Oolong tea

Oolong/Wulong is one of the six main classes of Chinese teas.  Oolong teas are semi-fermented and therefore sit between the unfermented green teas and fully fermented black teas.  There are many members in this family.  Fermentation is a crucial determinant during the process of tea making and various Oolong teas are fermented to different levels.  For example Tie Guan Yin is about 20% fermented, while Da Hong Pao is about 85%.  In conjunction with other variants such as tea plants and different tea making techniques, the members of this family present a vast degree of variation in both their appearance and taste.

"Oolong tea", "wulong tea","Wu-long" are various sound translations of the same class of Chinese tea (Black Dragon Tea in Chinese meaning).

The different spellings originate because the Chinese (Mandarin) language when written uses symbols to represent syllables, rather than being built up from an alphabet like English.

The process of transcribing spoken Chinese to the western alphabet is known as "Romanising".  Several different systems exist.  The Taiwanese dialect uses a different system from Mandarin for translating sounds (or "Romanising") to English.

To complicate things further, the province in mainland China famous for Oolong tea is Fujian - which being opposite Taiwan, uses this dialect natively - translating their tea to Oolong, whereas the mandarin system would more readily translate the sound to Wulong.  The US English literature seems to have more readily adopted the Wulong variations than some other English speaking countries.

There are various theories regarding the origin of the Chinese Oolong teas. It is widely agreed that the Fu-Jian province of Southern China is its birth place with some folk songs and folklore with Oolong tea content dating back to the Qing dynasty.

Today, Fu-Jian is still the predominant heartland of Oolong tea production, producing many big name Oolong teas such as Tie Guan Yin (from the An-Xi area) and Da Hong Pao (from the Wu-Yi mountain area). 

The Wu-Yi mountain area (Wu-Yi Shan) is believed to be one of the places that the first Oolong tea was made.  The Wu-Yi Cha Ge (folk tea songs) passed down by the tea farmers and families are the most original evidence of Oolong tea production in this area.

The Oolong tea family has since been refined and extended. Many areas outside of Fu-Jian have since developed their specialities of Oolong teas such as Taiwan’s high mountain Oolong tea and the Dan Cong produced in the Guang Dong province of southern China.