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Am I the first to land on red tea board? Yeah!! :D
So here is a question about Lapsang Souchong(正山小種). Here is what I know about it: In Chinese, it's called Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong. Xiao Zhong = souchong. Shan = Mountain. Zheng means authentic. This tea is from Wuyi Mountain region. In Wuyi, they used to call the tea produced in their place "authentic mountain variety", and tea from other places "Wai Shan"(外山). Wai means outside, alien. Same old thing about "mine is good, non-mine is weird", Hehe...
Sang means Mountain; souchong means small variety; Lap is Lap.
So what is Lap Mountain? Is Lap Mountain same as Wuyi Mountain? I couldn't find the answer. I saw quite several articles saying "Lapsang souchong is Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong", but none of them bother to further explain what Lapsang - Lap Mountain is.
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Lapsang Souchong is a Fujian dialect calling Zhengshan Xiaozhong..at least that's what I heard..:O
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There is no Lap Mountain. The answer is this article:
http://www.sevencups.com/education/abou … -souchong/
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Thanks Charlie and Ed! The 7 cups article is very nice!
Some article mentioned the word lapsong souchong is Cantoese word, but Charlie you are right it should be Fujian word. I got a Cantonese reading the word to me and it sounded very different from "souchong" :D
And I got hold of a Fujianese and here is what he said about lapsong souchong:
Souchong is from Hokkien (Fujian or southern Fujian) word "小种", and "Lapsang" is from Hokkien word "内山". The "p" in "Lap" is 入声韻尾.
My note: "内山” (nei shan) is inner mountain, which is opposite to Wai Shan (outer mountain). And 入声韻尾 he mentioned is some pronunciation phenomenon that happens frequently in local dialects of Guangdong and Fujian, but not in Mandarin.
His answer makes good sense to me because I did notice many Fujianese pronounce "L" and "N" in the same way. So "Nei" -->"Lap" is very possible.
But he also told me that he didn't know much about local dialect of northern Fujian. Fujian is a very small province yet with dozens of very different dialects. So I have no idea if lapsang souchong is same as local pronunciation from Wuyi region. However, it's very possible it's just southern Fujian pronunciation, because when lapsong souchong was first exported, the main port cities are in southern Fujian.
The name is not a big deal, but it would kill me to keep wondering about it :-p
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