Tea pickers plucking leaves in a tea garden on Wuyi Mountain, Fujian.
On November 29, “Traditional Chinese Tea-Making Techniques and Related Customs,” nominated by China, 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. With this, China has 43 items on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage lists, ranking first in the world.
Nomination film by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. (Video omitted)
“Traditional Chinese Tea-Making Techniques and Related Customs” comprises the knowledge, skills and practices concerning tea garden management, tea picking, hand-processing of tea, and the drinking and sharing of tea.
Since ancient times, the Chinese have grown, picked, made and drunk tea. Drawing on local terroir and applying core techniques—fixation, yellowing, pile-fermentation, withering, zuoqing, fermentation and scenting—tea masters developed the six great categories of green, yellow, dark, white, oolong and black teas, along with reprocessed teas such as scented flower teas: more than 2,000 tea products for people to drink and share. Different customs formed around them, passed down through generations and running to this day through the daily life, rituals and festivals of the Chinese people.
Traditional tea-making techniques are concentrated mainly in the four great tea regions—Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Southwest and South China—south of the Qinling-Huaihe line and east of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and related customs are widely distributed across the country, shared by many ethnic groups. Via the Silk Road, the Tea Horse Road and the Ten-Thousand-Li Tea Road, tea has traversed history and crossed borders, deeply loved by peoples around the world; it has become an important medium of mutual knowledge and exchange between China and the world, and between Chinese civilization and other civilizations—a common treasure of human civilization.
Mature and well-developed traditional tea-making techniques and their extensive, deep social practice embody the creativity and cultural diversity of the Chinese nation and convey the ideal of “harmony through tea,” inclusive and all-embracing. Through making, brewing and tasting tea, the Chinese have cultivated a peaceful and inclusive mindset, formed a reserved and modest character, and elevated their spiritual state and moral cultivation.
The drinking and sharing of tea is an important way people communicate; tea-related customs such as greeting guests with tea and according precedence to elders manifest the humanistic spirit of humility, harmony, courtesy and respect.
Spurred and promoted by tea culture, China’s tea industry has developed rapidly and tea technology steadily improved. The great undertaking of tea culture, tea industry and tea technology also plays a positive role in providing sustainable livelihoods, advancing gender equality, promoting rural revitalization, protecting terrestrial ecosystems, and driving sustainable social, economic and environmental development.
The 44 projects associated with “Traditional Chinese Tea-Making Techniques and Related Customs” have all been inscribed on the national list of representative items of intangible cultural heritage approved and published by the State Council. To ensure the viability of this heritage element and strengthen its transmission, the relevant communities, groups and individuals established a safeguarding working group in December 2020 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; and establishing study bases, compiling popular readers, and organizing touring exhibitions to raise young people’s awareness of safeguarding.
At the same time, coordinated safeguarding actions are being implemented through strengthened identification and management, improved archiving, academic research, improved collaborative safeguarding mechanisms, maintenance of practice venues, and publicity activities of many forms. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the relevant local governments will actively support the communities, groups and individuals in implementing this series of safeguarding measures, ensuring the transmission and practice of this heritage element.
(Text, images and video produced by: China Cooperation Times · Tea Weekly All Media
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Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
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