Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/694455
STiR tea & coffee industry international 53 greens were called Twankay. The tea destroyed in 1773's Boston Tea Party included two Anhui green teas Singlo and Hyson, which were more expensive than accompanying chests of Fujian black teas. Though prices of Anhui green tea were generally higher than that of Fujian black tea, export demand for the latter increased much faster. Al- though famous for its green tea production, changing consumer tastes meant that by the 18th century Anhui heavily into black tea production. In 1875, an Anhui-born tea-tax officer deposed from his official post in Fujian returned to Anhui to start a tea business. Yu Ganchen was much impressed by the lucrative black tea export business in Fujian and the substantial demand, so he de- cided to produce black tea locally. Yu established a tea shop in Dongzhi County in southern Anhui. He purchased fresh leaves from local tea growers but processed them in the same way Fujian black tea was made. Yu's black tea was welcomed by the tea merchants in neighboring Fujian, and the next year, he opened a second tea shop in neighboring Qimen County. Around the same time, Qimen tea plantation owner Hu Yuanlong decided to in- vest in black tea production as green tea sales slowed. Hu hired black tea makers from neighboring Jiangxi province (the Fujian method for processing black tea first spread to Jiangxi). He invested in training and product innovation on his plantation and by 1883, Hu's black tea became the most sought-after black tea in the market. Qimen black tea hence established as a premium type export tea (the English work Keemun is an early phonetic transcription of Qimen). Keemun tea production included a very intricate and laborious refining process, so it was also call Keemun Congou. Congou (Gongfu) connotes the great time and labor expended on refining the tea. Hu's expansion into Keemun county and surrounding regions gradually trans- formed the region into one of the best known in the world. Other tea producing regions in Anhui were not idle in product innovation. Thorough trial and error, quite a few tea producing regions had developed geographical-origin gourmet teas that boost- ed local tea industry. To this day most of the tea grown in Anhui tea is specialty green. Here are three well-established ones: Huangshan Maofeng (Yellow Mountain Fuzz Tip) * Maofeng and Keemun are the most widely known Anhui teas in China. Maofeng was created around the same era as Keemum tea. As the name indicates, the origin tea is made from a special local cultivar found in Yellow Mountain, a famous mountain Yongxi Huoqing Tea (Yongxi Fired Green) Qimen Gongfu (Keemun Congou) Haoya grade