What tea is harvested and when in Fujian. Word of caution: this one is a long read.
Thanks to popular demand, this one is dedicated to harvesting! While doing research for this piece, I remembered the frustration of studying the different wine regions in Europe and their own local appellation systems. Welcome to the same bog! Mind you, with Europe, at least a uniform standard within each country exists. As for China’s tea industry, it turns out, things are way more splintered: provincially and then regionally, leaving a lot of wiggle room for local definitions and concepts. A prime example of when anybody and nobody are experts at the same time. I have genuinely done my best by reading what I could on the subject, employing what connections I have in the tea world, and cross-referencing what I found on the subject of harvesting. Sources sited at the end. Enjoy!
Any serious drinker of Chinese tea will at some point stumble upon the topic of harvest: what harvest is this tea? So, what does this question mean? And why did I call it a bog?
By any logic you can only have so many harvests a year, right? Any guesses? Whatever you guessed, you were probably right according to some source, and wrong according to another. It turns out you see – the ultimate standard is missing. Hence, I have decided to present to you chronologically – starting from spring – the nuggets of information gleaned thus far.
In Fujian, spring is an extremely busy time of year with its various hubs of tea production springing to life. All sources are unanimous on when the glorious first flush is hauled in. The first of the first, in Chinese also referred to as Mingqiancha (i.e. tea harvested prior to Tomb Sweeping Day), is picked end of March-beginning of April. It is to be completed by 5th of April. Due to weather conditions and the nature of the tea plant, the first flush is visually very distinguishable: the leaves and the buds are still considerably small, and paler in colour. Hence the first pick produces very finely nuanced, aromatic, and as in most cases, the most expensive tea.
After the first flush, things start to get a bit messy. Some sources – mainly the Chinese ones – are not in accord as to when the second flush starts. From what I can tell on site: from the word ‘GO’ at all the various locations, it is just non-stop harvesting and drying and processing until all that can possibly be done has been done. The hired hands are not so concerned as to which flush is passing through their hands. Basically, each at their respectable places, are run off their feet for the next two months when the harvesting for their location starts. The farmers are more concerned about which flush is being worked on, but even then, not necessarily. If their hearts are in it, yes. If it is just a cash crop, then no. More precisely put: if you are growing the crop just as one of many, and the end product is later pooled with the harvest of other growers – your thoughts are not necessarily on the finesse and detail of it all. If you are the one and only supplier for a brand or tea merchant, who relies on your expertise and experience – it is a totally different ball game. So, as a whole, we are talking about a huge variety of different interest groups here.
For the sake of the most scholarly among us, what can be said is that most sources agree the second flush, in Chinese often referred to as Guyu (i.e. Grain Rain: named after the term in the Lunar calendar), is to be picked before April 20th. If you see somewhere referred to this as a third picking, just breathe through it. All it means is that that particular source insisted on an even finer comb, and is in the know as to how the Chinese Lunar calendar can also be read.
Those two main harvest windows all agree on belonging to what is known as the spring harvest. Then what follows, by most sources is still considered part of spring harvest, but the data starts to splinter here. The period to follow is called Lixia in Chinese (Beginning of Summer), and is picked from April 20th until May 1st-6th.
Obviously, rain is a key player in deciding when to start the actual picking. So, where as some teas -like Silver Needle- just have to be brought in with the first harvest window, lest the leaves grow too big and it no longer is the product concerned, the others can enjoy a slightly looser timetable, and are able to use this leeway to let a few days pass if it is, say raining. A good example of this is the spring harvest of 2019 as a whole: the 2019 Silver Needle Tea harvest really suffered from non-stop rains, resulting in an inferior product compared to the past 3 years, but other White Teas from Fuding were not hit as bad. I would like to point out: White Teas are particularly dependant on good weather, since the main gist of the production process is to dry the leaves in the sun.
How does this translate to actual tea genres? Well, from what I can tell the general order of the spring harvest for Fujian teas are:
The first flush: Mingqiancha (meaning: Prior to Tomb Sweeping Day)
- Silver needle tea from Fuding and green tea from Wuping (yes, I stand corrected: we sell and produce green tea in Fujian)
The second flush: Guyu (meaning: Grain Rain)
- White Peony from Fuding, if weather and manpower permissive, may sometimes be picked alongside Silver Needle Tea, so no need to be too dogmatic here
Flushes after this: Lixia and beyond (meaning: Beginning of Summer)
- Gongmei and Shoumei from Fuding
- Wuyi area as a whole (black teas and rock teas alike)
- All the oolongs (incl. Tieguanyin from Anxi, Baiyaqilan from Zhangzhou, Shuixian from Zhangping)
In practise it seems, a great deal of overlapping goes on, because we are talking about various locations involved in the same industry, but with their own local elements to take into consideration, like the weather for instance.
Next, something rather strange occurs. After the beginning of May passes, text books start citing the harvesting to follow as Summer Harvest. Text books refer to mid-May until mid-August as a summer harvest period. Yet, tea merchants from Wuyi (harvest period April to mid-May) and the growers from Anxi alike (harvest period end of April until end of May, as weather permits) will all in one voice call their harvest a spring harvest. So, is it a spring harvest or a summer harvest? Depends who you ask.
