3H-Sender is the future of tea farming, both sustainable and organic, cleansing for your health.

Located in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, 3H-Sender Tea runs a special tea farm. Here is the famous organic Tieguanyin oolong tea produced. This way of tea farming is regarded as the future of tea production. Oolong tea: now both sustainable and organic. Over the last few months also producing organic black tea: the Black Guanyin.

1. Company introduction

This special tea farm can guarantee a tea that is good for your health from tea garden to the teacups, in cooperation with tea-adventure ltd.

It all started with an idea, something had to change… When people drink tea it should be good for their health, thought Doctor Lin Fang some years ago. This all should start with a tea farm where all the trees, insects and animals can live in a habitat enabling them to thrive together. Where tea trees with a good fragrance attract beneficial insects and repel the harmful insects. Small spiders should be able to live in the tea farm in order to catch bad insects, etc. No insecticide or pesticide allowed and no chemical fertilizer should be used for promoting tree growth. Zero harmful elements are the new standard. Even when you ask this today in China, they would say this is not possible….
However, Linfang combined her knowledge as a doctor and tea lover working out a very sophisticated system of trees, insects, and fertilizer and convinced her husband to join her project.
Together they searched for a perfect place to start this tea farm and found a mountain top far away from any possible harmful influence in the mountains of Hua An, Zhangzhou.

Now five years later we can enjoy the result of the remarkable idea. We can drink what resulted from this future tea farming. This has already been acknowledged for being one of the few tea farms in the world honored with the organic certifications of the US and Europe, as well Japan.

How this great idea turned into a remarkable project:

2. The standards for organic tea

1) Abiding the rules of nature and ecological principles in the production of tea materials
2) Adopting sustainable eco-friendly farming technologies
3) Refusing pesticide, fertilizer etc.
4) Using no blended food ingredients in the processing.

One of the secrets for the success of this tea farm is the sandalwood tree. Sandalwood is a very valuable Chinese Medicine. It is said that even often standing nearby this sandalwood tree can enhance your immune system. And all tea trees of the 3H-Sender farm have this privilege every single day.

3. The strengths of 3H-Sender organic tea

(1). Natural advantages
The tea garden is located in the original secondary forest mountains far away from pollution. A common sight around the tea garden is mountains and hills, full of clouds and mist from dawn to dusk for over 200 days per year. Temperatures range from 16-20 degrees on average with above-zero degree period for at least 300 days every year. The tea gardens spread around the mountains at 500-800 meters high with mineral-rich red soil, which is very suitable to plant the high quality organic Tieguanyin tea.

(2). Nutrition for tea trees
Sheep manure or fertilizer from the grassland of Inner Mongolia
Tea stem and tea dust from the tea farm itself
Burned weed

(3). Water irrigation
The high quality water from high mountains and the springs are led into every corner of the tea garden by an advanced irrigation system.

(4).Weed control
1).Workers in the farm weed out the grass in and off the garden without using any herbicide and the grass will return to the tea garden as fertilizer after they’ve burned it.
2). In order to restrain the weed, tea farmers manually remove the weeds around the tea trees and put them around the root of the tea trees (this is to prevent the weed from receiving the sunshine). The tea trees will absorb the rotten grass as organic fertilizer to keep the trees wet and prevent the red soil from getting to hard.

(5).Pest control
1). The tea garden has an excellent ecosystem. There are many birds, frogs, and even spiders to prevent the pest. The spider web can be even seen crossing the tea trees everywhere in the tea garden.
2). Sandalwood sends out an aroma which will chase away the pest and serves as a shelter for tea trees from too much sunshine during hot summer days.
3). Adopting pest-killing lights driven by solar power.

(6). Process Quality Control
Abiding by the strict standards for each step arranging from tea harvesting to processing, packing and marketing. There are unique details for each batch of tea, by which the tea products can be monitored and located.

