Liang Junde, Lapsang Souchong
Master Liang was born in July 1948 in a well known and old family of tea in Xingcun town, Wu Yi Mountain. His ancestors were engaged in tea business. Master Liang grew interested in tea processing and producing as a child. He apprenticed himself when he was 15 years old to produce and process tea. He was preoccupied with learning, so he achieved mastery in the skills of plucking, drying, withering, fermenting, roasting and smoking of black tea. Therefore, he became the backbone of the production group who produced Lapsang Souchong Black Tea, taking responsibility of the technical support.
Not only did he inherit the traditional processing method from his ancestors, but also reformed and innovated it. In traditional tea processing, people dried and roasted the tea by strong fire in the drying room, making it difficult for the them to control the temperature. However, after long-term processing experience, Master Liang rebuilt the drying room into a secure place providing for the heat to come from an underground channel rather from the fire being inside the drying room. This new method solved the problem controlling the temperature and added better control of the smoking process.
In the planned economy period, all the original finished Black Tea was ranked and purchased by the Village Tea Station. Thanks to their
exquisite technique of processing Lapsang Souchong Black Tea, their tea always came up top in Tea Assessment and Grade.
In 1975, since the state policy stabilized step by step with the expanded international trade capability, and Lapsang Souchong Black Tea started to be sold in the European Market again. According to client’s requirement, he had to change the Souchong Black Tea with its pine-smoked aroma into the one with no smoked aroma but with the special flavor of longan.
In 1982, their village contracted with the villagers in accordance with the State Land Policy, built the tea processing factory, and began to plant Lapsang Souchong Black tea.
In 1988, Tongmucun Committee established the Tong Mu Tea Factory. In view of his abundant experience in processing Souchong Black Tea, Master Liang was appointed as the teacher of the Tong Mu Factory with responsibilities of technical support in processing, purchasing and examine tea.
Master Liang made great progress in producing tea for so many years. By way of finding the theory for practice, he took part in various of training courses and saw how other products could improve the development of Lapsang Souchong Black Tea. In 1999, he participated in 9000 System Training Course and gained the certificate. In 1996, he was trained and got the Tea Physiochemical Inspection and Quarantine Certificates, and Tea Master Certificate in 2002.
He founded Lapsang Tea Industry Co., Ltd and has been the manager of the technical support department up until now.
