国营福鼎茶厂白琳分厂國營福鼎茶廠白琳分廠
Bailin Tea Factory
State-era tea plant in Bailin, Fuding: made Bailin Gongfu black tea for export, then white teas, and developed new-craft white tea (新工艺白茶) in 1968.
- Kind
- state factory
- Based in
- Fuding
- Founded
- 1953
History#
- 1953Bailin primary processing plant set up at the 广泰 tea house with 22 staff; Bailin Gongfu black tea for export to the USSR and Eastern Europe.
- 1957Moves to a new site at 贵坪, 康山村; separate accounting.
- 1959Output peaks at 6,350 dan; Bailin Gongfu wins a national black tea quality award.
- 1963White tea research group under 王奕森; hot-air indoor withering adopted.
- 1968Lightly rolled 'new-craft' white tea developed for the Hong Kong market.
- 1969Product named 新工艺白茶; Bailin becomes its sole export processor.
- 1978Renamed 国营福鼎茶厂白琳分厂.
- 1985Heated withering room built, an early form of today's 加温萎凋房.
- 1993Production stops as the parent factory is wound up.
Also sold or written as 12#
Chinese variants
- 白琳茶厂Bailin — tea factory
- 白琳茶廠Bailin — tea factory
- 国营白琳茶厂Bailin — state-owned tea factory
- 國營白琳茶廠Bailin — state-owned tea factory
- 白琳分厂Bailin — branch factory
- 白琳茶叶初制厂 / 白琳茶葉初製廠Bailin — primary tea-processing factory1953 name as a primary-processing plant.
- 国营闽东第二茶叶精制厂白琳初制厂Mindong No. 2 — state-owned tea-refining factory; Bailin — primary tea-processing factoryFull 1953 name given by the Fuding tea-culture society's account.
- 国营福鼎白琳茶厂Fuding Bailin — state-owned tea factoryCommon journalistic form.
- 国営福鼎茶廠白琳分廠Bailin branch of the state Fuding Tea Factory
Translations and trade names
- Bailin Tea Factory (Bailin branch of the state Fuding Tea Factory)
- Teefabrik Bailin (Zweigwerk der Teefabrik Fuding)
Russian
- Байлиньская чайная фабрика (филиал Фудинской чайной фабрики)
Names and ambiguities#
When black tea gave way
中华合作时报 says Fuding switched from black to green tea in 1958 because of Sino-Soviet tension. The society history instead has Bailin Gongfu output peaking in 1959 with a national award, and the turn to white and green tea coming in the 1960s. It dates the hot-air withering success to 1962 in its summary and to 1963–64 in the main text.
Notes#
The plant was set up in 1953 with 22 staff at the old 广泰 tea house in Bailin. Fuding's state tea factory managed it. 吴觉农, then head of the China Tea Company, gave it the job of making Bailin Gongfu (白琳工夫) black tea for export to the USSR and Eastern Europe. It moved to a 15-mu site at 贵坪, 康山村 in 1957 and began separate accounting. In 1959 it again became a workshop of the Fuding factory. Output peaked that year at 6,350 dan, and its Bailin Gongfu won a national black tea quality award. When black tea exports to the Soviet bloc fell in the 1960s, the plant turned to white tea (Silver Needle, White Peony, Gongmei, Shoumei) and green tea.
A group under deputy technical head 王奕森 developed heated indoor withering in the early 1960s. In 1968, after Hong Kong asked for a cheaper white tea, the same team worked out a lightly rolled white tea. By 1969 the provincial foreign-trade tea company had renamed it 新工艺白茶 (new-craft white tea) and made Bailin its sole processor. From the 1970s Bailin also made baked green tea as a base for jasmine tea. It was renamed 国营福鼎茶厂白琳分厂 in 1978. Jiemian describes it in 1982 as Fuding's largest state tea factory, run mainly for white tea export.
In 1985 an airing hall was rebuilt as a heated withering room, which the society history calls the forerunner of today's 加温萎凋房. The branch wound down after the parent factory stopped production in 1993. Typhoon Saomai (桑美) badly damaged the old 广泰 site in 2006.