(7). Quality certificate
1). The tea products and the farm have passed the National Organic certification every year since June, 2007.
2). ISO22000 (HACCP) was achieved in August, 2009.
3). In 2010, organic certifications from EU, U.S. and Japan were achieved.

4. Is organic tea more expensive than not organic tea?

Organic tea is more expensive because of the two factors: One, more human labor is required to manage the tea farm and pick the tealeaves; Two, all the fertilizer is organic, which is surprisingly more expensive than non organic.

Why organic tea is reasonable:
1. Organic tea can be steeped over 10 times. Common tea will lose its taste after being steeped over around five times.
2. Organic tea can strengthen the immune system if consuming it regularly, which could avoid health issues.
3. Common tea appears to be less practical when considering the extra costs by possibly harming your health and the environment.

5. The color, fragrance and taste of organic Tieguanyin tea

(1)    Color
3H-Sender tea trees refuse any carbamide and chemical fertilizer when planting the tea trees and the company uses no additives during the processing. Therefore the color may seem less dark green than others. In addition, it is a common phenomenon that some tealeaves appear to be a little yellow because those tea trees may not absorb the nutrition very well when applying the fertilizer.

(2) Fragrance
Tieguanyin tea produced by 3H-Sender is completely pure without additives. This tea is also not blended with other Oolong tea species. Therefore some customers might feel it is not as fragrant as other teas when drinking it. However, it is indeed like this for true Tieguanyin tea, “a fragrance of Orchid in the empty Valley”.

Generally, common teas may smell very good in the beginning, but its fragrance will weaken afterwards; on the contrary, 3H-Sender’s organic tea will become even more fragrant with age. Of course, we have tried the tea and the responses from our customers are very good as well.

(3) Taste
While drinking this tea, there is a fresh and sweet taste in the throat without having a dry mouth. In some cases, drinking common teas may make your throat and tongue very dry and thirsty for there is pesticide residual in it. It can even make you feel better when drinking high-grade Tieguanyin tea.

(4) Organic Tieguanyin grades
Tea grades are mainly determined by its appearance and inner values (Tieguanyin tea is no exception). Since 3H-Sender is experienced in producing and processing the Organic Tieguanyin tea, they know how to recognize high quality Tieguanyin tea.

 
This is a true organic tea that you will love it indeed. Our job is transferring it to the customers from the organic tea garden without any contamination. Of course, it is a tea that will benefit your health as well.

More pictures

In ancient China, there was a special tea named “Tribute tea”: a tea offered to the emperors as tribute. It was a great honor to be selected as a tribute because it meant excellent quality tea. Tianshan green tea from Ningde city became a tribute tea during Qing Dynasty. This article tries to explain you how a tea is selected to be a tribute tea.

1. What is a tribute tea?

Ningde has a long history in tea drinking, which can be traced back to before Tang Dynasty. Like the rest of other places in China, the way people drink tea in Ningde also changes a lot during the long period of history. There are also many customs and stories about tea drinking in Ningde. These stories and culture will give you’re a better understanding of tea drinking in Ningde. Especially, the tea rituals of the She minority group in Ningde are very interesting…

1. How the ancient people produced and enjoyed tea in Ningde

An overview of tea culture and history of Ningde city, the biggest tea production area in China

Fujian’s famous loose leaf teas, an overview.
Fujian is one of the major tea production areas of China. The tea production in Fujian ranges from oolong tea, black tea, white tea to green tea. This overview will provide you with an introduction of the teas and some insight information. The information in this article can enhance your Fujian leaf tea tea drinking experience…

4.3) Minnan Oolong tea

The Oolong teas from Minnan area of Southern Fujian are also very famous. Tieguanyin Oolong tea from Anxi County is as famous as Big Red Robe from Wuyi Mountains (they are both on the list of China’s Ten Famous teas). Another Oolong tea from Minnan area is Yongchun Buddha Hand.

