What does Guoyoulin mean?
Types of tea trees in Yiwu area
- Taidicha (plantation tea) Tea grown in terraces or tight rows. The bushes are tightly packed in rows to allow for the maximum production of tea leaves for the area. This method of planting requires agrochemicals since there is no natural fertilisation and clonal planting renders the tea trees susceptible to insect infestation
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Xiao Shu - (small trees) More recently planted, especially since the 80’s where there were government incentives to increase the production of Yiwu teas. This boomed since the mid-2000’s when puerh tea became more expensive and planting of seedlings began in ernest. These tend to have more spacing between trees than taidicha, but perhaps less monoclonal than plantation tea.
These can both be grown within the guoyoulin areas and outside. The quality of the environment is generally better within the guoyoulin areas and will generally produce better tea.
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Small Trees <20 years old near Leng Shui He
- Da Shu - (big trees) Not necessarily very old, but which have grown to a large size. These tend to be trees which have thin trunks but have grown high since they haven’t been pollarded or pruned to keep them low. Characterised by thin and tall trunks. In more recent years some of these are marketed as Xiao Gaogan (small pole trees)
"Big trees", young but growing tall near Guafengzhai
- Jia Bian Gushu (ancient trees close to the village) These tend to have been pollarded or coppiced at some point. In the early 80's as there was more demand from tea factories, the ancient trees close to the major villages were mostly cut short to increase yield. The age of these ancient trees can be ascertained from the abnormally thick trunks at ground level compared to the size of the bushes.
Jibian Gushu near DaQiShu Village
- Guoyoulin (protected forest) These are trees that are growing in the protected forest areas. The exact history of these gardens seems to be unknown, but that they were planted sometime in the past around small settlements. The age of the ancient trees in different guoyoulin gardens seems to be approximately similar, but many have been coppiced in the past - perhaps by fire or perhaps it was more convenient to use the land to grow crops. Many of these ancient trees have grown up from these thick stumps, with several trunks emerging from a single root base. There are also smaller trees which seem to have grown from seed or from planting in more modern times.
Ancient trees in Leng Shui He (notice the tea picker for scale)
- Gaogan (tall pole trees) Trees that grow up tall and straight. This happens in the forest areas where trees grow straight and tall to seek the light from the canopy. Around Yiwu these are generally in the protected forest areas and can often be ancient trees (although people have begun calling some younger tall trees “Xiao Gaogan” (Small Gaogan) in order to sell for higher price). As might be expected, it’s the older trees with thicker trunks and deeper root systems which are more sought after and seem to produce better tea. There are also tall thin trees in the JiaBian (beside the village) areas which weren’t coppiced (perhaps they were missed or the farmers were lazy to cut them short at the time). These tall trees are also singled out and harvested as “gaogan”.
- Danzhu (single tree) This can be the harvesting of any single tree from the preceding categories, though in practice the tree needs to be big enough that there are enough leaves to for a wok of shaqing, generally at least 3kg of fresh leaves but ideally 5kg or more. The fresh leaves are difficult to process properly if there are too few leaves in the wok. It tends to be the bigger trees in the Gaogan or Guoyoulin categories which are singled out for processing individually and sold at a higher price.
Yiwu has been a source of high quality tea for centuries, but in more recent times as puerh become more popular in the mid 2000’s, there has been more focus on the forest areas. Abandoned tea gardens in the protected forest areas became more sought after as traders focused on older trees and more pristine forest environments. These forest gardens tended to be around minority settlements in the forest. Since the tea was becoming expensive and these gardens were in the forest belonging to the country (i.e. no-one in particular), there were fights between villages and many disagreements between villagers and villages. In the mid 2000’s the local government stepped in, assigning the rights to look after specific areas to particular villages and specific farmers. This led to some tea gardens such as BaiChaYuan and Fenghuangwo being managed and harvested by villagers from Yaozu DingJiaZhai instead of Guafengzhai. These are just examples, though there were many other reassignments on smaller scales. Although this government intervention hasn’t stopped there being theft of leaves from trees managed by other villages, it made the legal situation more clear with legal resolution possible amongst farmers.
In the mid-2000’s to mid-2010’s there was a prevalence of illegally cutting trees in the forest, both to plant seedlings and open up new tea gardens in this sought after forest environment. Cutting down shade trees allowed the tea gardens to receive more sunlight. There were also unfortunate cases of people cutting down tea trees which they didn’t own, so that they could quickly gather the fresh leaves without having to climb the tall trees to harvest them. This was obviously a short sighted and wasteful practice. In the early-mid 2010’s the local government and forestry service stepped in, imposing harsh fines and jail sentences on those clearing forest areas and cutting down trees.
Today deforestation in the protected forest is quite tightly controlled, and although it would be naive to suggest that it doesn’t happen at all in these remote areas, the prevalence of these kinds of activities has been reduced a lot.
