There are countless varieties of jasmine, but rich Arabian jasmine (Jasmine Sambac) gives Chinese jasmine tea its glorious, intoxicating aroma. In northern China it is customary to serve a cup of fragrant jasmine tea as a welcoming gesture to guests. Many different grades of jasmine tea are available, from everyday grades that are cloyingly sweet and clumsily perfumed to ethereal, fancy grades of such tea as Yin Hao jasmine (there are reputed to be nineteen different grades of Yin Hao jasmine) and the Jasmine Snowflakes from Sichuan Province. The best jasmine teas should caress the senses with delicate allure, not bludgeon them with excess.
Fujian Province is home to white tea with jasmine (Bai Hao Yin Zhen), Dragon Pearls, Jasmine Silver Hair (Yin Hao Jasmine), Jasmine Raindrops, and Jasmine Spring Hao Ya. Sichuan Province produces the Jasmine Snowflakes tea (Bi Tan Piao Xue).
VISITING A JASMINE TEA FACTORY
Jasmine tea has been a historical specialty of northern Fujian Province since the days of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The area around the town of Changle is famous for jasmine-flower production, and here jasmine bushes, like tea bushes, are planted in abundance. Visitors to this region in summer can luxuriate in the heady aroma of these blossoms, which drench the surrounding countryside with a languid, sweet perfume. Jasmine tea is made in two steps. In each province that manufactures the tea, the base tea is made appropriate to the taste of its clientele. In Fujian, for example, this base tea (called zao or “tea readied”) is made from fresh leaf plucked during the spring season. The process of manufacturing zao bei into jasmine tea is called hongqing.
Zao bei begins by de-enzyming the fresh leaf, which is followed by leaf rolling. Then the leaf is dried, not with direct heat as is used in chaoqing or hon bei but with indirect heat that is applied by blowing warm air over the leaf’s surface as the tea passes through the drying machine. This machine has three levels of adjustment that allow the leaf to pass closer or farther away from the hot air, providing the tea workers with complete control over the process. By using warm air, the leaf curls and rolls less, leaving more surface area exposed, which increases the leaf’s ability to absorb the scent of the jasmine blossoms.
Perfect jasmine blossoms are critical to properly scent fragrant jasmine tea (Fujian Province, China).
After the base tea has been made, it is kept in cool storage until the arrival of the jasmine blossoms in summertime. July through September is the prime season for jasmine blossoms, and those plucked in July are the most fragrant. These flowers are used to scent the most delicate and aromatic jasmine teas. Timing is critical in jasmine tea production: knowing when to pluck the flowers and when the moment is right to introduce the blossoms to the tea are essential to producing top-quality jasmine tea.
As with all fine Chinese tea, experienced hand skills come into play to create the fancy rolled and twisted jasmine teas such as Dragon Pearls and Jasmine Raindrops. These popular teas have been enthusiastically embraced by Western tea drinkers. When inhaling the perfume of first-rate jasmine tea, there is a relaxing moment of calm. Close your eyes and imagine what it was like to luxuriate in the splendor of a richly fragranced and lavishly appointed Ming dynasty tea tasting. Additionally, jasmine tea is produced in Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Zhejiang Provinces.
The ideal time to begin gathering the flower buds is noon, which ensures that any lingering remnants of dew from the night before have evaporated. The flower buds are collected during the early afternoon. Experienced pluckers know when to pluck and use two criteria for selecting blossoms: first, the length of the flower shaft (which is plucked when the length increases 50 percent from the day before, or increases from ¼ inch to about ½ inch) and second, when the color of the blossom changes from ivory to white. By 4 p.m. it is time to bring the collected flowers into the tea factory. Maintenance of the condition of the flowers is very important. The workers will keep the flowers at a temperature of around 100 to 104°F (38 to 40°C) to encourage development of aroma. The goal is to encourage the flower buds to continue opening enough to see the center of the blossom but not open fully. At 8 p.m. the actual production of jasmine tea begins. The zao bei that has been released from storage is now at ambient room temperature, which in Changle in July is 90 to 99°F (32 to 37°C). The fresh jasmine blossoms are introduced to the base tea; the two are mixed together and raked into a pile on the floor.
