LOBAL EA UT G Tea & TaoH Magazine 國際茶亭 June 2017 Gongfu Red Tea Qimen History, Lore & Processing GLOBAL EA HUT ContentsIssue 65 / June 2017 Tea & Tao Magazine Red 紅太陽升起Sun Rising On our recent trip to China we learned a lot about Qimen red tea. This is the perfect oppor- tunity to learn more about rare gongfu red tea as Love is a genre, as well as about the history of this rich tea-growing region. Of course, we’ll be sipping as changing the world we read; this time it’s a rare Qimen red tea, deli- cate and bold as an early red sunrise. bowl by bowl 特稿文章 Features 紅 15 A Journey Through 太 Qimen Culture By Luo Yingyin 陽 21 Qimen: One Leaf, 37 Three Teas By Luo Yingyin 37 Qimen Tea: From the Past to the Future By Deng Zengyong 03 15 Traditions傳統文章 03 Tea of the Month “Red Sun Rising,” 2016 Gongfu Red Tea Qimen, Anhui, China 27 Gongfu Teapot “Tea-Aware,” By Wu De 33 Expansion Pack III Gongfu Red Tea 21 45 Chaxi Chronicles “A Valiant Steed Tethered to a Thatched Hut,” By Shen Su 紅 太 53 Voices of the Hut © 2017 by Global Tea Hut 陽 All rights reserved. “Art of the Month,” 升 No part of this publication may be By Lee Ann Hilbrich reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys- 起 tem or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 57 TeaWayfarer photocopying, recording, or other- Lee Ann Hilbrich, USA wise, without prior written permis- sion from the copyright owner. n June, ourFrom teas have all started rolling in andthe we are As you are readingEditor this month’s issue, I am continuing drinking lots of young sheng puerh samples, green my world tour to the Big Apple. This will be the first time teas (including new, first flush, organic sencha from we have ever conducted tea ceremonies in NY. This whirl- Japan called “shincha”) and also the occasional gongfu wind year of travel has afforded me the chance to have tea Ired tea in the morning. The weather is hot in Taiwan at this with more of you, which helps inspire me to work hard on time and these cooling teas are wonderful. We serve sun tea the magazine and at the Center. I love making new friends this month and next when we go out to serve roadside tea, through tea, as well as celebrating the old. It has been a very propping up fake blue flames under the iced kettle we use busy, but very exciting year so far. The first half has taught to boil and ladle out tea the rest of the year. We steep the me so much. I look forward to sharing more tea. tea in a large glass jar from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on a sunny day, This month we are going to dive deeply into the topic of letting the sun extract the essence from the tea. This can be gongfu red tea, exploring the highest potential of what red done with red, green, white tea or young sheng puerh. We tea can be. Red tea is often best when simple, like dian hong then fill the clay kama from the large glass jar with a pitcher, or Elevation from Sun Moon Lake. But red tea can also be adding ice from a cooler every half hour or so. very fine and delicate, produced with as much mastery as June is the zenith of the year, halfway round the Global any genre of tea. Gongfu red tea is red tea produced ex- Tea Hut calender. It is a great time to evaluate the year, learn clusively from buds, and with great attention to detail and and grow and make plans to improve throughout the sec- focus on quality. The best raw material is used, so the tea ond half. We have already achieved a lot this year: expand- must be made with skill to warrant the premium price that ing membership, touring and offering courses, our fourth using only hand-plucked buds demands. annual trip, another issue in our Classics of Tea series, a new This month’s tea comes from Qimen—from the farm printer that has improved the quality of our magazine, and we visited on our 2017 Global Tea Hut Trip, which we will the realization of our long-standing goal to include more cover in great detail in the July issue. Seeing how much authorship in these issues by translating Chinese tea experts care and love goes into this amazing red tea has left us all and thereby providing more scope and depth to each issue stunned. As we always say, we make a concerted effort to of Global Tea Hut. A goal we hope to realize in the com- bring you all with us on our annual trips, and since we are ing year is to include more journalism, traveling to rare tea sharing this tea from Qimen this month and another beau- mountains to find amazing organic farmers and exciting tiful tea we made ourselves next month, it feels like we really teas for you to try. will be sharing this amazing place and wonderful experienc- The biggest news is, of course, the launch of our Global es with all of you. This issue will be educational, and a great Tea Hut app. More than a year of effort, time and money chance to taste the best red tea has to offer. has gone into this. Like all the work around here, it was done with tons of love. Lots of people helped out, but none more than our very own Jared Krause. We should all raise a bowl to our brother this month. He has served this com- munity in countless ways since its formation. Please help us by investing time in the app: adding to your profile, Wu De connecting with other members, creating local gatherings and more. The more everyone invests in the app, the more rewarding it will be to use. We hope that it brings this com- munity together and creates more tea ceremonies and gath- erings around the world. We hope travelers find a place to stay at Global Tea Hut houses and that your tea sessions have more guests from further afield! The second important announcement this year is that we are starting our third annual photography contest. So –Further Readings– far, the two years have been filled with so many inspiring entries from all over the world. Like before, we will be of- fering prizes to the most tea-inspired photography—mea- This month, we recommend taking the time to suring success by how strongly we feel inclined to go put read through the March 2016 issue of Global Tea the kettle on. The same rule applies as with previous years: Hut. It is all about red tea in general. The whole there is a limit of one submission per person. The winners issue is full of red tea wisdom that forms a great will also be published in these pages. The contest will close background for this issue. You can read it on the in August. “Past Issues” section of the website. 2 of the ver the course of this month, As oxidation is a natural process, it is techniques that greatly improved the we are rising to the heights likely that it occurred, perhaps even teas they were making. They had some 茶of all red tea production. accidentally, at some point long ago. of the best trees and one of the best OOver the years, we have shared a lot However, most tea scholars think terroirs for tea, after all. They say that of red tea in this community. We have that red tea originated in Fujian, near as the monks learned this new tech- drunk some fine and unique dian hong where Cliff Tea comes from. nique of pan-firing green tea to arrest teas, published a guide to dian hong in As we read about in our April is- oxidation, they slowly learned that the February of this year and we have also sue of this year on Ming Dynasty tea, tea responded to semi-oxidation in a drunk Sun Moon Lake “Elevation” the first Ming emperor Taizu out- magical way and oolong tea was born. every year since Global Tea Hut began, lawed the production of powdered, This innovation probably was part tri- but these are simple, earthy red teas. cake tea. At that time, Wuyi and the al and error, part insight and skill and These are red teas that are drunk rough surrounding regions were amongst part connection to the Leaf. As the and raw, leaves in a bowl or sidehan- the greatest, most famous of all tea- leaves got redder, it would only have dle. They are malty, musky and full producing areas, offering tribute tea been a matter of time till the oxi- of strength. They are masculine. This since the Song Dynasty (960–1279). dation levels were pushed into month, we’re turning to the finer side The shift in taste, and the new laws af- “red tea.” of red tea: the delicate, “tippy” (lots fected local tea production, drastically of buds) red teas are made fine, with reducing the amount of tea produced skill. They are yin, with a floral sweet- since the locals had only made pow- ness that is light on its feet and gentler dered and caked tea for generations. on the system. And such a fine, deli- Though many of the big houses, fa- cate tea as this month’s, calls for some mous for their Dragon & Phoenix history, as each sip finds us more and cakes, shut down, the monks contin- more lost in past times—times when ued making tea and drinking it in cer- names like “Queen of Fragrance” make emony and meditation, using simple, sense again.