- China Tea Expo, Shanghai 2011 takes place from the twentieth to the twenty-third of May.
More events from the calendar.
- The 2011 edition of the China (Beijing) International Tea Expo will take place from the twentieth to the twenty-second of April.
More events from the calendar.
As indicated by its name, a “Long-Mouth Kettle” (长流壶)is a copper pot with a long opening. When you fill it with boiling water and than pour the water into a glass or gaiwan (盖碗), by the time the water touches the tea leaves it has been cooled down to just the right temperature.
The handling of this long instrument is not an easy thing. This may be the reason why there is a long codified tradition of the Long-Mouth Kettle Tea Ceremony (长嘴壶茶艺). At first it was only practised by the monks from Mount Mengding (蒙顶山). It was only during the Qing dynasty that it entered into Sichuan (四川)’s popular folklore. As you can see in this video. this is a very spectacular art at the junctions of martial arts, acrobatics and tea ceremony:
Located in the south of south-western province Guizhou (贵州), Duyun city (都匀市) is the administrative centre of the Qiannan (Buyi and Miao Nationalities) autonomous prefecture (黔南布依族苗族自治州). It covers an area of a little more than two thousand square kilometres and has a population of about five hundred thousand. On the confluence of several rivers, Duyun city is a nexus between Guizhou province and the coastal Guangxi (广西) province. Geologically, the city belongs to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau (云贵高原) and its territory is characterised by a succession of valleys and hills, which on average peak at around a thousand meters above sea level.
These hills offer the perfect conditions for cultivating tea:
Here at Chinese Tea Files we wish our readers a happy new year and plenty of new tea experiences.
These were some of our most read articles in 2010:
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The “Ten Famous Chinese Teas” (中国十大名茶) (the celebrities among Chinese teas)
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The first teapot artist (the story of Gong Chun, a Buddhist monk turned teapot artist)
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How to identify a zisha teapot (tips to use, when buying a zisha teapot)
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The story of Tie Guanyin, the “Iron Boddhisatva” (the legend beyond one of the world’s most famed tea)
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Old tea trees (how tea trees can get very old and quite big…)
Happy new year and have some good tea!
At the recent third edition of the Shenzhen Tea Expo (中国深圳国际茶业茶文化博览会) more than a thousand tea brands showcased their products. One of the showstoppers was a three hundred years old tea brick (砖茶). The proud property of Hunan Baisha Xi Tea Factory (湖南省白沙溪茶厂), this antique brick came directly from the company’s own museum and was not for sale. Had it been for sale, it is said its price would have been at least a million Yuan. Of course the reason for this extravagant sum is that this old tea, because of his age, has become a historical and cultural relic more than a daily consumption product. However, it would still theoretically be fine to brew tea with it, since compressed tea (紧压茶) has the capacity to last over time and travel far away without deteriorating.
When it comes to compressed tea, Pu’er (普洱) tea is by far the best known variety. Sometimes “Pu’er” is even used as a synonym for post-fermented Chinese black tea (黑茶). However, there are many more varieties of Chinese black tea. One of them is Anhua Heicha (安化黑茶). A specialty of Hunan (湖南) province, this is the tea variety, to which the aforementioned old tea brick belongs to.
- Tea Expo, Guangzhou 2010 takes place from the twenty-third to the twenty-sixth December.
More events from the calender.
- The third edition of the China (Shenzhen) International Expo for Tea Industry & Culture takes place from the sixteenth to the nineteenth December.
More events from the calendar.
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Source: 孙明经的照片
Sun Mingjing (孙明经) was a Chinese photography and documentary-film pioneer. In the late nineteen-thirties he participated to scientific expeditions in parts of China’s western territories, where he pictured natural sceneries and human activities. By doing so, he could not but capture scenes of the tea trade, which at the time was one of a few economic activities in some of these remote places.
In 2010, China’s spring tea (春茶) production was hit by “rarely seen, extremely bad weather conditions”. This is how the China Tea Marketing Association (中国茶叶流通协会) describes the combination of frosty weather and severe drought that touched parts of China in early 2010. The association says that about seventy per cent of the country’s tea plantations were affected.
In spite of these adverse conditions, the Chinese tea production for the year 2010 is estimated to amount to about 1.4 million tons, which, compared to last year’s 1.36 million tons, means a slight increase. According to the China Tea Marketing Association, it is well-managed summer and autumn harvests which allowed this new high.
This confirms China as the world’s biggest tea producer. In terms of exports, China was the second biggest tea exporting country after Kenya in 2009.
Chinese source: 2010年中国茶叶产量预计达140万吨 继续保持增长态势
