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Wei Yuede

03-1420Oolong Tea Processing CraftsmanshipTraditional CraftsmanshipAnxi, FujianBatch 3 (2009)

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Wei Yuede, Male, Unspecified, from Anxi, Fujian, is a third-batch national representative bearer of Oolong Tea Processing Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-150). The tradition is documented in Anxi, Fujian. Within the regional tradition and school record of Oolong Tea Processing Craftsmanship in Anxi, Fujian: The Anxi Tieguanyin craft is distributed mainly around Chengxiang and Penglai and the mountainous tea villages of Gande, Xiping, and Xianghua; each tea village differentiates styles—strong-aroma and fresh-aroma—by altitude and the intensity of leaf-working. Unlike Wuyi rock tea and Jian'ou xiaozhong, Anxi follows a semi-fermented leaf-working route, determining its tight strips and natural orchid aroma by the counts of cooling, tossing, and repeated wrap-rolling and re-baking. Anxi County, Fujian, has a long tea-producing history: it began in the late Tang, flourished in the Ming and Qing, and boomed in modern times. During the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns of the Qing, because Anxi tea had a singular quality—black, lustrous, and firm, heavy as iron, with beautiful aroma, rhyme, and shape like the Guanyin—it was named "Tieguanyin" (Iron Guanyin).

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, born in July 1964 in Anxi County, Fujian Province. National representative bearer of the Oolong Tea Making Technique (the Tieguanyin Making Technique), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. A Tieguanyin making technician. Born into a family of tea masters, he learned tea cultivation and the making of Tieguanyin from his forebears from an early age. He is especially proficient in the ten stages of traditional primary processing of Tieguanyin: sun withering, shade withering, shaking the leaves, killing the green, rolling, first baking, cloth-wrapped rolling, second baking, second cloth-wrapped rolling and final drying. He also attaches importance to research on the craft, having established a Tieguanyin research institute and a mother-tree garden. Within the documented technical tradition of Oolong Tea Processing Craftsmanship in Anxi, Fujian: The exquisite Anxi Tieguanyin craft is unique among China's tea-making techniques. Anxi tea farmers comprehensively drew on the principles of fully fermented black tea and unfermented green tea, combined with local reality, and invented a unique semi-fermented tea process, thereby producing oolong tea, one of China's six major tea categories. The traditional Anxi Tieguanyin craft consists of three parts: plucking, initial processing, and refined processing. Before plucking, one must determine the plucking season and set the plucking standard, then skillfully apply the technique to harvest. The initial process includes ten steps: sun-withering, cooling, tossing, pan-firing, rolling, initial baking, wrap-rolling, re-baking, re-wrap-rolling, and drying. The refined process includes six steps: sifting, picking, blending, baking, cooling, and packing. In making tea, one must respond flexibly to various conditions such as season, climate, and the tenderness of the leaves. To make Anxi Tieguanyin, one first controls and regulates the tea leaf with methods such as sun-withering, cooling, and tossing, inducing a series of physical and biological changes that form "green leaves with a red rim" and a unique color, aroma, and taste; then high-temperature kill-green stops enzymatic activity; finally, rolling and repeated wrap-rolling and baking shape an elegant tea with natural orchid fragrance and special resonance. The traditional Anxi Tieguanyin craft is the crystallization of Anxi tea farmers' long production experience and labor wisdom, with considerable scientific value. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "": "Archive of process records": The initial process includes ten steps: sun-withering, cooling, tossing, pan-firing, rolling, initial baking, wrap-rolling, re-baking, re-wrap-rolling, and drying.

Archive of process records

The initial process includes ten steps: sun-withering, cooling, tossing, pan-firing, rolling, initial baking, wrap-rolling, re-baking, re-wrap-rolling, and drying.

Core Technique I

The exquisite Anxi Tieguanyin craft is unique among China's tea-making techniques.

Core Technique II

Anxi tea farmers comprehensively drew on the principles of fully fermented black tea and unfermented green tea, combined with local reality, and invented a unique semi-fermented tea process, thereby producing oolong tea, one of China's six major tea categories.

Core Technique III

The traditional Anxi Tieguanyin craft consists of three parts: plucking, initial processing, and refined processing.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

The Tieguanyin he has made has won honours including the gold award at the First China (International) Famous Tea Exposition held by the China International Tea Culture Research Institute and other bodies.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

Historical origin

Anxi County, Fujian, has a long tea-producing history: it began in the late Tang, flourished in the Ming and Qing, and boomed in modern times. During the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns of the Qing, because Anxi tea had a singular quality—black, lustrous, and firm, heavy as iron, with beautiful aroma, rhyme, and shape like the Guanyin—it was named "Tieguanyin" (Iron Guanyin).

Declared area
Anxi, Fujian
Safeguarding unit
Anxi County Cha Culture Research Center
Inscription batch
Batch 2 (2008)
Item code
Ⅷ-150
Category
Traditional Craftsmanship

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

BearerDeclared areaRoster codeRelation
Wei YuedeAnxi, Fujian03-1420This page
Wang WenliAnxi, Fujian03-1421Same declared area
Zhang XingyuLongyan, Fujian—Other regional school

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

  1. Wei Yuede · National Representative Bearer Archive

This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records and the associated project dossier, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。