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 The story of Wenshan Baozhong
tea
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“Baozhong tea” is a special tea making skill from
Fukien
, the tea leaves are picked, pan roasted, and made into tea cakes, used to pay
tribute to the emperors. Because all the emperors of the Song Dynasty enjoyed
drinking tea, and Emperor Huizhong was also very skilled at tea tasting, so
they had very high quality standards for tea at the time, it brought about the
competition of tea making skills. The Min-Zhe area had tea leaf competitions
ever year, at the height of its popularity, 22 provinces and more then 600
counties entered the competition. They selected around 20 good quality teas,
among them the aroma and taste of Wuyi tea was the best. The so called “Baozhong
tea” is one of the methods used to produce the “Rock tea” of Wuyi.However, there are not many literatures that can be
referred to for Taiwan Baozhong tea history. In 1956, Fu-chuen Lin wrote Study of Oolong tea and Baozhong tea
production. It recorded a very detailed history of Baozhong tea, and it is
summarized as below.
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The tea
exhibition hall introducing the tea gardens of Muzha. |
Searching
and finding books in the library.
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 The origins of the Baozhong tea name |
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According to the survey of Japanese Inoue Fusakuni, Baozhong
tea was created and produced 150 years ago by Yi-Cheng Wang from
Anxi
County
in
Quanzhou
City
of the
Fukien
Province
. He imitated the production
methods of Wuyi Rock tea to produce Anxi tea; he also promoted and passed down
the tea production methods. When this type of tea was produced, it used two
sheets of square
Fukien
deckle paper, then 4
liang of tea leaves were placed inside and packed into a four sided rectangular
package. The name of the tea and tea firm was stamped on the package and called
“Baozhong,” it was then either shipped to Fuzhou and sold after adding flower
aromas, or it was directly sold to the South Pacific through Xiamen. This is
the beginning of “Baozhong tea” production, and where the name Baozhong tea
came from. |
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The origins of Taiwan Baozhong tea |
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Because the weather is warm, the air is humid, the rainfall
is consistent, and the soil is filled with organic matter in
Taiwan
, it is
very suitable for growing tea. There have been wild tea trees growing since ancient
times, but most believe the first tea trees with real economic value came 200
years ago when immigrants from
China
came to
Taiwan
.
Tsao Ko brought Min tea from Fukien, and first grew it in Yucun (currently the Rueifang
District in
Taipei
County
), it developed quickly,
places like Shrding, Shenkeng, Chuanshan (Wenshan), Dapingshan, and as far as
Hsinchu also started to grow tea one after another. But before the year of
Guagxu 7 (1881 BC), the only
Taiwan
tea was Oolong tea.
In Qing Tongzhi 12 (1873), Taiwan Oolong tea was affected by the recession in
the world tea industry, in addition the five trading companies in
Taipei
that specialized
in Oolong tea exports thought that Oolong tea was too expensive and had no
profit, so they stopped all acquisitions, causing Oolong tea to have no market.
Most tea merchants had no choice but to ship most of the Taiwan Oolong tea to
Fuzhou
, and it was all made
into Baozhong tea. At the time the tea was called “Flower Aroma Tea” in
Fuzhou
, this is the origins of why Oolong tea was produced
into Baozhong tea, and was the precursor of Baozhong tea production in
Taiwan
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The origins of Taiwan Baozhong tea |
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In Guangxu 7 (1881), tea merchant Fu-Yuan Wu (a.k.a. Old Fu
Wu) from Fukien Quanzhou House,
Tongan
County
felt that there was little
profit gained when producing the Baozhong tea in
Fukien
.
In order to increase profit, he took the technical staff (tea master) to
Taiwan
and established the “Yuan-Long Hao” in
Taipei
specializing in Baozhong
tea production. That year, Taiwan Baozhong tea was exported for the first time
and distributed overseas. Not long after,
Anxi
County
tea merchants An-Ding Wang and Gu-Kwei
Chang became partners and established “Jian Chen Hao” managing Baozhong tea,
shipping it to
Xiamen
from Danshui, and also selling and shipping the tea to the South Pacific. After
this, many tea farmers imitated this model, and the production of Baozhong tea
slowly increased.
In Guangxu 11 (1885), Hsui-Jing Want and Jing-Wei from Fukien
Anxi also came to
Taiwan
;
in the Chishin District in Nangang Daken they researched Baozhong tea
cultivation and production, on one hand they improved the cultivation and tea
production skills, on the other hand they passed these skills down to members
of the industry. After
Japan
occupied
Taiwan
(1895), in
order to improve the
Taiwan
tea industry, they also chose this location as the Baozhong tea production
research center. From Republic 9 (1920), every spring and autumn they would
assemble all the members of the tea industry in the province and held Baozhong
tea workshops. Wang and Wei would be appointed the lecturers, and they taught
enthusiastically. The Taipei County Agriculture Council and the Hsinchu County
Agriculture Council would also send relevant staff there to learn. Wang and Wei
contributed greatly to Taiwan Baozhong tea.
From the above we learn that the earliest skilled producers of Baozhong tea
were in Taipei County Chishin District (today it is Taipei City Nangang
District), followed by the Wenshan District. In terms of the tea quality, the
tea from Wenshan District is the best, so we have the habit of calling it “Wenshan
Baozhong tea.” Currently the Wenshan tea district includes Taipei County
Pinglin, Shrding, Shenkeng, Hsintien, and Hsichih townships or cities. The have
a tea plantation area around 2,300 hectares, growing high-grade tea trees such
as Qingxin Oolong, the tea buds are tender and soft, the Baozhong tea produced
has excellent quality. They produce around 1.3 million kilograms a year (some
say 2 billion kilograms), and are world-renowned for their Wenshan Baozhong tea. |
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