Pilgrimage to Anji Bai Cha Mother Bush

Anji Bai Cha Mother Bush (left of sign with red letters)

Characteristically light colored Anji Bai Cha leaves

Near the village of Heng Keng Wu in Zhejiang Province, at more than 3,000 feet elevation, the Gui family traditionally made green tea from two Anji Bai Cha tea bushes on their farm just for their consumption.  It was reported to have special healing and soothing qualities. In the 1980s this prompted the Chinese Government Tea Institute to conduct research on the few bushes from which this remarkable tea was made.  Interestingly, they found that compared with other tea varieties it had an unusually high concentration of amino acids, which seem to create a feeling of well-being and calm alertness.

It didn't hurt that 900 years ago an Emperor had described a tea that seemed to match the Anji Bai Cha tea, further enhancing its value.  The government began to promote this variety among tea farmers by taking cuttings from the two bushes and propagating clones.

Starting the climb to the Anji Bai Cha Mother Bush - Seven Cups Tea photo

Gateway to Anji Bai Cha Mother Bush trail - Seven Cups photo

Teapickers using their smartphones to take pictures of US taking photos of THEM - Seven Cups photo

Picking tea on the hillsides

Today there is only one Mother Bush left (they tried to move one but it died) and the Gui family has been entrusted with its guardianship.  Last year they made 200 grams of tea from the Mother Bush (given to the government) but no leaves were picked this year.  The Gui family tea farm harvests and processes Anji Bai Cha green tea from seed grown bushes on their farm (see background of photo above), some as old as 200 years, as distinguished from clones from the Mother Bush. (Seven Cups photo)

Anji Bai Cha organic fields - Seven Cups photo

There are now thousands of mu (1 mu = 1/6 acre) of Anji Bai Cha grown organically, most at about 600-700 feet elevation, all in large scale production.  One of the larger farms hires more than 1000 pickers a year to pick during the prime season, mid-March to mid-April

The Xi Long Organic Tea Company processes Anji Bai Cha green tea with machines.  Like the Purple Bamboo Shoot green tea, the leaves are wilted, heated to stop oxidation, cooled, roasted (to remove moisture), and sorted.

Wilting

Sha qing (stop oxidation with heat)

Dry with moderate heat and rotation

Sorting

Green tea and bamboo

Purple bamboo shoot tea bushes and bamboo at Great Tang Dynasty Tribute Tea Museum - Seven Cups Tea photo

Tea in China is grown in some of the most beautiful landscapes, ideally in valleys shaded during the  hottest time of the day, and in some places in the shelter of bamboo forests.  There are two varieties of tea plants:  Camellia assamica grown in India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya, has larger leaves, is more treelike, has deeper roots, and is usually used for black teas.  Camellia sinensis has smaller leaves, is more bush like, is more susceptible to drought, and is the tea plant cultivated in China.

Mrs. Pei, Purple bamboo shoot tea master

Picking tea is the first step in the tea making process, and it could be one bud and two leaves, or one bud and four leaves, or, for the very finest teas, just the bud.  

Timing is everything.  Tea picked before the Qing Ming holiday (early April) is prized as having the most intense flavor and for many green and prestige teas (more in a later post), the picking season is only about a month or 6 weeks long  There are teas that are picked after mid-April, some even through the summer, but these will be made into the more highly oxidized teas (e.g. rock wulong or black tea).

Tea pickers are often hired from rural areas for the intense spring picking season, 4-6 weeks, and for most of them it is their one opportunity all year to earn some cash  An experienced picker can pick 5 kg a day, which when processed produces 1 kg of dry tea.  

Tea tour group with Purple bamboo shoot tea pickers - Seven Cups Tea photo

After picking, the leaves are wilted and allowed to oxidize (the longer, the darker), sometimes with added heat.

The "sha qing" step involves subjecting the wilted, oxidized leaves to high heat to stop the oxidation process.  

After cooling, the leaves are dried at a more moderate temperature over charcoal for a more extended period of time to reduce the moisture content to ideally less than 5%.

The Purple Bamboo Shoot tea farm was our first real farm visit.  A smaller operation, the tea is handpicked by extended family members, and the tea is entirely hand processed under the oversight of tea master Mrs. Pei who is 76 years old.  In April they produce 150 kg of green tea.  From the end of April to July they produce 300 kg of black tea.  Their Purple Bamboo Shoot tea bushes have a legacy reaching back to the 8th century when this tea bush was promoted and grown to produce tribute tea.  At that time 30,000 pickers were conscripted to pick for one month, the leaves were wilted, steamed, mashed, pressed into molds and baked, wrapped in yellow silk, and delivered to the emperor in Xian by horse (ten full days of riding), in time for the Qing Ming holiday.  

April is also the season for fresh bamboo shoots, and we had dish after dish of wonderful bamboo shoots in many different forms.  Unfortunately I was always way too busy eating to take individual pictures of the many dishes we were served.  

Bamboo shoots drying

Closeup of drying bamboo shoots

Our meal at Purple Bamboo Shoot tea farm

Tea and Bamboo

A Tealover's Dream Tour

From April 12 to 23 I went on a tealover’s dream vacation.  For 12 full days I met tea pickers in teafields filling their baskets with fresh tealeaves, watched tea masters using a seasoned eye to process fragrant baskets of wilted leaves in hot woks, sat in front of tea servers who artfully prepared aromatic infusions of green teas, white teas, yellow tea, rock wulong teas, or black teas which we sipped out of tiny white cups, while listening to stories and learning about a seemingly endless variety of teas. 

So, where was I?  I was in China, in three provinces just west and south of Shanghai famous for their teas:  Zhejiang Province, Anhui Province, and northern Fujian Province.  (See map.)   For those who want more detail, some of the places (in this order) we went were Changxing, Yixing, Gu Zhu, Anji, Mogan Shan, Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) City, Wuyi Mountain, Nanping, and Hangzhou.

How did I happen to go?  Looking for a tea tour to China, I saw online that Seven Cups Tea (based in Tucson, Arizona) was offering a tea tour in China during the prime tea picking month of April.  Although I did not know it at the time, they have been strong promoters and supporters of independent, organic, fair trade tea farms that specialize in handcrafted teas (hand picked, mostly hand processed) in China.  We were privileged to experience some of the finest teas in China.

 Who was on the tour?  Besides the two tour leaders, there were nine of us and I was by far the tea novice in the group.  (See photo from left to right.)  Dan is a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and teacher from Phoenix, Krissy and her mother Linda are planning to open a teashop in California, Seb and Zoe are professional teatasters from the UK

Chris grew up a block from Seven Cups tasting and loving tea, Lynn has a teashop in Maine specializing in Chinese tea, and Eric used to run a teahouse for Seven Cups in an arboretum in Tucson.  

Zhuping Hodge (far left) was our amazing guide.  She planned the entire itinerary with tea masters she has spent years developing a relationship with, made all the arrangements for our lodging in 4-star hotels, ordered all our multi-course—up to 15 or so courses--meals, whether in restaurants or arranged through farm families, and saw to our every need while sharing all her tea knowledge with us. 

Andrew was Zhuping’s assistant on the tour who has been at Seven Cups for 9 years and was fluent in Chinese.  He made everything--from trip preparations, to tea master interviews, to tour logistics and shopping--go so much more smoothly.

My next post will explain how Purple Bamboo Shoot and White Peony teas are processed!