Photo: In the winter month of the Renyin year, a fragrant cup of Chinese tea captured the world’s attention.
On the evening of November 29, Beijing time, “Traditional Chinese Tea-Making Techniques and Related Customs” passed review at the 17th session of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, held in Rabat, Morocco, and was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
When the news arrived, people in the homeland of tea cheered and rejoiced. Around this successful World Heritage nomination, a Xinhua News Agency reporter interviewed Wang Chenyang, director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, at the first opportunity. The interview follows.
An important contribution of Chinese civilization to humanity’s cultural diversity
Q: Please speak about the significance of this successful World Heritage inscription.
A: The successful inscription of traditional Chinese tea-making techniques and related customs once again demonstrates Chinese civilization’s important contribution to the cultural diversity of humanity; we are tremendously exhilarated.
Since the 18th Party Congress, the Party Central Committee, with the General Secretary at its core, has attached great importance to intangible heritage safeguarding, making a series of major decisions and arrangements that have brought ICH safeguarding to an unprecedentedly favorable situation and into a new stage of systematic protection. The General Secretary has attached great importance to the protection, inheritance and development of tea culture: while inspecting in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, he watched the hand-firing craft of Longjing tea and encouraged everyone to pass on intangible cultural heritage such as traditional handicrafts; in his letter congratulating the first “International Tea Day,” he stated that China stands ready to work with all parties to promote the sustained and healthy development of the global tea industry, deepen the mutual exchange of tea cultures, let more people know and love tea, and share in the fragrance of tea and the beauty of life.
Today, China ranks among the world leaders in tea planting area, the number of people engaged in tea, tea output and output value. Customs of growing, making and drinking tea are widely distributed across the country and enjoyed by all regions and ethnic groups; Chinese sons and daughters at home and abroad are all inheritors of tea culture, practicing the Chinese nation’s views of the cosmos, the world, society and morality in daily life without even noticing. Through trade and people-to-people exchange, Chinese tea culture has also spread widely around the world.
Tea culture is deeply woven into Chinese life
Q: What is the essence of the element “Traditional Chinese Tea-Making Techniques and Related Customs”?
A: Tea rose in the Tang and flourished in the Song. “For the people, tea ranks with rice and salt—not a day without it.” China was the first country in the world to plant tea trees and make tea; tea culture is deeply woven into Chinese life and has become an important vehicle for transmitting Chinese culture.
Traditional Chinese tea-making techniques and related customs comprise the knowledge, skills and practices concerning tea garden management, tea picking, hand-processing of tea, and the drinking and sharing of tea. Tea farmers plant and manage gardens according to natural laws and experience handed down through generations; tea pickers pluck and sort the leaves; tea masters use fixation, yellowing, pile-fermentation, withering, zuoqing, fermentation and scenting to produce green, yellow, dark, white, oolong and black teas as well as scented teas. Customs of drinking and offering tea in daily life, rituals and festivals have been passed down generation after generation, and activities such as tea tasting, tea competitions and tea appraisal have become local folk traditions in many regions. These activities are vivid testimony to exchange, interaction and integration among ethnic groups, and have played an important role in forging the consciousness of the Chinese national community.
Traditional Chinese tea-making techniques and related customs involve 44 national-level projects across 15 provinces (regions and municipalities); the nomination received an enthusiastic response and broad participation from the inheriting communities. The element possesses a systematic body of knowledge, broad social practice, mature traditional crafts and rich hand-made products, embodying the values of humility, harmony, courtesy and respect held by the Chinese people, exerting a profound influence on moral cultivation and character formation, promoting exchange and mutual learning among world civilizations through the Silk Road, and playing an important role in the sustainable development of human society.
Everyone can be an inheritor of tea culture
Q: How are the safeguarding and transmission of this element currently being carried out?
A: At present, the knowledge and skills related to this element are transmitted mainly through traditional channels—family transmission, master-apprentice transmission and community transmission—and are increasingly integrated with formal education. For example, the Anxi Tieguanyin making technique has been passed down through 13 generations of the Wang family in Anxi County, Fujian; Wang Chang, a representative inheritor of the Qimen black tea making technique in Anhui, has taken 17 apprentices in the past five years.
More people participate in transmission through family and community activities: in the family, customs such as drinking and offering tea are taught by elders to the next generation; in communities, the experience of organizing rituals and the knowledge of their forms are passed down intergenerationally by elders through word and example. Every one of us can be an inheritor of tea culture.
At present, more than 40 secondary vocational schools and more than 80 higher education institutions in China offer tea science and tea culture programs, training over 3,000 specialized professionals a year in tea making, tea art and related fields; a number of representative inheritors have entered schools to teach their crafts.
Telling China’s ICH stories well in the new era
Q: Going forward, how can Chinese tea be presented and interpreted in an even more compelling way?
A: This successful inscription is a new opportunity for us to advance the safeguarding and transmission of tea culture and to share China’s ICH safeguarding achievements with the world.
To strengthen transmission vitality, the relevant communities, groups and individuals established a safeguarding working group and jointly drew up the “Five-Year Safeguarding Plan for Traditional Chinese Tea-Making Techniques and Related Customs (2021-2025)”: encouraging inheritors to take apprentices and pass on their skills in traditional ways; training specialized talent through secondary and higher vocational colleges to consolidate intergenerational transmission; holding safeguarding and transmission training classes to build capacity; establishing study bases, compiling popular readers, and organizing touring exhibitions to raise young people’s awareness of safeguarding. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the relevant local governments actively support the communities, groups and individuals in implementing this series of safeguarding measures, ensuring the transmission and practice of this heritage element.
To date, including traditional Chinese tea-making techniques and related customs, China has 43 ICH elements inscribed on UNESCO’s intangible heritage lists, ranking first in the world. Under the framework of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, we have established an ICH safeguarding system with Chinese characteristics, providing Chinese experience and contributing Chinese wisdom to international ICH safeguarding.
Going forward, we will continuously strengthen our historical consciousness and cultural confidence, do ICH safeguarding and transmission work from the height of building cultural confidence and strength, tell China’s ICH stories well in the new era, and help Chinese culture reach the world ever better.
Xu Zhuang,
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Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
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