China's gift to the world: the perfect cup of tea

The birth of tea

Tea spans multiple cultures, but China can rightfully claim to be its historic home. For thousands of years, the country grew, picked and drank the tannic brew before it was discovered by the rest of the world. 

But now, across all continents and many, many other cultures, it lies at the centre of a centuries-old social ritual. Today the offer of a cup of tea still encourages people to pause their busy lives, meet with each other and sit down and chat, wherever they are in the world.

In 2022 UNESCO even added China's traditional tea processing techniques, and the social rituals associated with drinking it, to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The evergreen shrub is native to East Asia and appears to have originated around southwest China and northern Myanmar close to the Irrawaddy River.

Inside China, the Wuyi Mountains have become one of the world’s most important tea-producing areas. Around 10,000 hectares of the world's very best tea is grown here and it is the original source of both oolong and black tea.

Jiang Yuanxun is the latest heir in a 24-generation ancestral line schooled in this fine tea processing art and it was his ancestors some 400 years ago who discovered how to make the tea variety Lapsang Souchong.

When the dried leaves are baked over a pinewood fire, they absorb the smoky flavour, eventually fermenting into the black tea.

The exact origins of Lapsang Souchong remain a mystery but according to legend villagers in the mountains one day left a tea harvest to wilt to avoid soldiers who had entered the area. Later, in a bid to save the ruined crop, the teamakers roasted the oxidised leaves over a pinewood fire. The bad batch was then sold on to