Moaning about "Moning": a thread for translating old tea trade-names into modern teas

[mbanu]

There is all sorts of interesting information out there for free and in the public domain through places like archive.org, Google Books, etc. about the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century Chinese and Japanese tea trade; blending manuals, selection advice, detecting adulteration, and anecdotes about the production. However it is all locked away behind trade-names, which can be very frustrating. Unlike the Indian and Sri Lankan names, which have been relatively stable over time, the Chinese and Japanese are completely different now. What makes a Moning a Moning? Why does every other green tea seem to be a gunpowder or a hyson (or a "Basket-fired Japan")?

So I thought maybe this would be a good place to start.

[mbanu]

Like take, for example, "Kaisow". Sometimes the first thought is, "Oh, I just need to find what Chinese word they are trying to say!" In this case it is 界首 or Jieshou with a heavy accent. However, that is not as helpful as it sounds because of how the term was used in practice, to refer to a category of teas that had similar characteristics, rather than just to one particular tea, as seen in the 1894 "Tea & Tea Blending". So what was a Kaisow, generally? A Chinese black tea that was not a "Moning", usually from Fujian.

[mbanu]

So what was a Kaisow, generally? A Chinese black tea that was not a "Moning", usually from Fujian.

As an example of how the term might be used in day-to-day life, here it is used to describe a Fujian black tea blend in the 1872 novel "Three to One" by George Webbe Dasent. For British tea fans, contrast the "never drain the pot" advice (often seen today in gaiwan-brewing) with the "never steep more than 5 minutes" advice used with Assam teas.

[mbanu]

OK, so what about a "Soomoo"? This is also sometimes Romanized as Seumoo, and is 邵武 -- Shaowu with a heavy accent. However, the general description is usually as with the 1894 "good honest tea". Here is Joseph Walsh's description from the 1892 "Tea: Its History and Mystery". Apparently it was seen at that time as a tea not particularly good nor bad, which puts us at a disadvantage trying to understand it today. We get a brief mention from the British consular "Report on the Trade of Foochow for the Year 1906" that it used to be a more famous tea (perhaps under a different Romanization?) but that its reputation declined as over-production and other issues caused the quality to fall, and it then found itself out-competed on price.

Today, Shaowu seems to be known for making Lapsang Souchong style black tea copies. However, it also has a local tea with a protected designation, DB35/T1378 for "broken-copper tea" (邵武碎铜茶) which is not actually a broken-leaf tea or copper in color but is instead creatively named green tea. Could Seumoo have originally been a black version of this suitong tea? I have no clue there, just a speculation.

(That Walsh blend sounds like it could be a fun re-creation -- maybe a less smoky Shaowu Souchong combined with a thin Assam that can't take milk well, then drunk plain as a kind of Russian Caravan style tea?)

[mbanu]

Ching Wo is a bit easier, because it is still sometimes sold under that name. Ching Wo is 政和 or Zhenghe with a heavy accent. The reason it is more well-known seems to be that certain British brands such as Jacksons of Piccadilly were quick to re-adopt this style of tea after nationalization of Chinese tea. (I'm not sure how that happened, however.)

Vicony Teas had a bit of additional info (keeping in mind this is from a tea wholesaler):

In 1874, tea merchants from Jiangxi province pioneered the production of black tea in Zhenghe county and made a hit. In 1896, the Ching Wo tea made from Da Baicha cultivar became famous and ranked first among the top three congou black teas of Fujian province. (http://www.viconyteas.com/directory/tea ... o-tea.html)

To keep the timeline organized, Mrs. Nicholson from George Dasent's story would have heard of Kaisow, but not of Ching Wo.

[mbanu]

Pecco-Congou is another term for Pekoe-Congou, which you could call "Baihao-Gongfu" now, but that doesn't really help. In the "Tea & Tea Blending" description, I think the good thing to know is that flower and flowery are the words used back then for tip and tippy. The "certain quarters" that held it in high esteem were likely the Czarist Russians, although I'm not certain on that.

Here is another description from Joseph Walsh's "Tea: Its History and Mystery". If I had to pick a tea that this seems to be describing, it would likely be a Zhenghe Golden Monkey tea.

[chadao]

Ching Wo is 政和 or Zhenghe with a heavy accent

A lot of these "heavy accents" seem to me to be Cantonese pronunciations, which makes some sense given the status of Hong Kong and Guangdong as port cities - western traders "met" Chinese teas through Canton and Hong Kong and picked up Cantonese names for them at first. "Peking" for Beijing, I think, comes from the Cantonese "bak1" "ging1" for north/capital.

In the example quoted above, Zhenghe 政和 - 政 is "jing3" and 和 is "wo4" in Cantonese. The "j" sound in this Romanization of Cantonese is occasionally transliterated as a "ch" sound.

[chadao]

Seumoo, and is 邵武 -- Shaowu

Another example of Cantonese influence - 邵 is "siu6" and 武 is "mou5" so siumou , in Cantonese.

Lapsang Souchong also makes sense in Cantonese. The characters you often see - 正山小种 - don't map well to that transliteration in Cantonese (正 is "zing / jing") but the first character is sometimes written differently as li4 in Mandarin (立), which is pronounced "laap5/6" in Cantonese. Using that character, you get 立山小种 - laap5 saan1 siu2 jung2 - or Lapsang Souchong.

