According to a series of records, the West Lake Longjing Green Tea was given to foreign guests as a national gift, and became popular worldwide.
As a national gift, the West Lake Longjing Green Tea gained greater development with the founding of the PRC, and its reputation at home and abroad was growing fast. According to Hu Yaoqing’s work Special Supply of the West Lake Longjing Tea, shortly after the founding of the PRC, the West Lake Longjing Green Tea was listed as a national gift together with Moutai and Chunghwa cigarette.
In December 1949, the Party Central Committee used the West Lake Longjing Green Tea to congratulate the 70th birthday of Stalin. Qi Guowei, general manager of Hangzhou West Lake Longjing Tea Company, said in the article in details, “From the 1950s to early 1980s, the West Lake Longjing Tea had been listed as a national gift and used to be purchased before Mingqian Tea was picked subject to the order of related department of Chinese government.
Then the assignment would be given to the supply and marketing cooperatives at provincial, municipal and county level. The people of Longjing Green Tea area regarded it as an honor to provide the West Lake Longjing Green Tea to the central government, passing down from generation to generation.”
There are too many stories that the West Lake Longjing Green Tea is presented to the heads of foreign countries by the Party and state leaders as a gift. In the early 1950s, Chairman Mao Zedong visited the Soviet Union and took West Lake Longjing Green Tea as a gift. After the Soviet leaders drank it, they greatly appreciated it. Although they drank tea in different manners, they thought it tasted good.
Since then, the West Lake Longjing Green Tea had been regarded as a treasure by the Soviet leaders. Many Soviet experts who helped China in the 1950s asked to drink it. It was worth mentioning that when the Soviet delegation came to Hangzhou in 1957, Voroshilov, Chairman of the Soviet presidium, felt even more wonderful after drinking Longjing Green Tea by traditional Chinese tea cup, saying that he hoped China could send some tea experts and technicians to help to grow tea in the Far East Area of the Soviet Union (though the plan ended in failure due to the soil, climate, and other factors). Now, Russians still love to drink the West Lake Longjing Green Tea, and the “aй” in Russian is the transliteration of “chaye” in Chinese.
In 1972, when the US President Nixon came to Hangzhou, Premier Zhou Enlai used the West Lake Longjing Green Tea to entertain him. After drinking it, Nixon said it tasted good. He asked Premier Zhou to give him 1,000 kilograms of Longjing Green Tea.
However, he only got I kilogram. Nixon regarded it as a treasure. Haig, Nixon’s assistant secretary of state, realized that Nixon would not share his treasure with him, and bought some from shops and took it back to the US, as a gift to his friends.
Many foreign leaders regarded the West Lake Longjing Green Tea presented to them as a treasure. such as the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, the DPRK leader Kim Il-Sung, and the Cambodian leader Norodom Sihanouk. When Comrade Deng Xiaoping paid a visit abroad or met with foreign leaders, he used to present to them the West Lake Longjing Green Tea.
For example, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew often received this gift from Deng Xiaoping. In October 1986, Comrade Jiang Zemin, Secretary of Shanghai Municipal Party Committee at that time, once treated Queen Elizabeth II with the West Lake Longjing Green Tea, and presented it to her as a gift.
There are many more of such moving stories. For example, according to Zhao Hetao’s article, “The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is also a tea lover who has tasted a lot of tea. He has heard that Longjing Green Tea produced in Hangzhou has unique color and taste, but has never tasted an authentic one.
On July 9, 1971, as a US national security advisor and a special envoy of President Nixon, he stayed at the No. 6 Building of Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing. When meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai for the first time, he was presented with a cup of best quality Longjing Green Tea by the service staff as soon as he stepped into the house. Knowing that it was exactly Longjing Green Tea through his interpreter, he was so happy that he drank it immediately, after which he felt refreshed and drank the other two cups, saying ‘It tastes good!’ Premier Zhou noticed Kissinger’s love for Longjing Green Tea. He then told the reception personnel to send some to Kissinger’s place.
After the reception and negotiation, Premier Zhou personally went to Diaoyutai State Guest House to say goodbye to him, and gave him I kilogram of the best Longjing Green Tea. On the airplane, Kissinger took it out with great care and watched it carefully, full of praise. At this time, the subordinates of him admired the Longjing Green Tea so much, and Kissinger gave them a half reluctantly.
