Ruan Fu's Record of Pu'er Tea and Qing Scholars' Writings on Pu'er

Before the Qing dynasty, pu'er usually got only a few lines in the books. In the Qing, scholars began writing about it specifically. The most complete and most often cited of these is Ruan Fu's Record of Pu'er Tea (Pu'er Cha Ji). This post walks through this 200-year-old set of notes on pu'er and looks at how Tan Cui, Xie Zhaozhe, and others described the tea.

Who Wrote the Record of Pu'er Tea?

The author, Ruan Fu, was the son of the eminent Qing official Ruan Yuan. Ruan Yuan served as Governor-General of Yunnan and Guizhou in the Daoguang era, and Ruan Fu, who went to Yunnan with his father, became interested in the region's famous pu'er. He consulted local gazetteers and the government's tribute tea records and wrote the Record of Pu'er Tea, generally dated to around 1825.

It isn't a thick book but a short piece of research notes. Brief as it is, it lays out pu'er's origins, history, tribute specifications, and various names all at once, which is why it became the Qing source most often cited by later students of pu'er.

The Opening Line

The Record of Pu'er Tea opens by saying that pu'er is famous throughout the land, the richest and strongest in flavor, and especially prized in the capital.

Ruan Fu then admits that after arriving in Yunnan he checked the Yunnan Gazetteer (Yunnan Tongzhi) but couldn't find a detailed history. All he knew was that it came from 6 tea mountains, Youle, Gedeng, Yibang, Mangzhi, Manzhuan, and Mansa, and that Yibang and Manzhuan tasted best.

Which Tea Mountains Does It Record?

Ruan Fu recorded 2 lists:

• The Yunnan Gazetteer version: Youle, Gedeng, Yibang, Mangzhi, Manzhuan, Mansa.
• The local Pu'er Prefecture version: When he made inquiries in Simao Subprefecture, he heard that the subprefecture had long had 6 tea mountains: Yibang, Jiabu, Xikong, Manzhuan, Gedeng, and Yiwu. He specifically noted that these names differed from those in the Gazetteer.

Yiwu already appears in the second list, foreshadowing the later shift in which "Yiwu replaced Mansa"; see The Six Ancient Tea Mountains and Yiwu.

Ruan Fu also pointed out that so-called pu'er tea wasn't grown near the prefectural city of Pu'er, but within Simao Subprefecture under the prefecture. Pu'er was the trading and administrative center, and the tea took its name from the place.

The Tribute Teas and Tea Names It Records

Going through the tribute records, Ruan Fu noted that 1,000 liang of silver were spent each year to produce tuan (ball) teas weighing 5 jin, 3 jin, 1 jin, 4 liang, and 1 liang 5 qian, plus bud tea and pistil tea in jars and tea paste in boxes, 8 items in all. Details are in Imperial Tribute Pu'er.

He also cited the Simao Zhigao (Draft Gazetteer of Simao), leaving behind a vivid string of tea names:

• Maojian: Extremely fine white buds picked in the second lunar month, first sent as tribute; only after the tribute could ordinary people sell them.
• Bud tea: Leaves just opened and still very tender.
• Xiaoman tea: Picked in the third and fourth lunar months.
• Guhua tea: Picked in the sixth and seventh lunar months. Yunnan still calls autumn tea guhua tea today; see Spring Tea, Summer Tea, and Guhua Tea.
• Jintuan tea: Large round balls of tea.
• Daughter tea: Small round 4-liang balls, picked and made by women before the rains.
• Gaizao (remade) tea: Tea that, once in merchants' hands, was fine on the outside and coarse inside.
• Jinyutian: Leaves picked out in advance during rolling, a strong yellow color and not curled.
• Geda (lump) tea: Tea that had formed hard lumps and couldn't be reworked, with an extremely rich flavor and hard to come by.

