The purpose of the first step in green tea manufacture is to prevent oxidation and to preserve its appealing green color. The drying process also keeps the soluble solids of the fresh leaf’s “juice” intact, inside the leaf structure, where they contribute to the flavor, possible astringency, and overall healthfulness of the tea being manufactured. The fresh leaf that develops into green tea should be dried quickly, thoroughly, and completely. This is a critical factor, as improper drying yields low-quality tea at best and in most cases creates absolute waste. Leaf that remains too wet will mold and be unusable.
Artisanal basket-rolled primary leaf (Jingangshan, China).
An integral component of all high-quality artisan green tea manufacture (other than the sun-drying technique, of which we write about on the next page) is the complex and precise handwork. This manipulation is part learned and part inherited. Without it, green tea can be tasty but not aesthetically beautiful. In many styles the handwork is integral to the firing, and in others it is a corollary step; it contributes to the completeness of the manufacture, is fascinating to observe, and offers tea artisans an opportunity to master an art form and share it with a loyal audience. Quick or slow movements of short or long duration yield varying results, depending on the season and the pluck. Every tea bush varietal and growing region has a tea style that its leaf tends toward; it is the artisan’s goal, the challenge, to perfect that appearance and subsequent flavor. When fresh tea leaf is dried properly in the manufacture of green tea, particularly using the complex Chinese handwork drying techniques of panning or basket-firing, the result is a beautifully prepared and interesting-to-look-at tea, ready to be brewed into one of the world’s most elegant beverages.
Table 3.2. The Primary Styles of Green Tea Manufactured Today
Detailed list to follow
Artisanal Methodologies: Sun-dried: Saiqing
Modern Methodologies: Oven-dried: Hongqing
Artisanal Methodologies: Basket-fired / charcoal-fired: Hongpei or yaoqing
Modern Methodologies: Tumbled: (no Chinese equivalent)
Artisanal Methodologies: Pan-fired: Chaoqing
Modern Methodologies: Steamed: Zhenqing
SUN-DRIED GREEN TEA
Starting with artisanal tea-processing methods, the most traditional and basic technique is sun-drying. This method is straightforward, simple, and effective: the tea is laid out on mats in breezy, partial sun or shade and is periodically tossed, flipped, or shaken to change the leaf’s orientation so that uniform drying occurs. Sun-drying is essentially controlled, lengthy, primary drying. It works best in those magical locations where the weather is particularly cooperative. The environments of the mountainous provinces of Anhui, Sichuan, or Yunnan in China, or the Darjeeling region of India, with their clear, crisply dry breezes and inherently low humidity, are conducive to this process. The sun-drying technique is not particularly successful when attempted in the humid jungle areas of Java or Myanmar.
Sun-dried tea in Xishuangbanna (Yunnan Province, China).
Once the fresh leaf has shed the necessary amount of moisture (approximately 60 percent), it is finish-fired and sorted. Sun-dried tea is one of the bulkiest teas in volume (similar to white tea), in part because of the lack of pressing or other application of weight during manufacture. Sun-dried tea is traditionally made from mature leaf (frequently using leaf picked from ancient, wild-growing trees), which is larger than the young leaf of a pruned tea bush and which has an inherently lower moisture content that makes sun-drying more feasible.
BASKET-FIRED GREEN TEA
This technique is one of the most remarkable to observe. To accomplish basket-firing, a small amount of fresh tea leaf, no more than 2.2 pounds (1 kilo), is placed in an upright bamboo or reed basket. Shaped like an hourglass, this basket is usually constructed in two parts. The upper portion that literally takes the heat deteriorates after only two or three days and is then replaced. Where bamboo is plentiful, the basket might be one piece, crafted so beautifully as to be a work of art.
Whichever construction is used, a tea-leaf firing basket stands two to four feet tall and consists of a top portion that is shaped like an oversized, smoothly conical hat, with a generous brim around the perimeter. After the primary drying, the leaf is put onto this top portion and the whole basket is placed over a small brazier or pile of charcoal embers. The heat must be gentle, so that the bamboo does not burn. The basket is kept over the charcoal for about a minute, and then the entire basket is lifted off and moved to the side, at which time the tea is “fluffed.” The resiliency of the bamboo, combined with the particular shape of the cone, allows the tea masters to gently tap the bamboo, causing the tea to jump up and be tossed.
Accomplished basket-firers tend to the drying and shaping of the leaf (Anhui Province, China).
After this step the basket is placed back over the heat for another minute, before being taken off again. The leaf is fluffed and heated, fluffed and heated repeatedly for about fifteen to twenty minutes. Experienced tea masters stand, one on each side of the basket, and essentially dance their way through these movements, in perfect unison, without a misstep, mirror images of each other. It is a marvelous process to observe. When the leaf has shed the required amount of moisture, it is removed from the basket and piled onto a bamboo mat on the floor, where it rests and continues to air-dry until it is combined with other similarly processed leaf, ready for final firing and sorting. We have observed variations of this type of artisanal firing all over China, and the results are spectacular.
