Cloud tea is like life; life is learning, wisdom is cultivation.
I have drunk countless cups of Yunnan tea in my life and walked through countless tea mountains. Whenever I stand in an emerald tea garden, looking at the neatly aligned rows of tea trees, I always think of one man — Mr. Xiao Shiying. Without him, the Yunnan tea we drink today would probably look entirely different.
Xiao Shiying was born in 1933 in Xinhua County, Hunan. After graduating from the tea science program at Wuhan University in 1953, he and his classmate Zhang Mulan voluntarily applied for assignment to Yunnan and were posted to the Menghai Tea Experimental Station — then Yunnan’s only tea research institution. Upon first arriving in Yunnan, he was captivated by the marvel of the large-leaf variety: its leaves are several times larger than those of the small-leaf varieties of inland China, and its buds are two or three buds big. It was this wondrous large leaf that made him resolve to devote his life to its study, a calling to which he gave more than sixty years of heartfelt effort. I often think that the breadth of vision and aspiration of that generation is truly admirable — graduates of a big-city university who plunged without hesitation into the tea mountains of the frontier.
I once watched old tea farmers on the tea mountains taking cuttings of tea branches; the survival rate was extremely low, and two or three surviving out of ten already counted as lucky. This was precisely the problem Xiao Shiying faced. After years of experimentation, he successfully developed a new cutting method called “raising seedlings from seedlings,” raising the survival rate of Yunnan large-leaf cuttings to over 80 percent. This breakthrough was a milestone — before it, there was no truly modern tea garden anywhere in the country. The success of the “raising seedlings from seedlings” technique made it possible to promote terraced tea cultivation on a large scale and laid the technical foundation for the construction of modern tea gardens in Yunnan.
Over more than sixty years of unremitting effort, Xiao Shiying successively bred a number of new clonal tea cultivars, including “Yunkang No. 10,” “Xueya No. 100,” “Aifeng,” “Yunmei,” “Yungui,” and “Mulan No. 1.” Among them, “Yunkang No. 10” was approved as a national-grade cultivar in 1987 and has since become the most widely planted clonal tea cultivar in Yunnan’s tea regions. I have brewed tea made from Yunkang No. 10: the liquor is bright, the aroma clear and elegant, the taste mellow on the palate, with a long, lingering sweetness. From a tasting perspective, the buds and leaves of clonal cultivars are rich in intrinsic substances, with a well-balanced ratio of amino acids to tea polyphenols; drunk over the long term, the flavor is mellow and pleasant — an excellent choice for everyday enjoyment. Good tea never fears tasting; a fine cultivar has a flavor all its own.
Tea has grades high and low, but everyone may enjoy it regardless of status. Mr. Xiao Shiying spent his whole life rooted in the frontier, seeking neither fame nor gain — only that leaf. He often said: “Only by understanding the past and the present can we open up the future of Yunnan’s tea industry. We must both apply and introduce the achievements of modern science and technology, and inherit and carry forward traditional technical experience.” Such breadth of mind is more precious than any famous tea. He also emphasized: “The natural quality of Yunnan’s large-leaf tea creates the outstanding quality of Pu-erh tea, and the fine local tea cultivars of each tea region have produced famous Pu-erh teas with distinctive local character. Pu-erh tea is very particular about tea cultivars.” I could not agree more. Every time I taste teas from different producing regions, I can feel the subtle differences the cultivars bring — a dialogue between terroir and lineage.
On August 16, 2022, Mr. Xiao Shiying passed away in Pu-erh City at the age of ninety-one. His life — rooted in the frontier, given in quiet dedication — embodied the craftsman spirit of “choosing one calling and devoting a lifetime to it.” Now, whenever I lift my teacup and see that emerald liquor, I feel that Mr. Xiao has never left — he lives on in every tea tree, in every cup of tea.
Making friends through tea — please, have a cup.
Author: Lam Sam (LamSam), the Old Tea Head
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