Century-old Brand Offers Fresh Spring Tea

In the chill of the early spring in April, Wuyutai, a century-old tea shop served local customers of Beijing with fresh green tea picked and processed before the Pure Bright Festival. The well-picked and finely-processed green tea sold so well that it ran out of supply. Like what happened in previous years, the tea variety of Dragon Well from the West Lake is the most popular early spring tea among local customers. This tea variety is famous not for its super quality but also for its cultural richness.     

Chinese Tea Rich in Cultural Traditions

Chinese tea is not merely a beverage variety but also bears rich cultural traditions. Like pastries associated with Chinese traditional festivals, Chinese tea embodies cultural elements that bring it with lingering charms and added values. The famous modem drama ＂Teahouse＂ is a perfect example. Perhaps because I was born and grew up in Beijing, I like reading literature about Beijing, in particular, litera .ry works by Lao She. He is one of the greatest writers in modern China who was born of a poor Manchurian family in Beijing. He worked and lived in UK and USA for nearly ten years and committed suicide in 1966 when the Cultural Revolution broke out.     

Centennial Flavor of Wuyutai＇s Jasmine Tea

Beijing doesn＇t produce tea but people of old Beijing were fond of flagrant flavor of jasmine tea and developed a habit of drinking jasmine tea every day. Like salt and oil, jasmine tea is a necessity of every family. When a visitor came in old times, the family host would serve him with a lidded cup of jasmine tea. When the tea cup＇s cover is opened, the whole room would be permeated with fragrant aroma of jasmine flower.     

DRAGON WELL GREEN THE AT WEST LAKE

Dragon well is a prominent type of green tea produced at the West Lake resort where the village of dragon well is surrounded by undulating hills and winding brooks. The unique ecological and geographic conditions of the village give the rise of dragon well green tea which is noted for emerald greenness, lingering fragrance, mellow taste and beautiful shape.     

Aromatic Tea in Wuyutai’s Nanchang Store

Nanchang enjoys a reputation for numerous lakes in the city. The mother river, Ganjiang River traverses the city, and the Teng Wang Pavilion nestles near water, constituting a magnificent picture of autumn scenery. My visit to Nanchang this time was totally for tea. Jiangxi province is traditionally noted as a tea     

Wuyutai:Time-honored Brand Makes New Success

Wuyutai is a century-old tea shop brand which owns some 300 chain stores across the country. The past 15 years witnessed this time-honored brand’s fastest growth when it launched and expanded franchised operation and made intensive and extensive efforts to develop new varieties of tea products.Wuyutai’s success lies in the first-class products and services it provides to customers. In the future,Wuyutai will as     

Yuanmingyuan： Garden of Perfect Brightness

Yuanmingyuan, known in China as the garden of perfect brightness, is located in the western suburb of Beijing where there is rich water resources and green mountains and hills. During the reign of Qing Emperor Kangxi [1661-1722], the Everlasting Spring Garden was built on ruins of a Ming Dynasty garden and completed in 1690. The garden served as a summer palace where the emperor escaped the summer heat and handled court affairs.     

Chinese Landscape Painting in Blue and Green Colors

Blue and green are natural colors and favored by ancient Chinese painters. Landscape painting in blue and green coors represents an important genre of Chinese Ink painting. Based on mineral pigments of blue and green, this painting genre primarily depicts motifs like valleys, hills, forests and springs. Painters first outline contours of depicted subjects with ink of various thickness and then paint mountain rocks with light ruby as the background. The finely grinded mineral pigment of green is applied to the painted subjects and after it dries,     

Picasso Exhibition Captures Imagination of Chinese Art Lovers

Against the background of the red imperial city walls in early spring of Beijing,renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso sips a mouthful of tea from a Chinese-style cup and gazes at passers-by with his sagacious eyes. That is an image on the thematic poster for the touring Picasso exhibition -- the largest and most valuable ever to visit Asia.     

WUYUTAI：A LEADER IN TEA CULTURE

Legends have it that Shen Nong, Patron of Agriculture living 4700 years ago, tasted hundreds of herbs by himself in order to find those which can cure diseases for his clan people. The other day he took poisonous herbs by accident, but fortunately he picked out several green, tender leaves with fragrance and chewed them. All of sudden he felt refreshed and was not longer uncomfortable. He called this tender leave ＂Cha＂ （Chinese pronunciation for ＂tea＂） and hence the origin of the tea.     