Green tea made using this technique tends to be full-flavored and singularly distinctive. A basket-fired green tea’s flavor components can range from grassy and assertive to mineral, to being ever-so-slightly charcoal-finished (an esteemed taste in the western provinces of China). The finished tea is always bulky in volume, slightly twisted into open curls or very thin, quill-like needles. A modern adaptation of this technique employs the use of short, round, vertically mounted metal cylinders with a heat source beneath. This is the method of firing for Green Snail Spring (variously Bi Lo Chun or Pi Lo Chun), a famous green tea from Jiangsu Province. See chapter 5 for several examples of elegantly long, basket-fired teas.
Using this technique, one drum to a bank of several drums can be fired simultaneously using the same air-circulated heat source. Banks of this type of firing drums are used in midsized or large factories producing a quantity of tea. Rather than tossing the leaf, the manufacture of Bi Lo Chun tea requires a unique handwork that dictates the shape of the finished tea. Five motions repeated three times result in the leaf assuming and maintaining the desired classic form of Bi Lo Chun. These motions are a combination of a gentle twist and a roll: envision a slightly opened fiddlehead fern or escargot in miniature. We tried our hand at shaping a batch of this leaf in southern Sichuan Province—it is much harder to do than it looks! This style of firing is known as “baked” tea, even though no enclosure or cover is used. It is air-drying pure and simple. In basket-firing, the basket is moved on and off the heat source. When firing baked tea, however, the firing drum is fixed in place; the hot air must be controlled precisely, so that the heat changes from hot to warm to cool on a rotating basis, allowing the leaf to dry evenly and thoroughly.
Skilled Bi Lo Chun firers (Sichuan Province, China).
In both of these techniques, the goal of the tea-firer is to coax the leaf into a naturally relaxed dried shape as effortlessly as possible, and then “fix” it at that moment with the finish-firing. When brewed later, the rehydrated tea leaf returns to its natural, fresh-leaf shape with as little effort as possible. This ensures that the energy (chi) of the tea is held in reserve to be released into the brewed tea, rather than having been needlessly driven out along the way by sloppy manufacture. These two types of tea firing, when accomplished artisanally, exemplify what is known as the tai chi of tea.
PAN-FIRED GREEN TEA
Pan-firing is one of the great methods of green tea manufacture. Th
is method singularly accomplishes many of the tasks involved in the manufacture of green tea. In just one process it fixes the “juice” within the leaf, drives moisture out of the leaf, seals in the flavor, dries the leaf to the proper moisture content before finish-firing, and adds a special toastiness to the taste. One of China’s most well-known, highly regarded teas is the pan-fired Longjing (formerly spelled Lung Ching), also known as Dragon Well. Many tea experts would argue that Longjing, with its smooth appearance and flat, sword shape, is the quintessential pan-fired green tea. Every province in China, and perhaps every green tea–producing region in the world, tries its hand at fabricating a pan-fired green tea in the style and tradition of Longjing. Nowhere else on earth, however, are tea producers able to replicate its flavor. This is because of the unique terroir of the coastal region of Zhejiang Province, where this tea is grown.
Close-up of a Longjing firing pan (Zhejiang Province, China).
Workers in Jingangshan village add loft while drying and shaping the leaf (Jiangxi Province, China).
Throughout eastern China we have observed many different styles of firing pans in use—from simple hammered wok-like pans set over a separate heat source (even the top of a range, as a wok would be for stir-fry), to elaborate built-in units fabricated specifically for the tea trade, and every configuration in between. Two versions common in China are the wood-fired double pan and the electric-fired single pan, which can be transported conveniently and set up outside of teashops in the more touristy parts of Shanghai and Hangzhou.
The primary dried leaf is “measured” into the pan with a bamboo scoop of the appropriate size for a sufficient amount of leaf, proportional to the size of the pan (approximately 2.2 pounds, or 1 kilo, of fresh leaf). This quantity is ultimately reduced by a factor of four or five. Even, gentle heat is necessary for the firing of green tea, so the small electric pan is perfect for the expert manipulation of small amounts of high-quality tea by a single person. The temperature is controlled by a thermostat, or controls that are close at hand, built into the housing of the pan. When leaf is fired in a wood-fired pan, two pans are usually installed together in the same housing, and often one pair is partnered with another. Each pan must be worked by an individual tea artisan, and the wood fire must be tended by a third person (see the photograph of Tai Ping Hou Kui later in this chapter).
Wood-fired five-pan firing station in Jingangshan village (Jiangxi Province, China).
This illustration from a Chinese tea production album dated 1790–1820 shows traditional wood-fired pan-firing and bamboo mat rolling. Image courtesy of Historic Deerfield.
An experienced fire-tender can easily supervise the fires required for two pans, but supervising the fires for four pans requires quite a bit of focus. If the pans get too hot, the leaf quickly burns into ash, but if they get too cool, the tea won’t fire properly. Watching the silent communication between the fire-tender and the pan-firer is hypnotic and peaceful. Like a good grill master or bread baker, much of the technique is instinctive and intuitive. On our most recent trip to rural China we observed five-pan “pods” arranged in a semicircle around a central chimney. The fire-tenders for these pods are able to supervise all five fires at the same time, as each pan has its own firebox, fed from behind the chimney.
