In Xiping (西坪), a town in the hills of Anxi (安溪), tea stories are everywhere. Some belong to temples, some to scholars, and some to farmers whose names survive mostly because the tea survived. One of these names is Su Liang (苏良).

Su Liang kept a small tea garden on the slopes outside the village—nothing grand, just a few rows of bushes following the hillside. One season, he noticed that leaves from a particular tree behaved differently after processing. The tree was called Wulong (乌龙).

At the time, it was simply the name of a plant, not a category. Su Liang began experimenting with the leaves. They were shaken gently, left to oxidize slightly, then finished with heat. The result was unusual. The tea retained the freshness of lücha (绿茶, green tea), yet developed something deeper—aroma, structure, and a faint reddish edge along the leaf. In those hills, differences in tea do not go unnoticed.

Others began to adopt the method. Variations appeared, each with its own character but following a similar sequence: shaking the leaf, allowing partial oxidation, then finishing with heat. Among them were teas later known as Tieguanyin (铁观音) and hongbian cha (红边茶, “red-edge tea”). The leaves differed, the cups differed, but the underlying process remained recognisable.

Over time, the name Wulong shifted with the method. What had once referred to a tree came to designate a style of tea. As teas from Fujian (福建) moved beyond the region, the word travelled with them. Along the coast, the local Hokkien pronunciation—something close to O-liông—was transcribed by Western traders as “Oolong.” For overseas drinkers, the term no longer referred to a particular plant, but to a category defined by taste and processing.

Seen from a distance, the shift is gradual. A tree first. Then a way of handling the leaves. Eventually, a name for an entire family of teas. The account of Su Liang endures in Xiping because it captures that transition: not a single invention, but a change in practice that later became a category.