Mountain Opening & Tea Picking
Searching for Spring Colors in the Mountains, Picking Tea in Wuyi
The spring breeze brushes green over Wuyi Mountain, and the air is filled with tea fragrance in April. On April 16, the "Searching for Spring Colors in the Mountains, Picking Tea in Wuyi" Mountain Opening and Tea Picking event grandly kicked off at the Binjiang Water Tea Ceremony in Wuyi Mountain.
This cultural ceremony, blending a millennium of tea heritage, intangible cultural legacy, and the vision of rural revitalization, not only played the prelude to spring tea picking but also allowed visitors from all directions to touch the pulse of Wuyi tea culture through immersive experiences.
Let us follow the fragrance of tea and jointly attend this spring gathering where nature and humanity intertwine.
Drums Shake the Spring Mountain, Dragon Dance Prays for Blessings
The Contemporary Echo of a Millennium-Old Tea Ritual
In the early morning, the tea gardens of Wuyi Mountain are shrouded in light mist. Giant drums stand like chess pieces scattered among the emerald green tea bushes. At ten o'clock sharp, drummers dressed in traditional costumes strike the mountain-opening drums. The deep drum sounds pierce through the clouds, awakening the tea buds that have slept through the winter. The earth-shaking drums are both an expression of reverence for nature and a deep tribute to agricultural civilization.
Dragon Dance Clears the Way · Praying for a Bountiful Harvest. As the drum beats fade, the master of ceremonies leads the way with a copper gong. Tea farmers, carrying bamboo baskets on their shoulders and rice mountain springs in their hands, slowly proceed along the ancient tea mountain paths.
A twelve-person dragon dance team leaps and tumbles, the green dragon's body reflecting the new buds of the tea trees. The spectacular sight of "Dragon Playing with Spring Tea" frequently draws the focus of drone cameras. Wherever the team passes, golden grains are scattered, using the ancient ritual of "sprinkling five grains" to purify the tea mountain, praying for the retreat of disasters and the continuation of blessings.
Three Offerings to the Mountain · The Continuous Lineage of Tea. The altar is set according to ancient systems, with red incense burners offering the newly picked spring tea, Wuyi mountain spring water, and newly harvested rice. The host lights three sticks of agarwood incense, leading the tea farmers in bowing and presenting offerings.
Amidst the swirling green smoke, the inheritors of the tea mountain recite the "Ode to Opening the Mountain". Hundreds of people pray in silent meditation, and the tea farmers collectively bow to nature, their reverence filling their hearts as they look up and down.
Dancing Spring Tea, Inheritance at the Fingertips
The Cultural Relay from the Altar to the Tea Basket
The dance announces the arrival of spring, and the ritual completes the start of picking. As the ceremony concludes, the tea-picking dance steps onto the spring stage. Twenty-four dancers dressed in tea-picking attire perform the rhythm of a thousand years of tea heritage through modern dance moves. Their balanced movements sketch out the long scroll of the tea farmers' four seasons of hard work.
"Picking Tea Ballad" - While the deep and melodious tail note of the intangible cultural inheritor still trembles in the morning mist, the tea gardens all over the mountains suddenly begin to boil.
Hundreds of people resonate in unison, their shouts piercing through the clouds: "Pick——Tea——Hey——!" This ancient chant sweeps over the new green tea tips like a mountain breeze, startling the crystal clear morning dew on the leaves, and echoes rise and fall instantly in the valleys.
Among the rolling green waves of the tea bushes, fingertips flutter like butterflies, and the first buds gently fall like snow. In the morning light, they dance into a flowing scroll, as if the entire tea mountain is awakened by this penetrating call. It stretches its muscles in the spring breeze of 2025, pushing out all the fragrance condensed throughout the cold winter.
Tea Picking Anecdotes
This unprecedented mountain-opening tea-picking ceremony is not only a modern expression of ancient rituals but also a vivid footnote to rural revitalization.
As the new tea falls into the bamboo baskets, we see traditional culture rejuvenating with a youthful posture, and witness "green waters and green mountains truly turning into mountains of gold and silver."
This spring, we look forward to meeting you—deep in the clouds and mist of Wuyi Mountain, to continue the legend of a single leaf.
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