The Story of Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe)

the original bushes of Da Hong Pao on the cliff, with the inscription on the rocks.

Dahongpao (big red robe) is the best of the rock tea produced in the Wuyi Mountains. In the ancient time, there was a Tianxin Temple located in the mountains. One day, there was a poor scholar went to the capital city for the national exam for officials. When he passed by the Tianxin Temple he fainted because of sickness. The old monks in the temple carried him inside and fed him with the local tea, therefore the scholar was quickly recovered. Later on the scholar ranked the first in the official exams and was entitled as Zhuang Yuan by the emperor. The emperor even married the princess to him. He didn't forget the old monk and his tea. One day, he led many other officials to the Wuyi Mountains and expressed his gratitude to the monk. The Monk led the ZhuangYuan to the Valley of Nine Dragons, where he pointed three ancient tea trees on the top of the cliff. The tea buds were shining a purple halo under the sunlight. The old monk told the Zhuangyuan that every year in the spring, the monks here would used some trained monkeys, dress them in red robes and send them up onto the cliff to pick up the wild tea buds. It was the tea buds that cured the ZhuangYuan the year before. Then the ZhuangYuan asked for some tea buds from the temple, found some best tea workers to make them as the best WuYi tea, sealed them in a silver box and took it back to the Forbidden City. At the time the empress was having a upset stomach and stayed in her bed. The ZhuangYuan sent the tea to the empress's bed side and the empress drank the tea. Immediately the empress was relieved. The emperor was very glad and gave a big red robe to the ZhuangYuan and told him to go back to the Wuyi Mountains with many gifts. The ZhuangYuan went back and hired a local hunter to climbed the cliff, hanged the big red robe on the tea trees. Some people also inscribed the word "Big Red Robe" on the cliff. From then on people called the tea tree here as "big red robe" and it became a famous royal contribution for many centuries.