On October 22 of the same year, when Kissinger visited China for the second time, he mentioned the Longjing Green Tea presented by Premier Zhou last time, and directly asked Premier Zhou to present him some again. Premier Zhou readily satisfied his request and presented to him 4 kilograms. It is said that after getting Longjing Green Tea, Kissinger made it classified and specially ordered his men to send it back to the United States in a special plane.”
Kissinger played a key role in the development of Sino-US relations in the 1970s. From the description of Zhao Hetao, we can see that he was almost crazy about the West Lake Longjing Green Tea; otherwise he would not assign his men to send it back to the US in a special plane.
From Kissinger’s story we can see the good quality of the West Lake Longjing Green Tea and its role in the diplomatic activities of China. Such kind of interesting stories about the West Lake Longjing Green Tea appeared in the communications and exchanges between China and foreign countries have been on everybody’s lips.
In 2010, the 41st World Expo was held in Shanghai, China, which was the largest ever in history. At the same time, it attracted 70.38 million visitors, the largest number ever in the history of World Expo. On the eve of the Shanghai World Expo, according to a report from Hangzhou Daily.
“The Fuhaitang tea base in Shuangpu Town within the original production area of the West Lake Longjing Green Tea” was officially notified today to provide the West Lake Longjing Green Tea for the UN Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. There were 10 kinds of tea entering the UN Pavilion, covering six major tea varieties, of which the West lake Longjing Green Tea became the “Queen of Green Tea.”
As one of the most high- profile venues among more than 100 venues of the Shanghai World Expo, the UN Pavilion provided venues for Chinese tea ceremony and tea art show, and allowed tea companies participating in the expo to use its logo for sales. In May, 2010, the first batch of 250 kg Fuhaitang West Lake Longjing Green Tea was sent to Shanghai, which was tasted by nearly 70 million visitors from more than 200 countries around the world.
When the World Expo was held for the first time in China, the West Lake Longjing Green Tea was specially supplied to the UN Pavilion, which undoubtedly provided a platform for Hangzhou tea to go global, making more people around the world to learn about Hangzhou tea. Today’s Hangzhou is developing with each passing day. It is Hangzhou tea and the tea culture makes this city unique and wonderful.
Let’s take a look at the great changes in Hangzhou Tea Area, taking Meijia Valley as an example:
Meijia Valley is located in the southwest of the Bapan Ridge. According to legend, at the beginning, Mei’s family from Tianmu Mountain settle down here; as time went on, a village was formed, called Meijia Valley. It consists of Xiaoyawu, Laocun and Xincun, covering an area of 5.6 square kilometers. There are 540 rural households, a grand total of 1.275 people in this village.
Located at the core area of the West Lake Scenic Area, Meijia Valley faces West Lake in the east, with Lingyin Temple in the north and the famous scenic spot “Yunqizhujing” (Clouds Lingering on the Bamboo-lined Path) in the south. There is a creek running through the village, called Meiwu Creek. Coupled with the green trees, stone bridges, and terraced tea garden, Meijia Valley becomes a famous scenic spot.
After the founding of People’s Republic of China, this ordinary village in southern China, like all the other villages at that time, experienced land reform, rural mutual financial cooperatives, people’s communes, and land contract during the period of reform and opening up. Meijia Valley witnessed the development of Hangzhou tea, due to its unique environment and care of the central leaders.
Since 2000, after several years of rectification and establishment, Meijia Valley has become a leisure village features tea culture, which has simple and honest villagers, green hills, gurgling streams and tea gardens. Meijia Valley now has more than 160 tea houses, and a multilingual reception room used to show visitors the tea history of Meijia Valley, tea picking, frying and tea functions and to perform tea art shows.
In spring of each year, visitors can also come to Meijia Valley and pick tea personally, to feel the strong tea culture atmosphere, and enjoy the natural beauty and the farmhouse style here. As an important cultural carrier of Hangzhou, a world-famous tea capital and scenic tourist city, Meijia Valley has become a “golden signboard” of it.
