This is the first post of China tea sourcing story series which reveals the real man real tea real realtionship and how real really lucky to meet one excellent tea. Yes tea can be a commodity, what you need is just go to the auction room and raise your offer. Meanwhile tea can be an art work, this means it needs some inspiration and luck. Besides China is big and there are so many different tea in China, that is impossible to make all teas by ourself, so it makes tea sourcing kind of like explorer’s work.
It’s night time, on the table, there are one Yixing teapot, one white ceramic Gaiwan and one cup, the kettle is boiling, before pouring I have a deep smell of tea. Wow so nice aroma, it is Dan Cong which I just found last week and finished roating yesterday. I am satisfied even not taste it yet.
This Duck Shit Dan Cong Oolong tea comes from Pinghe county, Zhangzhou city of Fujian Province. It’s plucked on October 25, 2025.
Why should I care about this tea? There are so many Dan Cong out there even organic certified.
It is a very good question, we have many Dan Cong teas but this one gets me exciting, because it is wild. No pesticide, no fertilizer, no weeding, just let it go. It’s overgrown with reed, rabits and other small animals are the citizen not humans. If you get in there, somewhat you will be threatened as the bird’s nest is somewhere. This is the wild community of tea plants.
Quality comes from compassion
In modern planting, eveything is analysed which reveals what nutritional composition needed, nitrogen or ammonia, seems one can live indepently, actually what’s more important is the relationship, without relative, there is no absolute. The tea plant, weeds, animals, they power each other.
The farmer who produce this tea, Mr. Zeng Xi Chong (aka Z) was a common farmer until one day his nephew became monk and introduced his master to him, the masterneeded a clean tea garden to make tea and Z accepted the advice to let the tea grown natually along with others.
For the 1st year, there was no output, it’s totally destroyed by insects but they were still alive. The 2nd year was still disturbing though some complete leaves found, Z also followed master’s advice to quit smoking and never go back. The 3rd year was a reborn, he was moved by so many complete leaves standing there, pests were not that bad guy any more, emotions can sometimes be more nourishing than rain and dew.
Sourcing maze
In the real world, direct might not be the way to get things done, tea sourcing sometimes shares the same rule, how I found this Duckshit Dan Cong is a good example.
Farmer Z was not my friend at the beginning, even I didn’t know him, the most surprising part is I was not looking for Duckshit Dan Cong, as you might know Duckshit Dan Cong or Phoenix Mountain Dan Cong mostly comes from Phoenix Mountain of Chao Zhou city, Guangdong Province, and here is another different province, they are hundred miles away. So what did I look for?
Bai Ya Qi Lan aka Morning Champagne Oolong tea, that’s what I looked for, it’s a famouse Southern Fujian style Oolong tea originated from Pinghe county, or more specificly from two towns:
- Qi Ling town 崎岭乡
- Jiu Feng town 九峰镇
I have many contacts here even I am friend of founder of this cultivar, I know this tea could be very special as I ever met, but good tea with high price is not that appealing to me, not easy but also not that difficult, I personally ever made that kind of tea, very small quantity, right weather with right plucker and whole day and night just focuse on this one tea making, you have very big possibilty to get excellent tea if you are an experienced tea maker.
Then what’s sexy?
Good tea, low price, that’s sexy. For over 10 years I always have a gut this can be fullfilled here based on three reasons:
- It’s not famous from a national perspective.
- Pinghe county used to be an important tea export base.
- Varity Bai Ya Qi Lan is kind of spicy.
Not famous means its price has no bubble, old exporting base means there are a lot of experienced tea producer. So when I cup tea with my friend Mr. Soup in the warehouse, I asked him to find me some samples as I knew he has many classmates from the tea school in Pinghe, also the hometown of his wife is there too.
Mr. Soup and I have been friend for almost 20 years, for the last two years, I was not happy with the samples received but in 2025 July, I found one has the clear character I want, so I placed a 100kg trial order immediately and waited for the arriving.
After about one week, Mr. Soup told me it’s screwed up as the roasting did not go that well. So I decided to take a visit and asked Mr. Soup to go with me, though Mr. Soup was kind of busy and suggested I visit it directly, I insisted to wait till several weeks later he had time.
5am of October 29, we went off Xiamen and headed to Pinghe. The people we gonna visit is sister of Mr. Soup’s classmate, his classmate is not in tea industry anymore.
We arrived at about 8:30am, it’s still kind of eary and the sister’s parents were not up yet, so we moved to her cousin’s house for tea cupping, her cousin is Mr. Z.
She prepared three teas for cupping, different roasting level, low medium and high, we figured out high roasting was the style I want but still that was not the tea I look for, we exchanged ideas and finally understood what I was looking for was tradtional tea, not the common new fashinal tea made by most farmers. Speaking in tea language, it’s harder Sun Withering and Shaking thus end with higher oxidization.
After all cleared, I introduced myself a bit more and expressed my interest of clean tea, the sister mentioned Mr. Z had something special, so keepped asking and digging, finally we tried another four special teas including that Duckshit Dan Cong.
Is 10% commission expensive?
Mr. Soup tole me no need to give him anything, he meaned it I knew but I insisted to pay the commission. Cost is important but get it done smoothly is normally more important, some people has not noticed this, also there are marketing words to end consumers like “direct buying cut middle man” thus make it cheaper, these words works sometimes but not all the time. As we grown up in the real society, we will learn the followings gradually:
- Trust has the most value
- Getting done in time is sure better than miss
- Following the rule is important
- One time buying is more expensive than long term purchasing
Everything is smooth and as expected. Sure direct buying is another important option, I have posted some ways to do direct tea sourcing in China as followings:
So till now we have three kinds of EU/Pesticide Free Dan Cong:
- Wild as the one discussed here
- EU/USDA organic certified
- Well managed but not certified
What did I do on this tea?
So after taking it home, is it time to sell it? Nope, Dan Cong is famous for its powerful character but it will fade very quickly if no roasting applied, Mr. Z is not good at this roasting. So almost every morning I will show up in the warehouse to find the best roasting solution, also tried 4 kinds of roasting equipments:
- Electronic roaster
- Bamboo roaster
- Ceramic roaster
- Charcoal roasting
You might think charcoal roasting is the oldest and best, but Wuyi Rock tea roasting craft will decrease its aroma, I paid over one thousand dollars to find this truth. Finally I chose the new ceramic roaster with customized roasting craft.
Does this tea pay me back well?
No, surprisingly high end rare tea can not get me much money as the quantity is limited, also the people wanna to buy is limited too, but I have to pay much much more time than common good tea. What keep me going?
It’s happiness haha, pride also it can force me to push my limits, tea is a wonderful world or tea has many wonderful worlds, level by level, there is nothing better than finding a new world. Tea making is not a boring routin, there are so many possibilities, China has so many different tea cultivar, different region in different season with different people and equipment, be creative and smearing off the boundary of black tea, green tea etc, I asure you will get excited every day.