【推荐1】Along with firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, tea is included among the seven necessities for life in China. Now, it has also been considered as a shared cultural treasure of the world. On Nov. 29th, Chinese traditional tea processing skills were added to the UNESCO cultural heritage (非物质文化遗产) list. Since ancient times, Chinese people have been planting, picking, making and drinking tea.

More importantly, China’s tea culture has formed Chinese customs. It is Chinese traditional custom that a host should welcome visiting guests with boiled tea. A poem by Song poet Du Lei reads, “I offer tea, not wine, to a guest on a cold night. When water boils on the stove, fire burns with flame bright”.

Boiling tea is one of the oldest Chinese tea brewing methods (方法), dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618—907). Tea leaves were boiled for a long time and sometimes they were cooked together with different fruits. People can enjoy a quiet time by doing that. Later in the Ming Dynasty (1368—1644), a faster and more convenient method become more popular steeping (冲泡).

▲ On the app Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book, there are over 40,000 posts on the topic of “stove-boiled tea” (围炉煮茶). People sit around the stove in a natural setting and have snacks with their hot tea. Some also wear traditional hanfu as if it could take them back to those ancient times. Through “stove-boiled tea”, people can taste a slower life and find their inner peace. As is written in one Xiaohongshu post, “It is very relaxing to drink hot tea and chat with best friends.”

Wuyi Rock Tea is a kind of Oolong tea. The tea trees grow on rock cracks (岩缝) in Wuyi Mountain in Fujian. That’s why it’s called rock tea.

Wuyi Rock Tea is famous for its rich smell. It has a fruity, floral (花香的) and even mineral (矿物质的) smell. The best kind is Dahongpao.

With its long history, Wuyi Rock Tea dates back to the Shang Dynasty (16th century — 11th century BC). People used to send it to the emperor (皇帝) as a gift. In 2006, the skills of making Wuyi Rock Tea were added to China’s national intangible cultural heritage list (非物质文化遗产名录). In March 2021, President Xi Jinping visited a tea garden in Wuyi Mountain.

Zhang Huichun, 65, is a master of making Wuyi Rock Tea. In 1980, he learned to make the tea and opened a tea factory. It took him 10 years to learn the skills.

There are 13 steps to make it. Drying, shaking and roasting (焙火) are three of them. When Zhang shakes tea leaves, he has to decide when to stop by looking at the color. “From shaking a few times to hundreds of times, only years of experience can help you find it out,” Zhang said.

The last step — roasting — is also important. It often takes more than 20 hours! “Every 50 minutes, you have to turn over the leaves, or it might burn (烧焦),” Zhang said. He often stays up late to roast the tea.

Although already good at it, Zhang said he is still learning. “Every step is full of changes — different tea trees and weather. Every time is an adventure (冒险).”

To help more tea makers, Zhang often works with schools to teach the skills. “It’s my responsibility (责任) to pass on the skills,” he said.

“No building comes without carvings (雕刻), and carvings make buildings more valuable,” goes an old saying in Minnan, an area in southern Fujian Province. The saying refers to brick (砖) carvings, which were an important feature of the old red brick buildings in the area.

Wu Jiandong, a young master brick carver from Fujian’s Quanzhou City, became worried when he discovered that this tradition was disappearing. The carvings were once commonly found on either side of the main entrance of Minnan’s buildings, but with development, the number of ancient red brick buildings has decreased, causing Minnan’s brick carvings have gradually been out of sight.

The 42-year-old has learned the traditional technique and decided to combine it with modern tastes to develop his own style of brick carving. Wu said that he hoped to be able to help the traditional art form continue through innovation (创新).

People in Minnan love tea, so Wu created a series of carved brick tea decorations, including tea plates, cup holders, pot holders and other items. They have been warmly received by local people and foreign visitors.

Earlier this year, an art piece with a swallow tail ridge (燕尾形屋脊) and a bright moon was bought by an overseas Chinese man from the Philippines. The customer told Wu that he would hang the pendant in his office as a reminder of the buildings and the moon of his hometown.

Wu’s works are now more popular among people, and this helps him to pass down the tradition and further develop his pieces, and the popularity of short videos has also given him new hopes of promoting (推广) Minnan brick carvings.

Recently, he has designed a DIY brick carving experience box called Wei Yu Huan Xi (or “Only You are Happy”). “I hope that more young people will make their own pieces with the knife and red brick in the box, and enjoy a sense of achievement through my video,” Wu said.