Origin of Lapsang Souchong
The origin of Lapsang Souchong black tea dates back to the Ming Dynasty, during Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, who transitioned from making "Dragon Phoenix Ball Tea" to "loose tea," which led to a decline in tea quality. To revive the tea industry, techniques for making green tea were introduced from Anhui. An accidental full fermentation process was discovered, leading to the creation of black tea. This was a result of tea leaves fermenting too long when a military troop passing through delayed the drying process, inadvertently creating the smoky-flavored Lapsang Souchong.
Tongmu Pass in Wuyi Mountain, Fujian, was an important pass and a vital route for incoming traffic from other provinces. Therefore, it was often occupied by troops. In the fourth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1568), when the spring tea season was at its peak, a Mr. Jiang, a tea farmer in Tongmu Pass, had just picked a batch of green tea and was about to start processing when suddenly a troop passed through Tongmu Pass from Jiangxi to Fujian. The troops occupied the tea factory of Mr. Jiang and took a temporary rest. The soldiers placed their equipment on the green tea, and some even slept on it.
After the troops left, Mr. Jiang quickly returned home and saw that the green tea he had left to process had been over-fermented and had turned red. He was extremely worried and anxious. In order to mitigate his losses, he immediately organized his family members to roll and dry the already fermented red tea leaves. To save time and prevent further fermentation and redness, he used locally abundant and easily combustible pine branches to directly heat and dry the tea leaves. This pine branch was different from what people usually used for roasting tea leaves.
Unexpectedly, this accidental action, originally intended to mitigate losses, led to the emergence of a new type of tea with a strong, rich smoke flavor and a sweet aroma reminiscent of lychee. This was the earliest recorded black tea in history and also the famous Lapsang Souchong that has since become famous around the world.
When this new type of black tea was produced, Mr. Jiang took it 45 kilometers away to the largest tea market at that time, "Xingcun", to sell it. At that time, people generally preferred to drink green tea, so they were not interested in this strange-smelling black tea with a pine-like aroma, let alone accept it. Only a small number of local merchants who were curious about it purchased some at low prices. However, this black tea quickly gained recognition from foreign merchants. The following year, many foreign merchants purchased it at high prices in large quantities. As a result, this fully fermented tea quickly became popular in the area and ultimately spread to the West through missionaries. It was exported to Europe for sale in 1610 by the Dutch and became popular in Europe and America in 1640 when it was first introduced to Britain.
