STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 21 Tea master Ellen Kong serves tea to friends while they write lines of poetry, at Rong Art Space, Xuhui, Shanghai. According to legend, they went as far as tasting the soil, and eventually established the boundaries of terroirs recognized to this day. This in turn led to the appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) system of demarcating wines on the basis of their origin, in order to establish the idea of unique wines from a unique area, and so protect them commercially. The same is now beginning to happen with the most valuable tea terroirs. In Wuyishan in 1999, the core area of peaks and valleys covering 70 square kilometers was designated Zheng Yan (Original Rock), to protect the authenticity of the famous varietals Da Hong Pao, Shui Xian, Rou Gui and Tie Luo Han. Another tea growing area with a reputation to protect is adjacent to West Lake in Hangzhou, the home of China's most famous green tea, Longjing. This is so well known that many tea growers in distant parts of the same province, Zhejiang, use the same name in order to protect the branding of 'authentic Longjing.' The Hangzhou Xihu (West Lake) Agricultural Bureau registered 'West Lake Longjing' as a brand in 2006. The Agricultural Bureau of Zhejiang went further in 2009 by register- ing the brand Longjing with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and now this appellation can be used only for teas grown in 18 counties within the West Lake, Qiantang, and Yuezhou regions. Pickers carefully descend the Hell's Gate Trail down from a tea garden at Feng's High Mountain Organic Tea Cooperative, Xianyushan, Qimen, China.

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