Notes on weather in general in Fujian during tea harvest seasons. Mainly touches on the effects on White and raw oolong (tieguanyin) as they are the two tea types to be less processed and hence more susceptible to what the weather has in store during the harvest season. Wuyi mountains also have their main harvest picked in the spring, but with all the added processing, they can still work with the tea a bit more even if the weather doesn’t favour the growers during picking. Real concerns for them would be the lack of rain during the winter for instance. Obviously some year’s crop is better than others.
| Year | Season | Weather Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Spring | March: Mainly sunny, partly cloudy – good for harvest of White tea from Fuding April: Mainly half cast and sunny, with light spells of rain – Oolong harvest ok May: Heavy spells of rain – affected oolong packing process, slight to sever changes in flavour Overview: Good year for the whites, oolong depending on when packaged was nice. |
| Autumn | August: Mainly sunny, few spells September: Very sunny October: Very sunny Overview: Bit too dry, but served for a decent oolong harvest. | |
| 2014 | Spring | March: Quite overcast, heavy spells to borderline torrential rain – not good for the harvest or drying of white teas April: Quite overcast, plenty of rain – not good for the harvest or processing of oolong May: Mainly overcast, some rather heavy rainfall – not good for packing oolong Overview: Generally, not the best of spring harvests. Summer – usually not mentioned, but noteworthy because – hottest recorded summer in history. |
| Autumn | August: Relatively sunny, very little rain September: Mainly sunny, very little rain October: See the above Overview: A good all-round oolong harvest. | |
| 2015 | Spring | March: Overcast, rainy, some sunny spells – harvesting of White was ok, not the easiest to dry April: Mainly sunny, passing clouds, some rain – not bad for oolong and Wuyi mountain harvest May: Rain 1/3 of the month, rest full on sun – packing of oolong relatively ok Overview: Really depends which tea plantation you are purchasing from, mixed batch in total. Some really good teas were made, and some… you guessed it! Not so good ones. Mostly ok. |
| Autumn | August: Mainly sunny, few days of rain September: Mainly sunny, few days of rain October: Sunny or partly sunny Overview: A good all-round oolong harvest. | |
| 2016 | Spring | March: Sunny, but from mid-March onwards very heavy rainy – the harvesting of the Whites went fine, but not good for drying April: foggy and damp, few sunny spells May: sunnier that April, but still quite foggy. Only few spells of rain Overview: Harvesting of the whites went fine, but not a good year for letting it dry naturally. Oolong had a tough time of it as well: really depended on the day if you were able to complete the harvesting and processing to meet one’s own standard. May weather effected the flavour slightly when packing. |
| Autumn | August: Mainly partly sunny/overcast, few spells September: First half partly overcast, with some rain. Second half sunnier October: Some rain some shine Overview: Generally speaking just fine, maybe not quite as good as the previous two oolong autumn harvests. | |
| 2017 | Spring | March: Sun and rain alternatively April: Mainly sunny, overcast May: Mainly sunny, end tail heavy rains (all through June) Overview: It was rather a dry spring, so the flavour was not quite as robust as many previous years. Heavy rains started just as the packaging of oolong started, so the oolong was effected by that. |
| Autumn | August: Sunny September: Sunny October: Still clear, with passing clouds Overview: Made for a good over all oolong harvest, just slightly dry delivering a very fragrant tea. | |
| 2018 | Spring | Worth mentioning – February had snow or frost on many of the tea mountains. This anomaly added to the flavour. March: Plenty of sun and rain, just on the right days April: During the harvest, nice and sunny May: Mainly sunny, slight overcast Overview: As good as it gets. The tea growers sure won the weather gamble this year. Not only did they have snow, but during harvest it was nice and sunny, so the leaves dried well adding to the flavour. So very good whites were produced and the oolong benefitted greatly from the good weather, even throughout the packing season. This harvest was worth writing home about. Or stashing away as much white tea as one could get one’s hands on. |
| Autumn | August: Started all sunny, rest of the month heavy rainfall September: Alternatively, sun and rain October: Alternatively, sun and rain Overview: Mixed bag for the oolong harvest. One might come across a real gem, but can’t call it an all-round good year due to the amount of rain. | |
