Thousand years old tea leaves unearthed in Xi’an: is it green or white tea?

When we want to understand how tea was consumed in earlier times, we have to rely on written sources most of the times. Because, although tea can be stored and preserved for quite a long time, in the end it is perishable. Therefore, the discovery made by archeologists while digging out graves from the eleventh century is precious for tea historians. In vessels, that were obviously used as  teawares, they found thousand years old processed tea leaves!

This find gives us rare insights into tea culture among Northern Song (北宋) literati elite. The tombs, excavated from 2006 to 2009 in Xi’an (西安), are not just ordinary tombs. During the Northern Song dynasty, the Lü (吕) clan from Lantian (蓝田), just outside of modern Xi’an, was very well connected and successful at the imperial examinations.  At one time, four Lü brothers all held high-ranking ministerial positions. It is within the graves of these scholar-bureaucrats, that the discovery was made.

Among the seven hundred objects unearthed and ready to be analysed, archeologists also found bronze, porcelain and stone vessels dedicated to tea drinking. However, it is the thirty or so dried tea leaves, that are most interesting for us:

1. The fact, that the leaves stayed preserved until now, shows that this is tea of the highest quality. This shouldn’t surprise us, given their place of discovery. Effectively, for tea leaves not to decay over such a long time requires a very low percent of humidity, which hints at a very skilled processing.

2. The main way of drinking tea during the Song period was powdered tea (抹茶). It is only during the Qing (清) dynasty, that loose leaf tea came into fashion. This newest discovery shows us that loose leaf tea was already being consumed by the Song social elite.

3.  What kind of tea was it exactly, that was discovered in those tombs? This question has sparked a little controversy. For some it is the famous white tea variety Baihao Yinzhen (白毫银针). Their arguments are the strong resemblance with Baihao Yinzhen of the processed tea leaves found in the tombs; the fact that, at the time, the region near modern Fuding (福鼎) was already producing tea; and that white tea was always (even more in ancient times) the most exclusive type of tea and reserved to those, like the people buried in the unearthed tombs, who could afford it.

Others argue that talking about white tea for the Song period is anachronistic. The different tea types and their processing techniques were defined and codified only much later. They say that all tea produced during the Song period was basically green tea (except probably for Pu’er).

Chinese sources: 西安古墓现千年极品白茶 专家称极有可能产自福鼎; 古墓出土绿茶“复活”千年茶艺; 陕西省蓝田吕氏家族墓地考古获重大发现 铜质渣斗内发现近千年珍贵白茶（图)