The Stories of Oolong Tea. Where the Black Dragon taking over your teacups.

"Oolong" tea is one of the most famous tea type in the world. It contains two chinese characters: "Oo" is for "烏", which means "Black", and "long" is for "龍", which means "Dragon". Therefore, some people also call oolong tea as black dragon tea.

There are a lot of different stories of how it got this name of "oolong". Some claim that it was named after a hunter lived in Fujian Province, Su long, whose nickname is oolong because of his dark skin. One day, Su Long went to the mountain to pick up some tea leaves. During his way to the mountain, he discovered a roe deer and decide to hunt it for feast. He chased after it and put up a huge effort to catch it. He took the deer home for a feast with his family and totally forgot the tea leaves he picked. On the next day when they try to process the tea leaves, they found out that those leaves had turned red and distribute a differently mild scent. Therefore, they named this new tea "Oolong".

Another story is about the shape and presentation of the oolong tea itself. After all the complicated processing of oolong tea, it becomes a dark and long narrow strip, shaping like a fish. In ancient Chinese legend, a fish (especially a carp) who has the strength and courage to swim up the waterfalls (dragon gate) will turn into a dragon. And when the tea leaves soak in the boiled water it strengthen up and curved like a black dragon. Therefore, this kind of tea is called "Oolong" tea. This story is also connected to the tribute tea (貢茶, which means tea that is cultivated and processed for the sole consumption of the emperor's family) system in ancient China. In 975A.D, the Northern Song Dynasty conquered the South Tang Dynasty and recovered the famous tea making location Beiyuan (北苑) in Fujian Province. In order to to distinguish the royal drink with general public, the emperor ordered Beiyuan to start making a special kind of tea cake named Dragon-Phenix Tea Cake (龍鳳團茶). This famous tea cake had been highly praised because of its delicate technique and difficulty to acquire. Many generals and government officials always claimed that it is more difficult to acquire a Dragon-Phenix Tea Cake than gold. This special tea cake has been the center of the tribute tea in Song Dynasty but gradually lost popularity by the war chaos in the end of the Song Dynasty and the following Yuan dynasty. Until 1391A.D, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty ordered to abolish the manufacturing of tea cake and embrace the loose leaf. It is believed that the Beiyuan Dragon-Phenix Tea Cake is the ancestor of oolong tea in the following Qing Dynasty.

The making of the oolong tea is a combination of green tea and black tea and it contains the advantages of both green tea and black tea. It has the bold and thick flavor of black tea, and at the same time owns the fragrant and freshness of green tea, therefore is very popular among tea lovers.