| 2019 | Spring | March: Very rainy in Fuding, with only a few random days of sunshine. Extremely bad news for the harvesting and drying of the first picks of white tea. Wuyi also very rainy the whole of March: the tea should grow well. Anxi County same thing: plenty of rain. April: Heavy rains in all of the main growing areas. Wuyi and Fuding managed to have ok weather for the actual few days of harvesting. May: Heavy rains in all growing areas. Overview: Fuding got hit bad with rain for the first flush, so 2019 Silver needle tea and some white Peony not particularly good. They were luckier with the harvesting of Shoumei and Gongmei. Wuyi should be ok, even though they had heavy rain fall also, but with the way they make their tea…we wait and see. Anxi oolong: A very fragrant crop, but flavour not as full-bodied as in less rainier years. |
| Autumn | August: Anxi – Rain rain rain, thunder thunder thunder. Few bright spells. September: Pretty much ideal combination of rain and sun. October: Ideal weather for harvesting with sun and overcast alternating Overview: Anxi won the weather gamble this year. They landed with a bumper crop for one, and two, it seems to be a very good, flavoursome harvest. Some really nice gems to be picked up from this one. Also, it is really starting to show that the manufacturing has been pushed in a more handcraft direction by the authorities: subtleties evident which were already lost in previous years batches. Also, after having tasted the crop from Wuyi this year: 2019 is excellent vintage for Wuyi if one doesn’t mind me using this term. | |
| 2020 | Spring | March: The winter rains came late, and particularly Fuding was left vulnerable to them. Only a few sunny spells far and few apart. Any tea producing facility with no indoor drying space was left at the mercy of the rains and the end result amidst the pandemic is a very, very mixed bag of goods. Wuyi and Anxi enjoyed the benefits of a rainy March with getting a bountiful push for the harvest. April: April saw both Wuyi and Anxi enjoying plenty of sunshine, with some spring thunderstorms sprinkled along the way. So, both areas got back what they lost with the dry winter. May: Almost non-stop spring downpour. Few partly sunny days. Wuyi region will be fine with it, but Anxi suffered a little with it. Overview: The winter rains were practically non-existent, but it ended raining heavily during the beginning of the harvest season. Whites: an expensive harvest, but the produce not totally worth the money. If one finds a good tea batch in among all the underwhelming majority – can happen – one is lucky and should stick with it until next year’s gamble. Mainly the problem of Silver Needle tea and White Peony. the Gongmei and Shoumei harvest’s less affected, but still not as good as it gets. Anxi’s spring harvest was very fragrant and had a strong presence, but not quite as full-bodied as in harvests of years with less rain. The push back at Anxi to return to a more hand-made approach is starting to show: with more skill and handcraft being invested in the different steps of the production chain, one is not so much at the mercy of the weather. A part of the responsibility of the flavour rests on the skill of the manufacturer. A positive development. Wuyi: can’t wait to taste it closer to the autumn. |
| Autumn | For the autumn, it is really only worth taking note of Anxi. This bizarre year of 2020 Anxi gets a mother of a harvest in the autumn. Not only is it a bumper crop, the quality and flavour profile is exceptionally good. A harvest worth keeping in stock. August all the way up to October, a perfect amount of everything: sun and rain, not to mention good weather conditions while tea production. Well done Anxi! | |
| 2021 | Spring | Worth mentioning – Winter 2020/2021 is noteworthy, because most tea mountains in Fujian had snow or at least a fair amount of frost. Many places enjoyed below zero night time temperatures, woven in with sunny above zero days. The combination provides for an interesting flavour profile. Also, this year the winter rains arrived on time to provide a proper yield. March: the main location of focus obviously Fuding, due to their need to start picking early. Fuding was hit with quite a bit of rain this year – again – right at the beginning of their harvest. And really throughout March. Luckily in between rain there were some sunny spells. So, one can conclude it being a mixed bag: depending on the producers’ production facilities, one might get some divine white, or – if the wilting and drying hasn’t been able to be done quickly enough – less than awesome white. Taste before you buy, let’s put it this way. April: Wuyi region got endowsed with quite a lot of rain while Anxi was pretty much bathing in the sun, apart from the occasional spell. By end of April, Anxi got a bit more rain also, but whether or not it was enough for the crops really depens of the location of the orchard. May: by this time Wuyi is wrapping up the picking but the production is in full swing. The rainy weather pretty much continued, with some days of relief. Early May Anxi had plenty of storms and torrential rain to contend with. And it continued. How they managed to get any withering done – one does not know. Overview: with the snow on the mountain during the winter and the winter rains being abundant, the flavour profile of this spring is robust. But the quality is mixed: some absolute treasures to be found, and some … well, not so delightful |