Orchid Fragrant Tieguanyin

In the cold night, the guests come to tea as wine, and the bamboo stove soup boils and turns red. "Whenever a guest visits, the host's family usually serves tea for the guest. Gradually, the habit of treating guests with tea has been retained, and it has continued to this day, forming a unique tea culture.

In the past, tea shops were blooming everywhere and the scenery was infinite; now, tea shops can be seen everywhere, but why is the quality and reputation of Tieguanyin with orchid fragrance not as good as before, and it is declining?

①

When autumn is cool.

At six o'clock in the morning, I walked into Anxi, a tea shop full of streets.

From a distance, you can hear the cries of the proprietress of the tea shop.

The aroma of tea wafting from the streets and alleys means that it is a good season for the autumn harvest again. This time is the busiest.

The owner of the tea shop went to Chashan to find tea farmers to buy tea, and the proprietress arranged staff in the tea shop to pick and pack the tea leaves. On weekdays, most of them are middle-aged women picking tea stems. However, on weekends, there will also be primary and secondary school students helping out and earning pocket money. For a time, in the tea shop, the pickers in twos and threes lowered their heads to pick tea stems intently, and occasionally a few customers came to buy tea, which was very lively.

②

"A small table, three or five friends, a pot of tea!" This is the true portrayal of Anxi after 2000.

In Anxi, most of the owners of tea shops are tea farmers. I saw them chatting while skillfully making tea. Tea is an indispensable part of Anxi people's life, and drinking tea has been integrated into their lives.

At that time in southern Fujian, there were tea shops everywhere. Tea shop storefronts are large or small, ranging from a few hundred square meters to ten square meters. Unlimited for a while.

In 2003, online e-commerce drove many emerging industries and brought new sales channels to traditional industries.

Unfortunately, the "Internet +" sales method not only failed to bring more profits to tea shops, but also led to the narrowing of the tea market and the deterioration of tea sales, which began to decline, and the decline was very fast.

"Now we rely on old customers to maintain business, and there are too few new customers. There are so many tea shops and so many tea chain stores. It is difficult for ordinary tea shops to stand out." The owner of an old shop in Anxi was very emotional.

The once bustling tea streets have been sold one by one. There are only a few old shops left, barely able to gain a foothold, and even the tea shops in the tea market have closed down a few. Even if it can continue to operate, business is not as good as it used to be.

③

It would be unfair to attribute the decline of tea shops to the impact of e-commerce alone.

In addition to its own business problems, the decline of tea shops is also closely related to the production and manufacturing of tea. After the tea press came out in 2011, it greatly improved the production efficiency of tea farmers and reduced labor intensity. Many tea farmers began to buy and put them into use. As a result, the efficiency is improved, but the tea leaves are not brewed, easy to disperse, and the quality is not good.

Contrast (the picture on the right is a tea press machine)

When people realized the drawbacks of tea presses and called for banning them, the tea had already been sold. Fame is hard to come by, but ruined.

Although tea presses have been banned in 2016 and low-quality tea leaves have been destroyed, it is not easy to restore the reputation.

Even in the "tea scam" that appeared from time to time in the past few years, Bai Fumei's various lovelorn fascination, fictitious tragic encounters to gain sympathy, to make profits and trick others to buy low-quality tea at high prices. Nowadays, there are more kinds of tea "carts" playing live broadcast and bringing goods, and tricking buyers for sales. All kinds of behaviors not only damage the reputation of the tea market, but also chill the hearts of tea farmers, tea merchants and tea consumers.

old orchid scent

Why did it fall?

Many times, when Hokkien people talk about tea, they refer to Anxi Tieguanyin.

Tieguanyin has conquered the taste buds of the Chinese people and the market with its incomparable orchid fragrance. It is no exaggeration to say that it is a national tea.

One side of water and soil breeds one side of good tea. A good tea tree variety needs to grow in a suitable place for it to be easily discovered by others.

Tieguanyin originated in Neianxi. Compared with Wai'anxi, the origin of Neianxi is generally more mountainous, and the mountains are denser with fog. The Tieguanyin orchid produced here is slender and pure, with a mellow and sweet consistency, and a long aftertaste.

And the mountains and clouds are by no means owned by Anxi. It is understood that Tieguanyin tea species was introduced in the adjacent Yongchun County during the Guangxu period, and later introduced to Taiwan, becoming a characteristic Taiwanese green tea Muzha Tieguanyin. Today, it has spread throughout the southern Fujian and central Fujian regions, and has also spread to many major tea-producing provinces such as Zhejiang, Hunan, and Sichuan.

For Tieguanyin, more important than a label produced in Anxi is its quality.

Now it seems that the decline of Tieguanyin in recent years is not unrelated to the decline of its quality. Excessive development and lack of proper management of tea gardens have resulted in soil erosion and destruction of the ecological environment. No matter how good the variety, no matter how exquisite tea-making technology is, it is difficult to make up for this lack.

What's more, in order to make the tea grow fast, free from insect pests, and grow luxuriantly, the tea farmers apply a large number of chemical fertilizers and spray pesticides to the tea trees. In this way, the output is greatly increased, but the original taste of tea has been changed, and the green and natural nature has been lost. At the same time, excessive pesticide residues have brought great health risks to consumers.

The reputation of Tieguanyin also allows many unscrupulous merchants to see the "business opportunities", which directly leads to the confusion of Tieguanyin categories in the market, the quality is uneven, and there are so many varieties that you will have "choice phobia".

"The taste of hairy crab and Benshan is very similar to Tieguanyin. It's not that tea experts can't tell the difference. Some customers bought Tieguanyin before, but now they say that I sell it." Mr. Chen is an old tea shop in Anxi. The owner of , who also runs a tea shop online, did not expect to be questioned by customers one day.

Tieguanyin is also called Tieguanyin, but the taste is not like that, it is impossible to return to the peak. However, our national tea still needs to control the quality, not just quantity but also quality.