Because the process of scenting occurs as it does, it is not necessary for the flower blossoms to remain in the finished tea. The spent blossoms are traditionally removed from the finished jasmine tea that is made for the Chinese market. The tea is set in front of large industrial fans that blow the blossoms away, scattering them around the factory floor. In jasmine tea made for export, however, the final scenting blossoms are usually left in the tea. But these are for show only, as the true scenting has already been accomplished. A current crop of jasmine tea does not reach the market until October or November each year. Jasmine tea stays fresh for up to three years because of the minor oxidation that occurs during the heat buildup in the pile during scenting.
CHINA’S YELLOW TEAS
Yellow teas have a pleasing, slightly golden cast to the leaf. They are reported to have been tribute teas to the emperor as far back as the Song dynasty (960–1279). They are rare and costly but one of the consummate examples of the Chinese art of tea making. Yellow teas are similar to green teas but are given an extra step during the leaf manufacture. Yellow tea is most often made from buds or tips only, which is the most select plucking. A tea plucker might pluck four to five pounds of fresh leaf each day but gather only eight ounces of tiny buds, which makes bud-picked teas the most expensive. Most Westerners have never tasted a yellow tea, and in fact few are even aware of them. This is unfortunate, because yellow teas are delicious and refreshing; they are one of our personal favorite styles of tea. Although they are not commonly found outside of China, yellow teas are worth pursuing. For a description of the manufacture of yellow tea, see “Yellow Tea” in chapter 3.
A silk bag of freshly picked buds, destined to become Bamboo Tips yellow tea (Sichuan Province, China).
In central Sichuan Province, Ya’an county is famous for producing flavorful long-leaf mao feng teas (the choice picking of two leaves and a bud). Mingshan county, located several hours’ drive north of Ya’an, is the historical place where tea was first cultivated in China. According to legend, somewhere around 53 BC (during the Han dynasty) a young man named Wu LiZhen planted seven tea trees on Mengding Mountain from tea bush cuttings. Wu LiZhen was given the title of Master of Sweet Dew by Emperor Xiaozong of the Song dynasty (960–1279), for whom this was a tribute tea. Wu LiZhen planted the tea bushes near a natural spring that is believed to have a special, sweet scent and the ability to run eternal. After Wu LiZhen passed away, the tea was referred to as xian cha, or “tea of the immortals.”
Mengding Mountain, the birthplace of cultivated tea (Sichuan Province, China).
In the high elevations sweet, early spring buds are picked when they are covered with soft, fluffy down. They are turned into a refreshing yellow tea known as gan lu (“sweet dew,” after Wu LiZhen’s honorific title) or Mengding Mountain Huang Ya (Mending Mountain Snow Buds). From the environs of Mount Emei, one of China’s most sacred Buddhist mountains, comes Bamboo Tips, another of Sichuan’s exquisite yellow teas, comprised of many tiny compact and smooth budsets. Snow Shoot Tea from Qing Cheng Mountain is aptly named, as it refers to tea that is plucked from the earliest part of the spring tea harvest.
Yellow tea sold in its own right has only recently begun to appear on the lists of tea merchants in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chongqing, and Europe, as well as a few specialty tea merchants in the United States. Several yellow teas to look for are Huang Shan Mao Feng and Huo Mountain Yellow Sprouting, Bamboo Tips (Zhu Ye Qing), Mengding Mountain Snow Buds (Mengding Huang Ya), and Snow Shoot Tea.
THE IMPERIAL TEA GARDEN AND WU LIZHEN’S TEA BUSHES
Many temples are tucked throughout t
he valleys of Mengding Mountain, but only after passing through the Mengding Mountain gate do visitors find the Huangdi Temple, which has stood in this place since the Song dynasty. This is the site of the Imperial Tea Garden and Wu LiZhen’s tea bushes. Today a handful of monks still live in this pristine environment and carefully guard these seven sacred tea trees, which are secluded behind a gated stonewall. The garden is also home to a white stone tiger that was placed in the garden to add further protection for the emperor’s tea. A few ceremonial tea leaves are picked each spring by dignitaries wearing Song dynasty–style yellow robes to celebrate the seasonal tea harvest and the importance of this former tribute tea. These tea bushes are now only symbolic in meaning, as surely they have been replaced many times over and are connected to Wu LiZhen only in spirit and memory.
