Wang Wenli

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Wang Wenli, 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 1970 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. Steeped from childhood in his family tradition, he learned Tieguanyin making from his grandfather and father, mastered the traditional techniques, and gained considerable insight into cultivation, primary processing and refining, with deep accomplishment in picking, sun withering, shade withering, shaking the leaves, killing the green, cloth-wrapped rolling and drying. He pays particular attention to cultivating successors to the traditional craft and, by setting up dedicated training teams, has trained several thousand skilled makers of oolong tea (Tieguanyin). 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.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He has received honours including one of the Ten Leading Figures of Chinese Tea Enterprises, awarded by the China Tea Marketing Association, and a Quanzhou Tea Industry Contribution Figure award from the Quanzhou Municipal Agriculture Bureau and other bodies.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

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.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Wang Wenli · National Representative Bearer Archive