, on the one hand, the British Southeast Asian colonies of India and Sri Lanka have many flat plateaus and have become excellent tea producing areas, ceylon black tea, Sri Lanka black tea, Darjeeling black tea has become the world's three major black teas.
The scale of industrialized production has hit China's tea market, and Jiangxi's export tea trade has been severely frustrated. After that, the land of China fell into warlord strife and Japanese invasion, and artillery fire almost destroyed tea gardens in Jiangxi Province.
After this heavy blow, although the tea market in Jiangxi is on the verge of extinction, it has regained its new light with the efforts of the local people. Four greens and one red regrouped and launched an impact on the top ten famous teas.
As of 2018, Jiangxi's dried tea output value has reached the 11th place in the country, and the export value has reached the 8th place in the country.
I believe that in the near future, Jiangxi Tea can stand at the peak of the national tea industry and become the mainstay of the industry!