Chen Xueying from China, owner of Wuyi-rock tea, does extensive tea tests to make sure her teas are of the best quality for clients. “I will start drinking tea after lunch, and around 4-5 pm I will start testing the tea, since my taste is then at its most sensitive.”
What is the story behind Wuyi?
Wuyi Origin was created by me and my husband Mr. Zhou. My family has been making tea in the Wuyishan area for generations, and I started taking care of the business in 2008 with my own tea garden and factory. My husband is from the Raoping county of Chaozhou, whose family has a history of making Phoenix Dan Cong. Tea brought us together, and we got married in 2013. Ever since then, we’ve been living in Wuyishan with my family processing and selling tea.
How is Wuyi Origin doing?
In fact, in China, our family has a history of tea processing, production and sales for more than 20 years, so my family business is very stable in China, because we are small in scale, we process and produce tea in our own tea garden. Wuyi Origin was established by our family for overseas markets on March 8, 2017. I am very happy that during this four-year period, we met many tea people from all over the world, including tea drinkers, tea sellers and tea learners.
What are your main products?
Our main products are wuyi oolong and black tea , white tea in Fujian and dancong Oolong from Chaozhou city Guangdong province.
What are the current trends in tea drinking in China?
Tea has a long history in China, and it has always been known that good tea is beneficial to physical and mental health. Nowadays people who drink tea are getting younger and younger. And everyone is paying more and more attention to the quality of tea. In China people prefer natural teas more than the ones with added flavor.
What is your own personal tea and when is the best time during the day for you to drink it?
I have no favorite tea, but I like black tea and oolong tea. I start drinking tea after lunch, and then tea testing always happens around 4-5 pm, when my taste is most sensitive. Tea testing is very important for us. When we make the tea, we need the testing to know what our garden tastes like so we can learn the weaknesses and the advantages of it. The last step in the process is to set the price of our teas. The purpose of the test is to make sure we know what our tea tastes like and what a reasonable price for customers is.