Japan: Unique Teas and Introspective Customs
Both China and Japan are famous for their green tea, but the similarities between these two revered teas end there. Each country is famous for a heritage of producing unique and refreshing green teas, but from cultivation to production and leaf style to flavor characteristics, the teas from these two countries are worlds apart. The best Chinese green teas are hand-plucked and hand-processed, and grow in isolated tea gardens tucked away high in the mountains. The leaf is processed in small, rural tea factories that rely on traditional manufacturing styles rather than modern efficiency. In Japan, however, most tea is made from leaf that has been mechanically plucked from tea bushes that grow in meticulously groomed gardens at relatively low elevations. This leaf is usually processed by sophisticated and often computer-driven, high-tech machinery in state-of-the-art modern leaf-processing facilities. Chinese and Japanese teas reflect the different point of view that each country has toward tea. Chinese teas are all about the source of origin and the leaf style, while Japanese teas are all about the manufacture, the modern production process, and the art of blending for specific flavor.
The origins of tea drinking in Japan can perhaps be traced to a time during the eighth-century Nara period (710–794). Under the rule of Emperor Kammu (r. 781–806), Japan dispatched several diplomatic missions to Chang’An, the capital of Tang-era China (618–907). These missions, called kenyōshi, also served the purpose of bringing back to Japan knowledge and understanding of China and Chinese culture. Knowledge was garnered by the envoys through experience, observation, learning, and the acquisition of scrolls, paintings, statues, and other material goods brought back to Japan.
On one of these missions two Japanese monks and scholars—Kūkai (774–835) and Saichō (767–822)—reached China sometime around the year 804 and stayed in China for several years studying religion and doctrine. While there, each man perfected the religious school of thought that he introduced to Japan when he returned—Tendai Buddhism (Saichō) and Shingon Buddhism (Kūkai). It is believed that one of these men may have brought the first tea seeds back to Japan, and perhaps also the concept of tea drinking. But envoys had been visiting China since before 618, so familiarity with tea could have been established much earlier. Early writings of this period in Japan make reference to “tea drinking,” but light has yet to be shed on exactly who made the introduction, where it occurred, and how the tea was brewed or consumed.
Emperor Shōmu (r. 724–749) is reported to have served tea to a hundred priests in his palace as early as 729. Another reference to tea drinking occurs in 814 in volume four of the Shoōryōshō, a collection of Kūkai’s writings compiled by one of his disciples. This reference notes Kūkai’s return from China in 806 and reports that Kūkai presented Emperor Saga (r. 802–823) with books to view. It goes on to say that as he studied, he reportedly drank “hot water with tea” or Chanoyu.
Tea drinking was next recorded in 815, during the Heian era (794–1185), under the reign of the fifty-second imperial ruler, Emperor Saga. A book called the Kuikū Kokushi recorded that Abbott Eichu made tea “with his own hands and served it to the emperor.” Since then, many writings and poems praising tea and Chinese ways of tea drinking have been penned. But for many years tea drinking in Japan was, as in China, practiced among only a few groups: monks, who considered it a spiritual exercise (they cultivated small patches of tea on temple grounds), the imperial family, and members of the nobility. Japanese monks learned of the virtues of tea from the Chinese sages, who deemed it to be the “elixir of the gods.” For the Japanese nobility tea drinking was thought to be a way to transcend the mundane of everyday life.
Tea production in Japan is more highly mechanized and modern than it is in China. In this Japanese factory, green tea production still requires the trained eye of a professional to determine how the color and form of early season aracha manufacture is progressing (Shizuoka prefecture, Japan).
In Japan’s Kamakura period (1192–1333), Myōan Eisai, the founder of the Rinsai sect of Buddhism, encouraged green tea drinking for general health. Eisai (1141–1215), who later became known as Eisai Zenji (Zen Master), made numerous trips to China throughout his lifetime, each time bringing back tea seed for planting. He shared the seed with other monks and priests who planted these tea seeds in various locations throughout Japan, including Kyoto, Kyushu, and Uji. It is believed that Eisai is responsible for starting the old tea gardens at Kyoto’s Kozanji Temple.
