Undercooked Rice: Local Cuisine and the Tea Trade in Fu'an
In April 2026 I went to Fu'an in northeast Fujian Province, in search of the historic red tea: Panyong Congou. At my first dinner in Fu'an I noticed the rice was undercooked and hard to chew. Initially I thought this was a one-off, but subsequent lunches and dinners confirmed this is a consistent trend in Fu'an cuisine.
When I asked my local friend why they undercook the rice, their answer reminded me of something I had discovered while researching Fujian’s tea trade. During the early Qing Dynasty, the province only had a relatively small amount of arable land, and rice production was often insufficient to support its growing population.
My friend said that rice shortages were common in Fu'an during this time, and therefore families would undercook what little rice they had so it would take longer to digest and make them feel fuller after eating. This habit stuck. The tendency among Fu’an locals to cook sweet potato in rice cookers is also a remnant from the time when carbohydrates were in short supply.
So how does this relate to the tea trade? Economic historians have argued that Fujian’s dire agricultural situation during the Qing Dynasty forced Fujianese people to adopt two survival strategies. One strategy was to go into the mountains and grow tea, a quintessential cash crop that could be sold for high profits. The other strategy was to sail overseas for trade and bring money back home. The historic Fu’an tea trade was a perfect blend of both strategies.
In Fu'an, the locals used their heirloom tea plant, Tanyang Cai Cha, as raw material for black tea. Hence Panyong Congou was born in Tanyang Village. An old poem sung in Fu'an dialect contains the line: ‘black tea was for export.’ The tea farmers in Fu’an certainly knew of the appetite for black tea among European traders in Canton and Fuzhou, and that making tea would enable to them to buy as much rice as they needed for their families. This pattern can be observed all over Fujian. Historic tea production, particularly the production of Fujianese black tea, is almost always correlated with overseas demand for the product and the domestic demand for foreign currency. These economic factors are key to explaining the proliferation of gongfu black tea production across Fujian (Tanyang, Zhenghe and Bailin Gongfu) and Anhui (Qimen Gongfu).
After black tea underwent primary processing in the mountains surrounding Fu'an, it would be centralised in Tanyang Village for refined processing before being shipped to Fuzhou. The below riverside deep in the mountains was one of the points where tea would be loaded onto barges for the first trip to Tanyang Village. At this embankment you can still see a small temple dedicated to Mazu, the tutelary diety of seafaring. Relying as they were on shipping tea overseas for a living, the local people took their worship of Mazu very seriously.
After the tea was collected and blended in Tanyang Village, it would be sent off on barges at a small river flowing under Zhenwu Bridge. From here, the tea would travel to Fuzhou, where European traders would deal with local tea merchants. From Fuzhou, tea clippers would carry the tea to Europe.
The rivers and sea were not only a form of transportation in Fu'an, but a vital source of food. Seafood is still the primary protein of choice in Fu'an, ranging from braised river fish to delicacies like anglerfish cooked with local spicy ginger (see the above video). Back in the 19th century, the villages in the Fu'an mountains did not have any salt, hence the boats exporting tea from these villages would soon return carrying salted fish as a source of sodium.
Trading tea for rice and salt fish would turn out to be more than just an effective survival strategy. The demand for Panyong Congou was high, and silver poured in to Tanyang Village. The original producing Shi, Hu, and Wang families of Panyong Congou thrived. Today, most of their ancestral mansions can still be visited in Tanyang Village. Marrying into these families back in the 19th century would set you up for life. A curious architectural detail in the Wang and Shi family mansions is a small window hidden away on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard. The function of this spy window was to allow a soon-to-be-betrothed daughter to sneak a look at her suitor when he visited the family (it was customary for betrothed women to wait until their wedding day to see their fiancé.)
The Shi and Hu families pictured below still make tea, in an unbroken line of eight generations. Shi Liqiang is the current Shi family producer. In the off season he works as the village doctor.
Shi Liqiang, descendent of the Shi Family
Mr Hu, descendent of the Hu Family
The Shi family’s Qing Dynasty tea factory is well-preserved. It sits under a hill that is shaped like a Chinese Imperial Governor's hat (wu sha mao 乌纱帽). This site was chosen according to fengshui principles to bring wealth and prosperity.