He also recorded that tea's character varies with the soil, and that it grows best in red earth or soil mixed with stones; that on Gedeng Mountain there was a Tea King Tree taller than all the others, and locals prepared wine and offerings to worship it before picking; that tea-growing households weeded their gardens diligently, since weeds or scrub growing nearby made the tea taste worse; and that tea stored in the same container as other things picks up their smells and doesn't taste good. That last point applies word for word to storing pu'er today.

How the Dianhai Yuheng Zhi Describes the Six Tea Mountains

Tan Cui was from Anhui and served as an official in Yunnan during the Qianlong era. He was dismissed over incidents including a boat capsizing while he was escorting a shipment of Yunnan copper, after which he stayed in Yunnan, lecturing at academies and traveling widely. He wrote the Dianhai Yuheng Zhi in 13 volumes, completed in 1799, recording Yunnan's products and local conditions.

The book says Pu tea comes from the 6 tea mountains under Pu'er: Youle, Gedeng, Yibang, Mangzhi, Manzhuan, and Mansa. This list later became the most widely used version of the "Six Ancient Tea Mountains." Even earlier, the 1736 Yunnan Gazetteer, recording the legend that "the Marquis Wu traveled all six mountains," had listed the same 6 names; see The Pu People and the Origins of Tea Growing in Yunnan.

Tan Cui was also the first to seriously ask when pu'er became famous. He cited the Southern Song writer Li Shi's Xu Bowu Zhi, "tea comes from the mountains of Yinsheng," and Fan Chengda's account of the Southern Song trading tea for horses in Guilin, and reasoned that Pu'er anciently belonged to Yinsheng and that the peoples of the southwest had been drinking Pu tea since the Tang; the Song simply didn't know it. Ruan Fu included this entire discussion in the Record of Pu'er Tea.

How Qing Writers Described Pu'er

Reading these authors side by side shows how pu'er's image changed:

• Xie Zhaozhe's Dian Lüe (Ming): Says everyone in Yunnan, gentry and commoners, drank Pu tea daily, steamed and formed into balls, but that it tasted grassy when brewed and was only slightly better than plain water. This is the picky eye of an outside official.
• The 1736 Yunnan Gazetteer: Records the six tea mountains and the Marquis Wu legend among historic sites, and the tea mountains begin to have a story.
• Dream of the Red Chamber (18th century): In Chapter 63, pu'er and daughter tea appear before an evening party in an aristocratic household, already teas drunk as a matter of course.
• Tan Cui, 1799: Researches the origins of Pu tea and lists the Six Ancient Tea Mountains.
• Ruan Fu, 1825: Opens with "famous throughout the land," "richest in flavor," and "especially prized in the capital."

From "slightly better than water" to "famous throughout the land" took about 200 years, spanning the founding of the prefecture, the tribute system, and the tea mountains' boom. What Qing writers stressed most about pu'er was its richness: a full flavor that stands up to boiling and keeps for a long time. That impression has lasted to this day.

FAQ

Were there books in the Qing dynasty written specifically about pu'er? Yes. The best known is Ruan Fu's Record of Pu'er Tea, written around 1825, which specifically researches pu'er's origins, history, tribute teas, and tea names. Tan Cui's 1799 Dianhai Yuheng Zhi also has a dedicated passage.

Which tea mountains does the Record of Pu'er Tea list? 2 lists: the Yunnan Gazetteer's Youle, Gedeng, Yibang, Mangzhi, Manzhuan, and Mansa, and the local Pu'er Prefecture list of Yibang, Jiabu, Xikong, Manzhuan, Gedeng, and Yiwu.

Who was Ruan Fu? The son of Ruan Yuan, Qing Governor-General of Yunnan and Guizhou. While in Yunnan with his father, he consulted gazetteers and tribute tea records and wrote the Record of Pu'er Tea.

What did people in the Qing think pu'er tasted like? Ruan Fu described it as "richest in flavor," that is, strong and full, and it was especially prized in the capital.