Wuyi tea

Wuyi tea
Da Hong Pao, a typical Wuyi tea
Chinese	武夷茶
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wǔyí chá
Wuyi rock tea
Chinese	武夷岩茶
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wǔyí yán chá

Wuyi tea, formerly known by the trade name "Bohea" in English, is a category of black and oolong teas grown in the Wuyi Mountains of northern Fujian, China. The Wuyi region produces a number of well-known teas, including Lapsang souchong and Da Hong Pao. It has historically been one of the major centers of tea production in Fujian province and globally. Both black tea (excluding brick tea) and oolong tea were likely invented in the Wuyi region, which continues to produce both styles today.

Wuyi teas are sometimes called "rock teas" (yancha) because of the distinctive terroir of the mountainsides where they are grown. Tea grown in the rocky, mineral-rich soil is highly prized. Because of the lower yield produced by tea bushes in such terrain, the resulting tea can be quite costly. Tea made from the leaves of older bushes is particularly expensive and limited in quantity. Da Hong Pao, collected from what are said to be the original bushes of its variety, is among the most expensive teas in the world, and more valuable by weight than gold. Commercial-grade tea grown at lower elevations in the area accounts for the majority of the Wuyi tea available on the market. Commercial Da Hong Pao is made from cuttings of the original plants.

During the Song dynasty, the Northern Park (Beiyuan) tea estate in Fujian's Jian'an district was the most important supplier of tea to the Song emperors. Established as a private estate under the Min Kingdom, it was nationalized under the Southern Tang and remained so under the Song. It continued to supply compressed cakes of "wax tea" (lacha) to the emperors of the subsequent Yuan dynasty. When the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the Ming dynasty, proclaimed in 1391 that the elaborate and labor-intensive process of producing wax tea "overtaxed the people's strength" and decreed that all imperial tribute tea was to be in the form of loose leaves rather than cakes, tea production collapsed at the Northern Park. The center of the tea industry in Fujian subsequently shifted west to the Wuyi region. In the 16th century, farmers in Wuyi began growing tea and indigo on the mountains themselves, often on estates owned by Buddhist or Taoist monasteries. The farmers cut terraces into the slopes, and built a system of dikes and drains.