The Truth in Your Cup of Da Hong Pao Oolong Tea
In 1972, during his unprecedented visit to China, then U.S. president Richard Nixon received a rare gift as he met Chairman Mao – a pack of about 400 grams of Chinese Da Hong Pao oolong tea The president joked:”This is little”, to which Chairman Mao responded:”That’s not little at all, you’ve got half of what China has.”.
IndeedChina produced slightly over a kilo of Da Hong Pao at the time400 grams, that was more than a lot
But how could the tea be so rare?
That’s because a petty number of only 6 Da Hong Pao tea trees grew in China at the time. A total of one kilo of tea, that’s all the six trees could produce a year.
Also, the harvesting of the tea leaves was extremely difficult, for the oolong tea trees grow half way up a skyscraping cliff in Wu Yi Mountain. In ancient times, monkeys had to be trained to pick the tea.
But, if Da Hong Pao is rarely available, what do you have in your cup anyway?
The truth is: it’s still the aromatic and crisp Da Hong Pao, but not made of tea leaves from those 6 tea trees.
In 1982, Chen De Hua, a local oolong tea expert, received five twigs from the original Da Hong Pao trees and was entrusted to introduce the growing of Da Hong Pao to a larger area. Chen transplanted the twigs in his experimental field, and grew them with extreme care. Soon, the twigs began to bud. And only a few years later, they were big enough to harvest the delicious tea leaves.
Chen’s re-plantation of Da Hong Pao ended in a big success. Before long, oolong tea farmers all came for the tea saplings
Today, as many as 40,000 acres of Da Hong Pao grow in the Wu Yi Mountain, producing over 1,700 tons of high quality Da Hong Pao tea each year.
In the meanwhile, another tea expert went aboard and started to improve the ‘texture’ of Da Hong Pao. Master Zhang Tian Fu, who is 101 year old now, has been studying Chinese oolong tea since he was young. And even someone as adept as him didn’t know the mysterious recipe for Da Hong Pao processing.
Although this variety of oolong tea is famous in China, very few knew how to make it. The area where the 6 mother Da Hong Pao tea trees grow used to belong to a nearby Buddhist temple. For centuries, no one was allowed to get near the tea trees except the abbots, who carefully kept the secret recipe from other monks and nearby villagers.
Today, the secret is no secret at all, as Da Hong Pao fans from around the world come to Wu Yi Mountain for a taste of the once mysterious tea.
And you, too, can brew yourself a perfect cup at home with ease and delight.