Tieguanyin Oolong tea is one of China’s Ten Famous teas. There are four types of Tieguanyin tea:

Faint-scent type:
Fresh and pure taste with sweet and flowery fragrance
 
Heavy-scent type:
Mellow and smooth taste with flower, honey and chestnut scents

Rhyme-scent type:
Thick and smooth taste

Aged type:
Mild and peaceful with flowery fragrance

This tea has a mellow taste with strong fragrance. After several infusions, the fragrance still remains. At the same time, a sweet aftertaste rises from the throat (this is called ‘huigan’ in Chinese). Tieguanyin tea has a strong reputation for “lingering fragrance remains after several infusions”. For only three years, these famous organic teas are also produced in Zhangzhou city in Fujian Province, which a company named 3H-Sender owns. (There is famous story about this Tieguanyin tea. A farmer who had a deep belief in Buddha served three cups of tea to The Goddess of Mercy everyday. Then, in the evening, The Goodness of Mercy told him in dream that there are several high quality tea trees in the mountains. As expected, there they were. So the farmer made tea using the leaves picked from these tea trees and named the tea Tieguanyin--Iron Buddha in English.)

Another famous Oolong tea from Minnan area is Yongchun Buddha Hand. There are two types of Buddha’s Hand: Red Buddha’s Hand and Green Bud Buddha’s Hand, according to the color of the fresh bud. The red one is regarded as the higher grade. The tea trees are planted 600-900 meters up in the high mountains of Yongchun, a small village between Xiamen city and Anxi County. Yonhchun has a long history in tea production. Yongchun produces not only Yongchun Buddha Hand, but also Shuixian tea and Tieguanyin tea. The wet tea leaf is tight and fat with curly shape with a smooth green color. The infusion is orange yellow with fragrance.

Tips: how to brew Oolong tea
This tea can be steeped 3-10 times in 90-95 degree water. It is common to brew the same leaves three to five times, the third or fourth steeping usually being considered the best. The high quality Oolong tea can still have good taste even after being brewed 5 times. There is a special tea-brewing method called Kungfu (功夫) infusion approach, which requires a lot of practice in order to make a Kungfu tea.

Those are the famous teas from Fujian. We hope this article can give you a better understanding of the various kinds of teas made in Fujian.

Fujian’s famous loose leaf teas, an overview.
Fujian is one of the major tea production areas of China. The tea production in Fujian ranges from oolong tea, black tea, white tea to green tea. This overview will provide you with an introduction of the teas and some insight information. The information in this article can enhance your Fujian leaf tea tea drinking experience…

4. Oolong tea
The Oolong tea is originally from Fujian Province. Fujian has a long history in producing the Oolong tea since around 1725. The production areas are spread all over the Fujian Province such as Wuyi Mountains Oolong tea, Minbei (northern Fujian) Oolong tea and Minnan (southern Fujian) Oolong tea. They are all a little different due to the slightly different processing methods. In general, the Oolong tea processing will be: withering, fermenting (semi-fermenting to be exact), rolling and baking.

About the Oolong tea’s origin, there are two theories: One, Wuyi theory: firstly, the tea is named after one of the tea production locations of Wuyi Mountains and secondly there is a record in the book of Wuyi Tea Songs, published in Qing Dynasty; Two, Anxi theory, It was said that there was a tea farmer in Qing Dynasty whose name is Wu long (sounds like Oolong, right?), he accidently discovered this semi-fermented tea, therefore people named this tea after him.

4.2) Minbei Oolong tea

Minbei Oolong tea is mainly produced in Jian’o county and Jianyang county, Fujian Province. People also call this tea Minbei Shuixian tea (shuixian means narcissus). Only the third and fourth leaf will be picked after the Qing Ming Festival. The leaves picked from 10 year old trees will be called ‘Ming Cong Shuixian’ and leaves from 30 year old trees will be called ‘Lao Zong Shuixian’.

After the entire process the leaf’s shape resembles ‘a dragonfly’s head and frog’s bell’. The infusion has an orange yellow color with mellow and sweet tastes. The wet leaves will be 30% red (on the edge) and 70% green with an orchid scent.

