Oolong Tea - a story about its origin
Oolong Tea also called blue / indigo tea in China, it's a semi-fermented* tea with oxidizing level in-between green and black tea. The name Oolong came from the name of a tea grower.
About 1000 years ago, there was a tea grower named Oolong, who was also a good hunter. One spring morning, Oolong went up hill to pluck fresh tea leaves with a tea basket fastened to his waist, he collected half a basket by noon when he saw a deer slipped by. Oolong fired his gun and wounded the deer. The animal was startled and ran for life, Oolong hastily ran after it without taken off his tea basket. After hours of chasing, he finally caught the deer and took it home. The night, all the attention was caught by the animal, nobody thought of processing the tea Oolong took back.
The next morning, when Oolong took out his tea basket, he found the leaves were bruised by shaking inside the basket during his deer chasing, and withered overnight. The leaves lost greenery appearance, yet had a very pleasant flavor, the batch of tea made from these leaves sold faster than ever. Oolong experimented with fresh leaves to and mastered the skills of making this new type of tea, which peopled called as Oolong Tea.
Oolong teas are grown from Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan. There are many types, e.g. Iron Goddess (south Fujian), Wuyi Rocky Tea, Taiwan Dongding etc.
*fermented: an dated jargon referring to the oxidation stage in tea producing. Tea "fermentation" need plenty of oxygen, it's not the denotation meaning of fermentation.
