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Explore the history of tea trade in Xiamei Village, Fujian

2013-09-18 15:23 cits.net Web Editor: Wang YuXia
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Wuyi Mountain in Fujian province is always regarded a place with unlimited natural beauty inside. Actually except for the splendid landscape, Wuyi Mountain also houses a mysterious ancient village named Xiamei, which owns rich past and profound culture. Located at the foot of Wuyi Mountain, the village has remained a secret and almost untouched by the modern world.

Xiamei Village has a history of more than 3,000 years and there are still more than 70 well-preserved buildings dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The prosperous tea trade led to a population boom and the village expanded along both sides of the river, with many of the new houses doubling as storerooms. The most common residence is a kind of two-story house built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The gray walls are discolored by damp and are crumbling with age.

In the village, you can always come across local women who are wearing light blue clothes with small black flowers, the white and gray hair wrapped up in a bun. They sometimes sit on a bamboo chair and stares at a small pile of Dahongpao tea on the table in front of them.

A shallow river, the Meixi, flows through the village. Covered open-sided wooden walkways line the riverbanks and the town boasts pavilions, small stone bridges, archways and ancestral halls. Thus may one's first impression of Xiamei is that it feels like an old water town, like Zhouzhuang or Xitang in the Yangtze River Delta. The villagers are used to being ignored and they enjoy their quiet lives. Visitors see Xiamei Village as a rural refuge from the bustling cities of present-day China.

Xiamei was once a center of the tea trade during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It was the first departure point for the export of Wuyi rock tea from Fujian province. The road continued along the Yangtze and Yellow River, before crossing mountains and the Gobi desert to reach Russia. For more than 200 years, Wuyi rock tea has been a prime representative of Chinese tea because of the continuous supply to central Europe. However, the good times didn't last, and the village is fading into history. The village's key role in river transport was replaced by five ports opened during the first Opium War (1839-42) in Qing Dynasty.

There's very little commercial activity in Xiamei nowadays, caused by the moving out of the youth. Only a few small grocery stores, some snack bars, a barbershop and a teahouse are serving the 2,700 villagers. Several old handicraft shops that have survived for more than a century are still open, but business declines year by year.

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