Fujian’s famous loose leaf teas, an overview.
Fujian is one of the major tea production areas of China. The tea production in Fujian ranges from oolong tea, black tea, white tea to green tea. This overview will provide you with an introduction of the teas and some insight information. The information in this article can enhance your Fujian leaf tea tea drinking experience…

4. Oolong tea
The Oolong tea is originally from Fujian Province. Fujian has a long history in producing the Oolong tea since around 1725. The production areas are spread all over the Fujian Province such as Wuyi Mountains Oolong tea, Minbei (northern Fujian) Oolong tea and Minnan (southern Fujian) Oolong tea. They are all a little different due to the slightly different processing methods. In general, the Oolong tea processing will be: withering, fermenting (semi-fermenting to be exact), rolling and baking.

About the Oolong tea’s origin, there are two theories: One, Wuyi theory: firstly, the tea is named after one of the tea production locations of Wuyi Mountains and secondly there is a record in the book of Wuyi Tea Songs, published in Qing Dynasty; Two, Anxi theory, It was said that there was a tea farmer in Qing Dynasty whose name is Wu long (sounds like Oolong, right?), he accidently discovered this semi-fermented tea, therefore people named this tea after him.
 

4.1) Wuyi Rock Oolong tea

Wuyi Rock Oolong tea is a very famous Oolong tea in China and all over the world (another famous Oolong tea is Tieguanyin from Anxi County of Southern Fujian Province). Wuyi Rock Oolong tea has many varieties such as Big Red Robe, Water Golden Turtle, Iron Irahant and White Cockscomb (these four teas are called Si Da Ming Cong, literally: the four great bushes), Rougui and Shuixian. Among them, the Red Robe is the most famous. During Song Dynasty, the Big Red Robe became a tribute tea.

The dry leaf of The Big Red Robe is tight with a green color. When steeping, the soup color will become orange yellow and its infused leaves appear to be green with a red edge. Normally, the tea can be steeped 7 or 8 times and the fragrance still remains. Wuyi Rock Oolong tea has a special mineral and flowery taste because most of the tea trees are growing on the cliff of the mountains. (The great cliff composed of red glutenite is the main feature of Wuyi Mountains)

Fujian’s famous loose leaf teas, an overview.
Fujian is one of the major tea production areas of China. The tea production in Fujian ranges from oolong tea, black tea, white tea to green tea. This overview will provide you with an introduction of the teas and some insight information. The information in this article can enhance your Fujian leaf tea tea drinking experience…

3. Green tea

The most famous green tea in Fujian Province is Tian Shan (Mountain of Heaven, a tribute tea around 1781) that is produced in Ningde city. The excellent weather conditions near the sea provide many days of rain that has suitable temperatures with nutrient soil, all large benefits to the tea trees. 

The picking time begins in March until May. The picking standard is one bud with one or two fresh leaves. Nowadays, there are 20 varieties of Tianshan green tea. The high-grade varieties like Birds Tongue and Eyebrow Tea require 30,000 tender leaves to produce 500 grams of tea.

This green tea has the similar processing method with other green teas: withering, roasting, rolling and baking (crudely fire and complete fire) (During Ming and Qing Dynasty, it was a fried green tea but since 1979 has become a baked green tea). Tian Shan green tea is well known for its three greens - emerald green of dry leaves, dark green of infusion and light green of wet leaves. It has a Chinese olive taste with orchid fragrance.

In addition, Tian Shan Green tea is also a raw material of a high grade Jasmine tea named Tian Shan Yin Hao (during its water-heat processing, the tea leaves will absorb the flower fragrance), which is well accepted by the customers.

