The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook by Mary Lou Heiss

Author:Mary Lou Heiss [Heiss, Mary Lou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60774-378-1
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Published: 2012-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

In southern Fujian Province, in the countryside surrounding the city of Anxi, heavily terraced tea gardens blend one into another and cover the mountainsides in a lush carpet of green. This region of Fujian is close to the coast and enjoys semitropical weather, providing a temperate climate for serious tea production. The soil here is rich and fertile (compared to the paucity of such in the Wu Yi Shan area) and red from an abundance of iron oxide.

In the Anxi area, oolong tea leaves undergo a unique rolling step during leaf manufacture. About midway through the manufacturing process, the leaves are placed in a cloth bag that is tied into a tight bundle and then placed in a machine that gently rolls (and slightly compresses) the bundles of tea in a circular manner for a prescribed amount of time. This rolling step (followed by tumbling the tea in a metal or bamboo tumbler) is how Anxi oolongs acquire their distinctive semiball-rolled shape.

Tieguanyin is made in twenty-seven villages in the Anxi region, and the fresh leaf is plucked primarily from the Red Heart and White Heart Guan Yin tea bush varieties. Other tea bush subvarieties in this area (known collectively as Se Zhong varieties) yield similar oolongs. A few examples are Ben Shan, Huang Jin Gui (Golden Osmanthus), Mao Xie (Hairy Crab), and Tou Tian Xiang (Imperial Gold).

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