Gourmet
The Most Beautiful Sea of Tea in Guizhou
by Live in Guizhou
PUBLISHED August 18, 2021 • 3 MIN READ
Guizhou, as the province with the largest tea production area in China, holds countless tea farms, among which are some rather famous ones, such as Fenggang Sea of Tea, Meitan Sea of Tea, Duyun Luosike Tea Garden, Kaiyang Yunshan Mountain Sea of Tea, Huaxi Yang’ai Tea Farm, Guiding Yunwu Tea Farm, Leishan Miaojiang Tea Garden, and Weining Xianglu Mountain Tea Garden.
Tips for Making Guizhou Tea
How to make better Guizhou tea? The authorities have given precise tips for this: high water temperature, sufficient tea leaves, quick water-pouring, no washing or separating the tea leaves from the infusion.
It is common knowledge that the most important tip for making tea is to use water between 75 and 85 °C as boiling water would “kill” the tender leaves. But the first tip applied by the “Guizhou style” is high water temperature.
Relevant departments in Guizhou have specially mobilized some tea experts to repeatedly carry out brewing experiments. The results show that the tea made with boiling water has an elevated level of the amino acids and tea polyphenols at infusion; that such level increases as the water temperature goes up; high temperature also allows a stronger aroma of the tea.
The Six Tea Varieties of Guizhou
Guizhou is the number one tea planter in China, with over 1,150,000 acres of plantations that total a whopping 400,000 tons in annual production.
What are some of Guizhou’s best varieties? Simple, just remember the three-green and three-red variety. The green teas are the Duyun Maojian, Meitan Cuiya, and Gaoshan Green Tea. The red teas (the Chinese refer to black teas as red teas, and reserves the term “black tea” for the ultra fermented varieties) refer to the Zunyihong, Shiqianhong, and Pu’anhong (These names are double entendres, “hong” meaning “red” in Chinese, and Zunyi, Pu’an and Shiqian are all important historical sites for the Chinese Communist Party).
Tea Gardens in Pu’an
Pu’an is a key tea-producing county in Guizhou Province. In addition to the ancient Siqiu tea trees which have been in existence for tens of millions of years, and the “royal tea gardens” that the Buyi ethnic group has been cultivating for generations, In the 1970s and 1980s, the local government also introduced seeds and opened up the immense tea garden in Jiangxipo Town.
The World’s Oldest Fossil of Siqiu Tea Seeds
On July 13, 1980, Lu Qiming, a senior agronomist at the Agricultural Bureau of Qinglong County, Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province, discovered a tea seed fossil in the Yuntou Mountain in the western part of the county. After the research carried out by the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was confirmed to be a Siqiu tea seed fossil from the Tertiary Period of the Cenozoic, at least one million years ago. It is also the oldest tea seed fossil found in the world, which proves that as early as one million years ago, wild tea trees already grew in Qinglong County, and that Guizhou is one of the core areas of origin of tea trees in the world, which also helps establish the status of Guizhou tea in the world.
Pu’an Millennium Old Tea Tree
This is an ancient tea tree of more than 4,000 years. It is also the oldest Siqiu tea tree in the world, located in Pu’an old tea tree conservation area in Qianxinan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Province. More than 20,000 wild Siqiu tea trees grow around the millennium one. The one million- year-old tea seed fossil was formed by the seeds of these old trees in Pu’an. It is Siqiu tea. One tea fruit has four chambers, in which four seeds are to be found.
“Fu’niang Tea” of the Buyi Ethnic Group
As the name suggests, “Fu’niang tea” is a tea made by a blessed girl. This tea originated in the Ming dynasty and has a history of 600 years. The tender buds and leaves will be plucked during the solar term of Qingming and kneaded before packing with bamboo shoot shell. Then the tea will be hung on the beams for natural aging. This is how the “Fu’niang tea” is made.
Insect tea
Considered as the tea version of “kopi luwak”, it is insect tea! Actually, insect tea is not tea. It is made from the excrement left by the larvae of moth after eating tea leaves. When brewed, it gives the water the color of tea, hence the name of “tea”.