Wuyutai 吴裕泰

The House

Wu Xiqing, from Shexian in Huizhou, came to Beijing with a scholar bound for the imperial examinations and set up a tea stall in a gateway on the east side of what is now Beixinqiao. He bought the gateway, rebuilt it as a shop, and in 1887 raised the sign of the Wuyutai Tea Warehouse — a cha zhan, or tea store, because its trade was chiefly storage, transport, and wholesale rather than retail. The business grew to more than ten shops; Wu divided his estate among five sons, three of whom merged their shares into the Lizhixin Brothers Company, adding tea houses in Tianjin and Beijing and factories in the south. Its jasmine tea was made on a rule of picking, scenting, and blending in-house.

The house passed in 1932 to the sixth Mr. Wu, Wu Chengbo, who ran it on honest dealing and fair profit. Under the joint public-private operation of 1955 it became the Wuyutai Tea Shop, obliged to buy from a central factory; the manager Zhang Wenyu re-blended the incoming tea to hold on to its traditional character. In 1966 the plaque was taken down and the shop was painted over as the Red Sun Tea Shop; the Wuyutai name was restored in 1985, and in 2005 the business became a joint-stock company.

Today it has more than 550 shops across a dozen provinces, with a range built around jasmine tea within a line of seven tea categories, and it has extended into tea mooncakes, tea zongzi, tea ice cream, and tea chewing gum.

What They Make

Jasmine tea (moli huacha): a green-tea base scented repeatedly with fresh jasmine flowers, in nine steps the house sets out — base-tea making; flower selection; flower care; the scenting-and-blending step that joins flower and tea; turning the heap to cool it; removing the spent flowers; drying; even-piling and packing; and a final proprietary blend. The blossoms are gathered between midsummer and the end of the hot season, and only under the right conditions — not in the morning, not on cloudy days, and not within three days of rain. Each batch is scented at least six times, more for the higher grades. Wuyutai leaves out a last re-scenting step, a choice the archive ties to controlling moisture and holding the aroma. The result is described as a fresh, lasting fragrance, a mellow, sweet taste, and a clear, bright liquor, known to customers as "Yutai fragrance".

Timeline

Passing It On

The line runs from the founder Wu Xiqing to Wu Chengbo in 1932, and then, after the joint public-private operation, to the managers Zhang Wenyu, Luo Baochen, and Du Cunyu, with Zhang Wenyu at its head. Sun Danwei, a first-class tea taster, is a national-level representative inheritor of the jasmine-tea technique. Liu Peihua is a first-class tea taster and senior tea-processing technician. Ling Zejie, a Dongcheng district-level inheritor, took second prize in the all-round event of the first national tea-tasting competition in 2019.

Source: official materials published by Beijing Wuyutai Tea Co., Ltd. Translated and condensed from the house's own record; no information has been added.

Historical facts on this page come from Official materials published by Beijing Wuyutai Tea Co., Ltd. Designation recorded 2006-11-07. This page is editorial content; it is not a product listing and nothing here is an offer for sale.

Independence. Time-Honored Goods is an independent multi-brand store. We are not the official site of Wuyutai, and we do not speak for the house. See Independence & Sourcing.