In the summer, the tea bush grows a great deal- this is true- but no self-respecting local tea dealer will try sell you anything grown in the summer. Why? Well, first of all – flavour. Whereas the leaves grow big, the Fujian summer with its scorching heat and torrential monsoon rain, does not make for good flavoursome growth nor an easy harvesting process. Many growers let the bushes grow in the summer and at some point just hack off the tops ready for the autumn. There is talk on the street that some of the growing number of milk tea joints might be using this definitely lower grade tea to satisfy their need for quantity, but how probable that is, I am kind of sceptical.
Producing the actual end product – no matter how low grade – is not free, nor is it easy. For example: Anxi’s pride and joy, Tieguanyin, the ratio of ready-made product to fresh leaf is 1/5. Meaning, one kilo of tea requires 5 kilos of picked fresh leaf. That in itself is labour intense, let alone when you add all the rest of the work involved to make the tea leaf into a consumable product. Many growers make it clear: the summer harvest is not cost effective. Sometimes some growers and dealers mention the summer harvest, but in no occasion of my almost ten years of being here has anybody served me summer tea. So, to my understanding it is as good as non-existent in Fujian.
Only exception I have ever come across is Zhangping’s Shuixian which boasts itself with a summer harvest, and yet having said that: in the shops, you are only ever able to buy produce of the spring and autumn harvest. So, where the brag-worthy summer harvest dissappears – your guess is as good as mine. Is the summer harvest of Shuixian at some point just passed off as spring produce, or used to meet the huge demand for Mid-Autumn Festival tea presents? Go figure.
The question “what season’s harvest is this?” and “what year’s harvest is this?” are equally important, but would and should be asked only of certain types of teas. Obviously, the question about harvest seasons should only be imposed on the tea types with more than one harvest per year. Prime example: Anxi’s Tieguanyin. Not so with the teas from Wuyi. These days the whole of Wuyi region’s main harvest is spring, but with all the added labour of full oxidation taking its time, you only get to taste the fresh tea in the autumn, earliest about mid-September, so the whole question of which season makes no sense. The only question of interest left for Wuyi-teas would be – what year’s harvest is this? Or any other of the tea types with just one main harvest or one main pick. Just worth keeping in mind if you want to be able to ask the right questions at the right moment.
Accordingly, in reality here in Fujian, the tea bushes rest in the summer. Only to be harvested again in a few locations during the autumn. Considering its wonderful variety of teas, Fujian doesn’t have that many which get harvested in the autumn. The only teas which pride themselves in an autumn harvest are Anxi’s Tieguanyin and Zhangping’s Shuixian. Both of which tend to have a more full-bodied flavour presence in the autumn compared to the more fragrant spring harvest. Anxi’s autumn harvest is usually picked from end of September to the beginning of October (for example, in 2019 the harvest was picked Sept. 24 – Oct. 7), always depending on temperature differences and how much exposure to sun some locations might get etc. But apart from that there is not much to write about the autumn harvest, mainly due to lack of teas which are connected with it. Mechanically it obviously follows all the same steps as with any tea, harvested at any time, in its rightful category.
Regardless of not having much to record on the autumn harvest, the arrival of Anxi’s autumn harvest in the tea shops is always a joyous occasion. Rather like a Beaujolais for the French in spring: a highly anticipated treat – Hope you get to be here for it some day!
As for a possible winter harvest: in Fujian, there is no harvesting in the winter. In Taiwan some Gaoshan Teas, pick their most prized crop in winter, so one can stumble upon the concept of winter harvest in text books and practise alike. But since it is not so in my hood, I have no say on the topic. Let others fill in the blanks there.
References:
Hinsch, Brent: The Ultimate Guide to Chinese Tea (White Lotus Co Ltd, 2008)
Heiss, Mary Lou and Heiss, Robert J.: The Story of Tea (Ten Speed Press, 2007)
Heiss, Mary Lou and Heiss, Robert J.: The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook: A Guide to the World’s Best Teas (Ten Speed Press, 2010)
Zhang, Shana And Hunter, J.T: The Wild Truth of Tea: Unravelling the Complex Tea Business, Keys to Health and Chinese Tea Culture (Wild Tea Qi Publishing, 2016)
Benn, James A.: Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History (University of Hawaii Press, 2015)
Rose, Sarah: For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favourite Drink and Changed History (Penguin Books, 2010)
Shi, Haigen 施海根. “Zhongguo mingcha putu” 中国名茶图谱 [Reference Guide for Famous Chinese Teas] (Shanghai wenhua chubanshe 上海文化出版社, 1997)
Luo, Jun 罗军. “Zhongguo chadian quantujie” 中国茶典全图解 [Chinese Tea Canon, Complete Guide] (Zhongguo fangzhi chubanshe 中国纺织出版社, 2016)
Lu, Yu 陆羽. “Chajing” 茶经[Classic of Tea]. (Tuanjie chubanshe 团结出版社, 2017)
People interviewed for this post:
Mr. Huang Baoming (Tea merchant selling all teas)
Ms. Wang Huihui (Representative of largest white tea producer in Fujian, Liu Miao)
Mr. Chen (Grower in Anxi)
Ms. Chen (Tea merchant from Zhangping)
Ms. Wang Bihua (Grower and seller in Wuyi)
And all the others along the way, but not specifically for this piece