[mbanu]

Ching Wo is 政和 or Zhenghe with a heavy accent

A lot of these "heavy accents" seem to me to be Cantonese pronunciations, which makes some sense given the status of Hong Kong and Guangdong as port cities - western traders "met" Chinese teas through Canton and Hong Kong and picked up Cantonese names for them at first.

I think you are right. The other major player in a lot of these is Hokkien, such as when Xiamen is called "Amoy". Sometimes I've seen people think that these trade-names were the results of Brits and Americans being careless with a foreign language, when more likely they were earnestly trying to sound out terms as they heard them. After all, if they could not express what they were looking for, it would be much harder to find it.

[chadao]

Ching Wo is 政和 or Zhenghe with a heavy accent

A lot of these "heavy accents" seem to me to be Cantonese pronunciations, which makes some sense given the status of Hong Kong and Guangdong as port cities - western traders "met" Chinese teas through Canton and Hong Kong and picked up Cantonese names for them at first.

I think you are right. The other major player in a lot of these is Hokkien, such as when Xiamen is called "Amoy". Sometimes I've seen people think that these trade-names were the results of Brits and Americans being careless with a foreign language, when more likely they were earnestly trying to sound out terms as they heard them. After all, if they could not express what they were looking for, it would be much harder to find it.

Totally! When I can't explain the name in Cantonese or Mandarin, it's often Hokkien/Fujianese. And when the spelling is weird, I go back to the fact that Cantonese has like sixteen ways to Romanize each sound and those systems didn't always exist when English was borrowing words to create names for cities and teas.

I'm sure you've heard the "tea if by sea, chai if by land" story of the introduction of names for tea into trading languages?

[mbanu]

I'm sure you've heard the "tea if by sea, chai if by land" story of the introduction of names for tea into trading languages?

...and Poland in the middle with "herbata".

[mbanu]

Panyong is maybe the easiest besides Lapseng Souchong, as the name of this tea seems to have never changed very greatly. Sometimes it is called Panyang or Tanyang Congou (坦洋工夫). More interesting info from Vicony Teas (once again keeping in mind that they are a tea wholesaler):

At first, Tanyang Cai Cha was used to make baked green tea. The baked green tea made from it features tight and even sized appearance and bright green color with delicate nice aroma. An introduction of black tea production from Chong'an by a tea maker in 1851 made history. At that time, it was found that Tangyang Cai Cha cultivar was very suitable to produce black tea in which it thoroughly demonstrated its character. (http://www.viconyteas.com/directory/tea ... ongou.html)

Part of the reason it was preserved so well is that while in the early 50s under the newly nationalized tea industry all black teas other than Keemun were sold as "China black tea", I think to fight counterfeiting, a reorganization of the industry recognized Panyong (along with Chingwo) by the late 1950s as distinct tea styles. (Panyong Congou is still sold under that name by ChinaTea.)

[mbanu]

Paklum (白琳) and Paklin/Pakling (北嶺) are interesting in that they were originally two separate teas, but were frequently mixed up. Nowadays you can find one of these teas (Paklum, maybe?) as Bailin Gongfu. Not quite sure what happened to the other... I can't seem to speculate my way out of this one. Maybe they have the same relationship as Chingwo and Pekoe-Congou, only using the Fuding cultivar rather than the Zhenghe one? Paklin was not one of the recognized teas after the post-nationalization reorganization in the 1950s, though, only Paklum.

Here is the Joseph Walsh comparison from "Tea: Its History and Mystery":

[mbanu]

Saryune is a frustrating one, because I am pretty sure it is a way to say Shaxian (沙縣 or maybe 沙县?) but trying to find out more about Shaxian teas has been a challenge. If online translators are treating me right, this tea is a black tea made from a local oolong cultivar but given a heavy firing like an oolong.

In Shi Hongbao's Miscellaneous Notes of Min (1857): "Recently, a kind of oolong produced in Shangsha County, said to be above the famous species, such as sparrow tongue, lotus heart and the like." After textual research, I discovered that at the time, this "kind of oolong" was a high-end black tea, later known as Shaxian Gongfu. The area of ​​Baishuiji Village and Caoyang Village (now part of Sanyuan) located in the highest peak of Shaxian County, also invented the historically famous tea "red-edge tea" in the middle of the 19th century. In the Seventeenth Year of the Republic of China (1928), Sha County Chronicles stated that "There are two types of Shayi tea, one oolong and the other red edge. Oolong is baked with fire, and the red-edge must be dried in the sun. They are different." (http://tea.zjol.com.cn/xw18260/txcw/201 ... 4216.shtml)

Walsh described the tea in his "Tea: Its History and Mystery" as being strong, burnt, and red. I'm not sure if this sort of tea is produced today, although the "red-edge tea" (红边茶) has become a local specialty and presumably uses the same cultivars.

[mbanu]

Another confusing one is "Padrae", as old sources all agree that this was asked for as pouchong or powchong (baozhong), but also that it was considered a black tea. Even if we were to meet in the middle and assume it was some kind of dark-roast oolong, it was clearly not a modern baozhong. Maybe one of the famous Wuyi oolong cultivars? I really have no idea here.

Here is an 1848 description from William Ball's "An Account of the Cultivation and Manufacture of Tea in China", and another from William C. Hunter, "The 'Fan kwae' at Canton before treaty days, 1825-1844, by an old resident" from 1882. By the late 19th century, though, Padrae must have been used for copies of these teas, as Walsh describes there being lower grades of Padrae tea, "Padrae-Congou" in his "Tea: Its History and Mystery"...

Anyone have any ideas?