About a 90-minute drive from Changxing and after a 30-minute hike, you will find the mother bush of our best-selling green tea, Anji Bai Cha.
Anji Bai Cha has very light jade-colored leaves, which is why it is called “bai cha”—white tea. This tea has a very calming effect on the body and an invigorating effect on the brain, due to its high content of the amino acid L-theanine. This tea was the favorite of the emperor during the Song dynasty.
I was the first Westerner to visit the mother bush in 2009, and since then, it has been frequently visited by tea enthusiasts from around the world. The mother bush is cared for by Mrs. Pan.
Alexis and Mrs. Pan at the mother bush of Anji Bai Cha.
A half-hour drive from the mother bush, we find our tea garden owned by Mrs. Song, a very successful businesswoman. She is also the leader of the Communist Party in the area and helps women in the countryside start their own businesses and careers. We visited her in her new office and dined at her restaurant.
We were allowed to follow the tea pickers in the garden to see the standard of tea picking. Unfortunately, we inadvertently disrupted their work, as the sight of white people here is very rare. It turned out that all the tea pickers were equipped with mobile phones, and pictures were taken, compared, and sent to family and friends.
Finally, we were able to observe the processing process in the factory. After picking, the leaves are placed on bamboo trays to allow the cell walls to break down (withering) for a couple of hours. Then, the leaves are roasted and shaken at 300 degrees for 7 minutes. They rest for several minutes before being roasted and shaken very vigorously for another 7 minutes to shape them into the long needles they ultimately become and to remove the last moisture from the cell walls. This process helps to enhance the sweet amino acids in the tea. After that, the tea is baked at 160 degrees for 2 minutes, a process that is repeated before sorting and packaging.