How China Almost Lost Its Tea Tradition — And How It Came Back

By the mid-twentieth century, most people in Chinese cities drank one tea: cheap jasmine. Not by preference — by necessity. Yánchá (岩茶) from Wǔyí Shān, dāncōng (单枞) from Cháozhōu, tiě guānyīn (铁观音) from Ānxī — all of it had either vanished from shelves or been priced out of ordinary life. How did the world's richest tea culture come to the edge of extinction, and who kept it alive?

How Mao dismantled the tea industry

In 1949 the Communist Party nationalised tea production. Private gardens became state collectives; family workshops were absorbed into cooperatives. Prices were fixed: the state paid a single rate for tea regardless of quality. The incentive to invest in craftsmanship disappeared overnight.

Then came the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Tea was caught in the campaign against the "Four Olds" — old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits. Red Guards burned plantations, confiscated stocks, and closed teahouses that had been the centre of urban life for centuries. What remained was tea as a utility. Jasmine tea (茉莉花茶, mòlì huā chá) survived because it was cheap to produce and its floral scent masked low-grade leaf. For an entire generation, it became the default meaning of "Chinese tea."

The knowledge-holders — masters who understood Wǔyí terroir, who knew the fire-management of yánchá roasting — left. To Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand. With them went what cannot be written in a textbook.

Taiwan preserved what China destroyed

Refugees brought the Cháozhōu gōngfu chá (工夫茶) tradition to Taiwan — small pot, tiny cups, repeated short infusions. What happened next was unexpected.

In 1971 Taiwan was expelled from the United Nations, cutting off export markets. The tea industry turned inward, just as Taiwan's economic miracle was creating a new middle class with money and a search for cultural identity. Through the 1970s and 80s, Taiwanese enthusiasts developed 茶艺 (chá yì, Tea Art): Cháozhōu gōngfu technique blended with Japanese senchadō aesthetics, stripped of formality, made accessible. They deliberately chose the word art (艺) over way (道, dào) — to signal that this was for everyone.

The paradox: the culture Mao declared a relic was preserved on an island, refined, and became what the world now calls the Chinese tea ceremony.

The return

After Deng's reforms (1978), China reopened. In the 1980s Taiwan's Ten Ren Tea group entered the mainland, promoting gōngfu chá in Chinese cities. China was importing its own tea culture back — through Taiwan, where it had survived the revolution.

The first explosion was pǔ'ěr (普洱). In the late 1990s, Taiwanese and Hong Kong collectors arrived in Yúnnán and found decades-old compressed cakes selling for almost nothing. By 2005 pǔ'ěr had become an investment asset — TV programmes, magazines, and websites all talked of "liquid gold." Prices rose monthly. In 2007 a CCTV investigation revealed that up to 95% of trades at the Fāngcūn market were speculative, not for drinking. The bubble collapsed within weeks.

But the pǔ'ěr boom proved something important: mainland Chinese consumers would pay serious money for quality tea with provenance. It opened the door for everything that followed.

The oolongs return

Through the 2000s, tiě guānyīn from Ānxī surged in demand. Yánchá from Wǔyí found buyers willing to pay for mineral complexity and evolving aftertaste. Dāncōng from Cháozhōu returned as the symbol of south Chinese tea tradition. Masters whose families had preserved knowledge through emigration or rural obscurity were suddenly in demand. Tea schools, specialist shops, and a new generation of practitioners emerged.

The final chapter is 新式茶饮 (xīn shì chá yǐn) — chains like 喜茶 (Xǐchá, HeyTea), which took these same yánchá and tiě guānyīn and put them into takeaway cups with hour-long queues. Elite teas became mass-market for the first time.

What this means

When you brew yánchá in a gàiwǎn and taste the mineral quality of Wǔyí rock — behind that is not only terroir. It is a chain of people who refused to let the tradition disappear.

Explore the oolongs that carry this tradition: our oolong selection.