Fujian’s famous loose leaf teas, an overview.
Fujian is one of the major tea production areas of China. The tea production in Fujian ranges from oolong tea, black tea, white tea to green tea. This overview will provide you with an introduction of the teas and some insight information. The information in this article can enhance your Fujian leaf tea tea drinking experience…

2. Black tea

Fujian Province is as well a main producer of black teas, such as Tanyang Kungfu tea in Fu’an city and Lapsang Souchong tea from the Wuyi Mountains. ‘Kungfu’(工夫) in Chinese means it takes a lot of time to undertake the processing of the black tea (disciplined skills), because as you know, black tea is a completely fermented tea. This Kungfu(工夫) processing is different from the Oolong tea’s Kungfu(功夫)brewing method, although they do have the same pronunciation).

2) Lapsang Souchong black tea
Perhaps the first black tea in the world, the Lapsang Souchong black tea is originally from Wuyi Mountains. This unique large leaf tea is distinguished by its smoky aroma and flavor. However, not a whole leaf tea in the west, different from the Chinese lapsang souchong. The tarry taste is acquired through drying over pine wood fires.

The original producing area of Lapsang Souchong is Tongmu Village of Wuyi Mountains in Fujian province. The legend refers to the origin of Lapsang Souchong, the accidental discovery of the additional smoking step during the process. An army is said to have camped in a tea factory that was full of drying leaves that had to be moved to accommodate the soldiers. When the soldiers left they wanted to save the tea, therefore the workers lit open fires of pinewood to speed the drying. Amazed by its special taste the villagers decided to continue processing the tea this way. People still like to drink this tea, especially out west for its unique pinewood fragrance.

This black tea is processed through withering, oxidation, pan-frying, rolling and drying over a small fire. It is the pinewood used during the processing that makes this tea very special. The tea has dried longan aroma and smoky flavor.

Fujian’s famous loose leaf teas, an overview.
Fujian is one of the major tea production areas of China. The tea production in Fujian ranges from oolong tea, black tea, white tea to green tea. This overview will provide you with an introduction of the teas and some insight information. The information in this article can enhance your Fujian leaf tea tea drinking experience…
 

2. Black tea
Fujian Province is as well a main producer of black teas, such as Tanyang Kungfu tea in Fu’an city and Lapsang Souchong tea from the Wuyi Mountains. ‘Kungfu’(工夫) in Chinese means it takes a lot of time to undertake the processing of the black tea (disciplined skills), because as you know, black tea is a completely fermented tea. This Kungfu(工夫) processing is different from the Oolong tea’s Kungfu(功夫)brewing method, although they do have the same pronunciation).

1) Tanyang Kungfu black tea
Tanyang Kungfu is one kungfu type black tea produced in Tanyang village of Fu’an city in Fujian province. Tanyang Kungfu along with Zhenghe Kungfu and Bailin Kungfu are seen as three most famous kungfu teas of Fujian province. The black tea processing method was introduced from Wuyi Mountains to Tanyang village. The local people found that the local tea trees (Cai Cha tea trees) are very suitable to make high quality black tea. Therefore they made the black tea, branded the tea as Tanyang Kungfu and exported it to Western countries. Afterwards it became famous in both western countries and Mainland China.

Tanyang Kungfu prospered during the 1870 to 1930. Due to the following consecutive wars and Chinese political turbulence, the export port was blocked and tea industry suffered tremendously. Tanyang was gradually forgotten, as well as its good taste and health benefits. (Since the founding of the Republic of China, the production of Tanyang Kungfu has slowly recovered. Due to development in traditional production methods, Tanyang Kungfus’ quality improved during this period.) However these days the Tanyang Kungfu is one of the most popular black teas of Fujian (together with the Golden Eyebrow and the whole leaf version of the Lapsang Souchong).

The tea is picked by one bud with one or two leaves. This tea is processed in the following way:
One, withering (indoor at 30-35 degrees, turning the leaves over every 20-30 minutes)
Two, rolling (making the tight shape of leaves)
Three, breaking-up (the leaves will stick together during the rolling)
Four, oxidation (in this process, the fruit and flower scents rise while the grass flavor disappears)
Five, drying
 
After the processing, the dry tea leaves are tight, even and orderly with some golden tips. The dry leaves are bright dark. The infusion is golden yellow with a sweet mellow taste.