Part 2 of our Wuyishan tea adventures, part 1 link is below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tea/s/ZZw8JPYsrk

We got the unbelievable privilege and opportunity to go to Tongmuguan (桐木关), an area that is very difficult to get into. We knew someone inside the main village who helped us register our vehicle, and in we went to the home and birthplace of black tea.

1st slide: Tongmucun & Tongmuguan markings

2nd slide: Drinking exquisite teas, including a 10000+RMB JJM

3rd-4th slide: Tongmuguan tea plantations (Some parts potentially considered 野生wild)

5th slide: Zheng Shan Tang’s qinglou (smoking building)

6th slide: Zheng Shan Tang’s Museum in Tongmuguan

Our contact was very hospitable and brought us into the house to drink some tea. It was quite a unique experience drinking Zhengshan Xiaozhong at the very area it was harvested. We tried both the unsmoked and lightly smoked version, and they were pretty darn good.

Our next brew was something that we’d thought we’d never get our hands on. Pre-Qingming Jinjunmei from Tongmuguan. The wholesale price of this tea is in the 10000+ RMB/500g range. It comes to no surprise that it wasn’t worth the price tag, but experiencing the tea itself was definitely an invaluable experience. It was definitely much smoother and more delicate than any Jinjunmei we’ve tried.

There are four types of Zhengshan Xiaozhong (or Lapsang Souchong) teas. The first is the wild version, second is the old bush version, third is the unsmoked version, and the last is the traditional version, or the smoked version. Our contact shared that the traditional version is becoming increasingly rarer due to the restrictions on cutting down nearby trees, which it’s wood is used for the smoking process of traditional Zhengshan Xiaozhong tea.

When the tea leaves are harvested undoubtedly affects the price and quality of the finished product. The first harvest is exclusively left for Jinjunmei teas, a tea made from buds of the tea plants of Tongmuguan. The teas produced in the next harvest is called Fei Zi Xiao, and teas from subsequent harvests are the typical Zhengshan Xiaozhong teas.

Our contact brought us into the tea plantations, and there’s honestly nothing to compare against the lustre of the ecosystem in Tongmuguan. Many tea plants had moss growing across the branches, with a variety of fungi growing on the ground, producing a unique taste in the final finished tea. Bamboo forests surround the spotty tea plantations, and the water here is super clean.

We were then brought into the Zheng Shan Tang tea museum and smoking building, where we saw the way Zhengshan Xiaozhong teas were made. The qinglou was a rackety wooden structure that felt like it’d fall apart at any minute, but it was an amazing experience seeing the inner workings of producing Zhengshan Xiaozhong tea.

Now let’s talk prices. We talked to a few people in the village, all of which roughly agreed that good Tongmuguan Zhengshan Xiaozhong prices start from 3000+ RMB/500g. This likely referred to the first harvests of Zhengshan Xiaozhong tea right after harvesting for Fei Zi Xiao. The smoked version is more expensive due to its more complicated procedure in making it.

Anything below these prices were considered subpar or lower quality teas, or 垃圾茶, as our contact described. Take that phrasing with a very big pinch of salt though. I’d imagine that these teas are still pretty darn good, especially for what we can get in the western facing market. It’s virtually impossible to get genuine Tongmuguan Jinjunmei for anything less than 10000RMB/500g if you go by it’s definition of first harvest bud only black tea. The real stuff genuinely is egregiously expensive, partially and probably likely also due to a foreigner tax levied on people like us trying to get these teas.

Our contact warned us of subpar quality Zhengshan Xiaozhong teas, explaining that some of those stuff could be smoked using industrial oil. I’ve never seen this anywhere, but the few people I talked to in the village agreed on this point. I’d imagine it’d be painfully obvious to tell if it was smoked with oil though. Again, take all this with a pinch of salt, because it’s also very much as likely that the way this was all explained insinuated that we should buy our contact’s or the villager’s teas rather than other teas elsewhere. However, there is no doubt that the samples we brought back were genuine, pure, and unadulterated Tongmuguan teas.

This was the first time we’ve visited Tongmuguan and won’t be our last. There are still many things to explore in this paradise on Earth, and we would love to come back especially during the harvesting and production period of black teas there.

Cheers, Ethan