Dark Tea Processing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
In the mid-Tang, the locally produced "Qujiang thin cake" tea was listed as tribute. In the Xining reign of the Song, when Anhua was established as a county, the local tea already "led all the city markets." In the Wanli reign of the Ming, Anhua dark tea was designated official tea, sold to the northwest and abroad, giving rise to the folk saying that for dark tea "one buys nothing without the Anhua mark." In the first year of Daoguang (1821), local tea merchants, for easier transport, trod and bound the dark tea into small round bolt shapes, each set at 100 liang; in the second year of Tongzhi (1863) it was increased to 1000 liang, hence the name "Anhua thousand-liang tea."
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Dark tea is the only tea type that can be stored long-term; its production is entirely hand-operated. Dark tea wins by quality; its making standards are strict and ever-refined, requiring accurate selection, thorough drying, full filling, and tight treading, with each step tightly linked and done meticulously. China's dark teas are most famous for the Anhua thousand-liang tea of Hunan, the Yiyang fuzhuan brick tea of Hunan, and the Ya'an southern-border tea of Sichuan. These dark teas all share traits of long history, deep cultural deposits, and high technological content in their craft. Anhua County, Hunan, has long been called the "tea hometown of China." The making of Anhua thousand-liang tea has two stages: rough dark-tea making and deep processing. Rough dark-tea making includes five steps—kill-green, rolling, pile-fermentation, re-rolling, and baking—while deep processing is far more complex, including a series of steps—sifting, blending, softening, basket-packing, treading-pressing, hooping, sealing, cooling, and drying—and after 55 days of sun by day and dew by night becomes the finished dark tea.
Archive of process records
The making of Anhua thousand-liang tea has two stages: rough dark-tea making and deep processing. Rough dark-tea making includes five steps—kill-green, rolling, pile-fermentation, re-rolling, and baking—while deep processing is far more complex, including sifting, blending, softening, basket-packing, treading-pressing, hooping, sealing, cooling, and drying, and after 55 days of sun by day and dew by night becomes the finished dark tea.
Treading, hooping and sealing
Softened tea is packed into a basket, trodden solid and hooped in bamboo; loose treading or hooping ruins the column.
Fifty-five days of sun and dew
The finished column alternates between day sun and night dew for fifty-five days, the beginning of its long keeping quality.
Pile fermentation for colour change
The rough tea is piled and covered to heat and darken; its turning points are judged by nose and hand alone.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The craft core of Anhua thousand-liang tea is in Anhua County, Hunan. Anhua, long called China's tea hometown, has high mountains, deep valleys, and abundant mist; the thousand-liang tea's material comes from its high-mountain gardens. Alongside Anhua thousand-liang among the three great dark-tea names are Yiyang's fuzhuan brick tea and Ya'an's southern-border tea: the three sit in Hunan and Sichuan, one following the rough-dark-tea route, one the brick-tea spore-flowering route, one the Tibetan-border-sale route, each with its own signature skill. Because the thousand-liang is large and tightly pressed, it can only be processed on the spot, and shipped whole columns—the biggest difference from other dark teas.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Li Shengfu (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born September 1965, a native of Anhua County, Hunan. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item "Dark Tea Making Craft (Thousand-liang Tea Making Craft)." Thousand-liang tea craft technician. After decades of uninterrupted dark-tea making, he reached a high level in craft, hand operation, appraisal, and management; his products won broad affection and popularity at various expos. He has collected over three thousand volumes of tea-history books from the Republic era to the 1980s, plus Qing and Republican tea samples and complete archives of dark-tea standard samples from the 1950s to the 1980s, accumulating important material for research on the dark-tea craft.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Gan Yuxiang 04-1906
- Li Shengfu 05-2851
- Liu Xingyi 05-2852
- Wei Jiequn 05-2853
- Chen Guofeng
- Jia Genshe
- He Jiangang
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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