Shen Yunqing： Dancing with Iron

Coincidence becomes circumstances and circumstances become fact. In the story of Shen Yunqing, a gifted sculptor from Chengdu, it has been proven to be true again and again. Even though I‘d never previously met Shen Yunqing I felt as if I had. Presumably everyone does. She turned out to be a perfect hostess, dutifully making sure that both of us settled down comfortably with tea, nuts and plenty of snacks in the sun, just outside her studio which is one of the five in all shared by 6 scul…     

THE GAME OF GO AND SONG-DYNASTY GO STONES

Recently,I was lucky to see a set of go stones made in the Ding Kiln of the Northern Song Dynasty,The ceramic go stones feel so delicate and glossy as if the black ones were like lacquer and white ones like jade.     

Zhang Lanlan: Devoting Youthful Years to Tea Industry

For a tea company, staff mem- bers of its purchase depart- ment are absolutely the busiestwhen spring tea comes to season. They travel from one tea plantation to another, purchasing fresh tea and managing quality control. Ms. Zhang Lanlan, purchasing manager of Bei- jing Wuyutai Co., Ltd., showed me a list of green tea that Wuyutai would purchase for its Beijing shops in the spring season, when she shared with me her experience and channels for tea purchase.     

Constant Learning Makes Perfect An interview with Sun Qian,Wuyutai＇s manager of R＆D and Quality Control

The Processing and Logistic Center of Beijing Wuyutai Tea Co., Ltd., located in Changping,a suburban district of Beijing, has a different look from its traditional-style tea outlets. Black and white platforms are placed in a parallel manner in its quality control lab. While staffs pick tea samples and test dry tea leaves from the black platforms,     

China National Tea Museum

Walking along the West Lake, unwittingly I was already in the heart of the hometown of tea - Shuangfeng （double peaks）, Glowing rays shone over rounding ranges of hills, fragrance of tea leaves permeated, and fresh springs wound through valleys, I realized that I had been in China National Tea Museum, a retreat from the hurly-burly of metropolitans.     

A Way of Life

"Life is like a card game: the cards you get are a matter of chance; how you play them is up to you." Philosophers and artists all over the world have produced thousands of analogies about the puzzles of life, but this epigram by Indian politician Nehru is especially noteworthy. Eventually, the cards in my hands will be played out. There is one card - life - that will be taken away without warning. Fortunately, it is still in my hands, and I am searching for the best way to play it. I will do so freely and handsomely; meanwhile, I'd like to share my pleasures with those who appreciate my game. This game needs a plan, as well as some dedication.- from Life is a Game by Fu Weici     

Century-old Tea Brand Projects New Image

Wuyutai, a century-old tea brand name, started its business with the sale of jasmine tea and over years, its business scope has been widely developed to include a variety of tea types. In particular, in the recent years, it has evolved into a group corporation through intensified tea processing, chain-store operation and opening flagship stores with cultural elements, witnessing an annual sales volume of up to 600 million RMB yuan （approx. 90 million USD）.     

Liukeng:A Village of Great Antiquity

Liukeng is an old village situated on a green hills-surrounded basin land in the southwest of Le'an County, Jiangxi Province. The Wujiang River meanders through it and stretches all the way to join the Ganjiang River, the province's mother river. With an area of about 3.6 square kilometers, the village is where some 4,000 people surnamed Dong currently live and prosper.     

Ancient Tea Mountains in Xishuangbanna

Pu＇er tea became famous as early as in the Ming and Qing dynasties, Famous tea mountains producing Pu＇er tea are Ioacated in Xishuangbanna, a subtropical area in the southern part of Yunnan Province, including Yiwu, Yibang, Jinuo, Gedeng, Manzhuan and Mansa. The tea produced from these six tea plantations have been widely drunk by herdsmen living in plateau areas in Tibet, Qinghai and Mongolia since the Tang Dynasty. For example, the butter tea popular among Tibetan people is made with tea bricks or cakes processed from tea leaves growing in Yunnan. And the reads for the transport of tea by horse caravans are well known as ＂ancient tea routes＂.     

Shaoxing East Lake： A Miniature Landscape

The East Lake is situated five kilometers to the east of the historic city of Shaoxing. With a wonderful combination of a hill, grottoes and stone bridges, it might pass for a miniature landscape. On a par with the West Lake in Hangzhou and the South Lake in Jiaxing, it is one of the three most famous lakes in southeast Zhejiang Province. Although it is quite small, its delicacy and elegance rank it among the best resorts in Shaoxing.