Fujian, Fu'an and Flowering Teas

We fly to Fuzhou via Kunming, and I get ridiculously excited while waiting at the flight gate to find that there is wifi and one of my email accounts is working. Cue frantic sending of blogs and pictures to my daughter Hannah, who is going to post on my behalf, and also make it look elegant and professional in the process. There's no access to Blogspot, Facebook or Twitter here so I depend on her a lot (thanks Hannah). Ironically I might not be able to send her this blog until right at the end of the trip.

Fujian is a coastal province in the SE of China, and home to an extraordinary range of teas - white teas in Fuding, flowering teas in Fu'an, Tie Guanyin Oolong in Anxi, Lapsang Souchong  and Rock Oolongs in Wuyi. And a number of areas seem to make black teas, including the famous Golden Monkey and rarer Tang Yang Gongfu. So it's a good place to visit and experience all these different types.

The first thing we need to come to terms with is that we will be city-based for much of our time in Fujian. The industry here is much more complicated than Yunnan, and on a much larger scale, with companies involved in growing, processing and marketing their own teas. Some of the final processing is carried out in city warehouses that also contain tasting rooms and sales offices.

We start in Fu'an, the home of flowering teas. You've probably seen them - they start off as small tight green balls, and open out in boiling water releasing strings of delicate flowers. I've never been a great fan of them, being a bit of a grumpy tea purist, but I'm curious to see how they're made. More than anything I want to be satisfied that they're made in good conditions - clean, well lit, no duress, that kind of thing. I've always had a nagging doubt that the delicacy of the work might mean children are involved in some way.

The industry in China is of course well aware of such concerns. Some companies (and this is common to many other sectors) produce glossy brochures with pictures of what they think Western buyers want to see, even if the reality bears no resemblance; it will never be possible to visit the actual factory. It's easy to see why they do this when so many customers are happy to take it at face value and just 'tick the box'. So it's not a surprise to see pictures of people in a spotlessly clean factory, togged up in ridiculous amounts of protective clothing, as if they're making microchips rather than sewing tea and flowers together. We prefer not to go to these places, but to work with people who are much more honest and open, and happy to show us round. This depends completely on the groundwork done by Jennifer Jiang, who has spent a lot of time visiting Fu'an and working out who are the genuine suppliers.

The first stage is tying tea stems into bunches

The bunches must all be the same size

The stems are stripped of leaves but the large white buds remain

The first surprise when we arrive is the age of those doing the work. The first process is tying long thin leaves together in bunches, and none of the women doing this is under 40; some are very much older. The second stage is more delicate, requiring small flowers to be threaded onto cotton and sewn through the bunches of leaves, and the women are probably in their 20s and 30s. They are wearing hats to cover their hair. The rooms are light and spacious, the tables are covered in bits of tea and flowers, and the atmosphere is relaxed. I've been trained as a Social Auditor* and know what signs to look for, but it seems ok. As you would expect, it's piece work, and seems to operate on a kind of flexitime basis - people are free to come and go, and get paid for what they make.

Sweing the flowers through the leaves

Completed sets

A 'flower basket' design

The bunches are folded in on themselves and tied with cotton, then wrapped for drying 

We leave feeling quite positive. I'm not sure it's really changed my option about the teas themselves, but it has removed some concerns (but only about this particular company - others still have big question marks against them in my mind). I'll be happy to buy from here for Fortnum & Mason.

This is one occasion when I won't be open about the details of the company. I think it's important for buyers to take responsibility for their sources, and I don't see why I should make it easy for them. So if you want flowering teas, buy them from people who really know the source - like F&M, or the other people I'm travelling with.


* that sounds a bit pompous, but it's true. I've always been interested in the people aspects of tea, and decided to get properly trained a few years back. It involves being able to get under the surface of what's going on in factories, how people are treated, how to read the signs. I won't bore you with any more detail here.