Eisai wrote the first Japanese book on tea, called the Kissa Yōjōki (or “Tea Drinking Good for the Health”). He claimed that tea would “conquer the five diseases” and “remedy all disorders” and that tea should be consumed by all citizens. With this endorsement interest in tea drinking spread from the aristocracy to the warrior classes. This was the first time that the practice of drinking tea in Japan was for the simple pleasure of drinking tea, and not for some medicinal or healthful benefit. During Japan’s Muromachi period (1392–1573) the roots of tea culture took hold and were developed in Uji, a rural area located outside of the imperial city of Kyoto. For a time in Japan tea was synonymous with Uji and was thus called ujicha.
Another notable figure in the advancement of tea culture was Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (r. 1449–1474), the battle-worn general, who, after starting the Onin War and nearly destroying Kyoto, handed the country’s reins to his son and retired to a life in his Kyoto palace. Thereafter he devoted his life to Zen arts, tea, and poetry. Under his influence and patronage of the tea master Murata Jukō, tea drinking entered the secular realm.
A serene temple setting (Kyoto, Japan).
From this point on tea drinking began its elevation into a fine art, which eventually culminated into the tea ceremony known as Chanoyu. Although tea grows throughout Japan, the oldest and most famous tea gardens are still those at Uji, where traditional tea-making skills are devoutly practiced. While images of Samurai warriors, contemplative Zen gardens, the masks of No actors, and the inscrutable perfection of geishas presents an artistic and evocative side of Japanese history and culture, Japan is an industrialized country with large, crowded, fast-paced modern cities. Underneath this bustling outward facade, however, Japan maintains its proud and strong culture based on ancient Shinto beliefs and Zen practices that seek to capture moments of simplicity and to express ideas of beauty and paradox. Japan’s enigmatic food culture captures our attention with the ritual of their intricate and precise tea ceremony, while visually stunning food served on dynamic, artistically designed pottery presents these dishes according to established concepts of style, manners, and tradition.
Japan is comprised of four major islands and more than three thousand small islands. More than 80 percent of Japan’s landmass is mountainous, which leaves people, cities, and agriculture elbowing for their share of the same usable land. Japan is the second most industrialized country in the world after the United States, but it has managed to rise to the challenge of utilizing every inch of land to its best advantage. Tea, rice, buckwheat, wheat, soy, and other beans are grown intensively on small, scattered tracts of land that sometimes lie just outside of the major cities. Even with their minimal amount of arable la
nd, Japan ranked eighth in world tea production in 2004 and thirteenth for tea exports. Although Japan cannot compete with the volume of tea produced by other major tea producers, it leads the way in efficiency and precision of production methods.
Japan has progressed from crafting handmade tea to the introduction of machine-manufactured tea in the nineteenth century to computer-automated machinery in the twentieth century. Skilled workers perform their duties in state-of-the-art facilities, where they also rely on their eyes, senses, professional palates, and experience to keep things on track. Interestingly, from 1875 until the mid-1950s Japan also produced black tea for export, a practice that was stopped in the face of overwhelming competition in the black tea market from India and Sri Lanka. Happily, Japanese teas are uniquely Japanese. Their flavor profiles suit the palate of Japanese citizens, and they are a perfect match for the wide range and styles of Japanese cooking. Several of Japan’s green teas feature the addition of other materials, such as thin-cut stems or roasted rice, or are used in powdered form. Two examples are matcha, the powdered tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony, and genmaicha, which is sencha green tea to which roasted and popped kernels of rice are added.
In most places Japanese tea gardens do not cling to isolated mountainsides in terraced plots as they do in China, nor do they carpet the contour of rugged mountains and valleys as they do in India and Ceylon. Japanese tea gardens are arranged on undulating hills in no-nonsense, straight, well-manicured, and carefully tended rows. Ideally they are situated close to rivers or streams that daily tender a moist blanket of dew over the manicured tea bushes. Wherever rows of tea bushes end and change direction, or when rows are juxtaposed one to the other, astonishingly beautiful and precise tone-on-tone green patterns emerge on the hillsides.
The Story of Tea Page 20