Liu Xingyi

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1985 he was apprenticed to Chen Xianjing and Zhou Tie'an, two masters of Yiyang Fuzhuan brick tea. Within the regional tradition and school record of Dark Tea Processing Craftsmanship in Yiyang, Hunan: Yiyang, together with Anhua and Ya'an, forms the three major dark tea production areas: Anhua produces Qianliang, Yiyang produces Fuzhuan brick, and Ya'an produces Nanlu border tea, each following its own path. Fuzhuan brick is made from high-quality dark maocha through pile-fermentation, fermentation, tamping-molding, and flowering. The growth of the microbial colony inside the brick requires stable temperature and humidity, so the brick-pressing workshops and tea farms around Yiyang have always regarded this stage as more important than the speed of producing bricks. In recent decades, enterprises like those in Yiyang have written the parameters of brick pressing and flowering into operating procedures, turning this technique from a feel in the master's hands into verifiable standard actions. Fuzhuan brick tea is a unique item within the dark tea category: other dark teas stop at pile-fermentation and compression, but only it can develop "flowers" (the golden mold) inside the brick, allowing beneficial microorganisms to continue growing within the pressed brick body. Therefore, the formulation and pressing craft must leave room for this flowering. The square-brick shape itself is also part of the craft — dark tea is the only tea type that can be stored long-term, and the brick shape facilitates stacking and long-distance transport, so every brick shipped from Yiyang must withstand this journey. The fuzhuanin A and fuzhuanin B brought by the flowering inside the brick are the reason this category was given its own name.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han Chinese, born in May 1964 in Yiyang City, Hunan Province. He is a national representative bearer of Dark Tea Processing Craftsmanship (Fuzhuan Brick Tea Processing Craftsmanship), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a Fuzhuan brick tea processing technician and a senior tea appraiser, and serves as deputy head of the Fuzhuan tea working group of the National Tea Standardization Technical Committee and as a council member of the Hunan Provincial Tea Society. For more than thirty years he has been engaged in the transmission, protection and dissemination of Yiyang Fuzhuan brick tea processing. He has rendered the production and technical requirements of the craft into written, quantified form, continually adjusting technical parameters and processing techniques, and has drawn up operating procedures for Fuzhuan brick tea production. He has chaired and participated in the formulation and revision of the national standard for Fuzhuan brick tea, combining transmission with innovation. Within the documented technical tradition of Dark Tea Processing Craftsmanship in Yiyang, Hunan: Dark tea is the only tea type that can be stored long-term, and its production is entirely manual. Dark tea wins by superior quality; its making standards are strict and pursued with excellence, requiring accurate tea selection, thorough drying, full filling, and tight trampling, with every step of the production process interlocking and carried out meticulously. China's dark teas are most famous for Anhua Qianliang tea of Hunan Province, Yiyang Fuzhuan brick tea, and Ya'an Nanlu border tea of Sichuan Province. These dark teas all share the characteristics of long history, profound cultural deposits, and high technological content in their making techniques. Fuzhuan brick tea is produced in Yiyang City, Hunan Province. It is the only tea variety in the dark tea category that has the flowering process and thus can generate beneficial microorganisms. It is made from high-quality dark maocha (raw dark tea) as raw material, through pile-fermentation, fermentation, molding by tamping, and flowering. For hundreds of years, in Northwest China, Fuzhuan brick tea has stood alongside milk and meat, becoming a daily necessity for various ethnic minorities thanks to its irreplaceable unique efficacy, and has been praised as the "mysterious tea" of China's ancient Silk Road and the "tea of life" for the ethnic minorities of the Northwest. The two active substances uniquely contained in Fuzhuan brick tea — fuzhuanin A and fuzhuanin B — can promote human metabolism and significantly reduce fat, blood lipids, cholesterol, glycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Pile fermentation": The rough tea is piled and covered to heat and darken, setting the base colour of the brick. "Pressing into bricks": The fermented tea is steamed, put into moulds and pressed into square bricks tight enough to hold their shape. "The flowering of Fu tea": Only Fu brick grows golden blooms of beneficial fungus inside the brick, and the stage must be watched hour by hour. "Four working rules for Fu brick": Accurate selection, thorough drying, full packing and firm treading govern every stage from raw leaf to brick.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2018, Liu Xingyi was announced in the fifth batch of national representative bearers for Dark Tea Processing Craftsmanship, with Yiyang, Hunan as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Dark Tea Processing Craftsmanship in Yiyang, Hunan: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2008 (batch 2), with Yiyang, Hunan as its declared area, and Yiyang Cha Factory Co., Ltd. as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

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. Liu Xingyi · National Representative Bearer Archive