Several young women performed the final, tedious step: picking out by hand the dried stems and some of the leaves, those with a light straw color amidst the almost black majority. With a smile, one showed me in the morning light how the properly finished tea has the shape of a wu lung (oolong), a black dragon.
I had breakfast with the owner of the factory in a dark, slightly smoky basement kitchen. Seated at a round wooden table with a tiny dog underfoot, we ate congee, a steaming rice porridge enlivened by spicy, salty bits of dried fish, tiny shrimp, and hot pickled vegetables. It was a long, leisurely meal, its menu not altered for my benefit, and the sincerity of my welcome was plain.
And then came the tea, a traditional Wuyi oolong. Gazing into the cup in my hands, I realized that the partially fermented tea I was about to drink was in fact the grandchild of the vaunted bohea, the very tea that Fortune had gone to such extremes to find. The liquor in my cup was a golden color, more like ale than either green or black tea. Its nose was distinctively floral and fruity, with the predominant scent of stone fruits—of peaches and plums and apricots. It tasted smooth, nutty, and slightly malty. I sipped, and sitting there in the kitchen of that Chinese craftsman, I understood how a beverage brewed from the leaves of shrubs growing among those nearby misty cliffs could invigorate the culture of a powerful island nation halfway around the globe and, in the process, change the world.
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