Anxi

Anxi is the homeland of Tieguanyin, and the place where the idea of "Guanyin charm" has been argued over and recalibrated again and again. Tieguanyin is a half-fermented tea, and its making is far more involved than a green tea's: tossing begins at five in the afternoon, then the leaf is watched and rested through the night, and pan-firing starts at one in the morning. Every step depends on the master's eye and hand — this is what "read the leaf to make the leaf" means, an experience that resists full standardisation. Southern Fujian people say that they would rather go a hundred days without meat than a single day without tea; that everyday devotion grew out of these hills.

We take you to Xiping to see the three-hundred-year-old Tieguanyin mother trees, and to a workshop to sit with the master through a night of tossing — watching the leaf turn from grass-green to ink-green and the aroma shift from cut grass to orchid. Then we sit down at the gate of Qingshui Rock and drink a seasonal Zhengwei. Whether "fragrance through seven infusions" is really true is best settled by counting them yourself.

Tea-making comes in two windows: the spring tea from late April to early May, and the autumn tea from late September to October. Come in one of those if you want to see the tossing. Xiping and Xianghua are the main districts and the styles differ, so visit one of each if you can. Anxi is about an hour and a half from Xiamen and slots easily into a southern Fujian itinerary.