One of the little-known secrets of most pan-firing is that a tiny amount of solidified tea-seed oil is used to help the leaf glide around the pan and keep it from burning. This solidified oil is the simple oil expelled from the seeds of tea bushes that are periodically left to grow, flower, and seed (while being rested from leaf production), or from the “mother” bushes used for hybridization and grafts. Tea-seed oil is solid at room temperature, so it can be molded into a stick and encased in a tube reminiscent of an oversized, old-fashioned grease pen (the kind that has a string incorporated into the wrapper). In this way the solidified oil can be exposed gradually and applied as needed. Artisan tea-firers keep a stick of this handy on the edge of the pan and use it to apply the thinnest possible “haze” of oil.
By using solid tea-seed oil, no foreign flavor is introduced to the leaf. The oil leaves a residue on many high-quality pan-fired green teas, so some of them (especially Longjing) have a slight luster to the dried leaf before brewing. This residue imparts a thin slick of oil to the surface of the first cup brewed; you must angle the surface of the brewed tea in the cup to the light, and really look carefully to see this. Part of the distinctive toastiness of many pan-fired green teas is due to the flavor of this oil.
In addition to their signature flavor profile pan-fired green teas are identifiable by their flat appearance. They are rarely “fluffy” in volume; rather, they tend to be compact, flattened by the repeated pressing they must receive in order to maintain contact with the firing pan and its directly applied heat. Pan-fired green teas tend to a soft, matte finish, with a color reminiscent of the petals of a baby artichoke. Budsets are commonly used for pan-firing, producing what are often referred to as “sparrow’s tongue” or “lark’s tongue” tea. However, “first leaf” tea is also processed as pan-fired green tea, in which case the finished tea resembles folded, flattened envelopes (as with Longjing).
One of the Ten Famous Teas, Tai Ping Hou Kui, from Anhui Province in central China, is most unusual and worth searching out. This tea is unique for many reasons, one of which is that it is one of the few teas that is both pan-fired and basket-fired. Following the standard initial preparation, the exceptionally large leaf Tai Ping Hou Kui is pan-fired in twin wood-fired pans and then set aside. The next step is especially unique: paper from the nearby mills that produce the renowned “rice paper” for calligraphy and Chinese scroll painting is laid on the basket tops, and a small amount of leaf is scattered on the paper. Another sheaf of paper is laid on top of the leaf and the whole is pressed, as a blotter, to remove moisture without removing aromatics.
Two tea-firers and their charcoal tender accomplish the initial pan-firing of Tai Ping Hou Kui green tea (Anhui Province, China).
After this blotting, the leaf is then refired in a traditional one-piece basket over a low ember fire to “fix” the tea. After a resting period, the leaf is finish-fired and the final product is realized: a large, flat, bright green whole-leaf tea, with the distinctive pattern of the paper embedded in its surface. Grown in an isolated region surrounding a protected lake, this world-famous tea was once reserved exclusively for use by the emperor or leaders of China, and as special gifts for dignitaries, diplomats, and visiting heads of state. Today, however, tea enthusiasts can source it from a reliable tea merchant who has connections in Mainland China.
TUMBLE-DRIED GREEN TEA
This resourceful variation of firing places the leaf in a perforated metal drum quite similar to that found in an industrial clothes dryer. Mounted horizontally on a central axis, the drum revolves such that the leaf tumbles inside the drum while being “agitated” by internally mounted fins. Heat from a source either below or behind the unit is fanned into the perforated drum and is then vented out the back or top. Incredibly efficient and ultimately remarkably reminiscent of basket-firing, this method can produce quite drinkable tea using a fraction of the energy and labor required for traditional firing of any type. Although the finished tea from this process lacks the subtlety of traditional basket-firing (and the nuance of flavor that charcoal-firing imparts), this reliable technique yields tea that is fluffed, is evenly fired, and has a uniformity that might be lacking if traditional basket-firing is not done perfectly. Tumble-drying is the most common firing process used for the manufacture of moderate to high-quality tea.
One of the oldest of the manufactured green teas, Gunpowder tea is produced using a similar but different style of tumbler. The same logic used to replicate basket-firing with a perforated drum tumbler can be applied to pan-firing. Pan-firing is imitated (and made more efficient) by the use of an apparatus similar to that used to mix concrete or “pan” candies that have a thin candy coating (or shell), such as M&Ms, Jor
dan Almonds, jelly beans, and so on. The solid-wall, shallow-finned tumbler used for firing Gunpowder tea is set on an angle, so that the leaf is tossed about in a figure-eight pattern. The potbelly shape of the tumbler combined with the internal tumbling action results in a finished tea that has a pellet-like shape, hence the moniker “gunpowder.” Depending on the size of the original leaf put into the tumbler, the resulting Gunpowder tea varies in size from that of a BB to that of a pea. The smaller sizes of balled tea indicate that the youngest and most tender leaf must have been used, and that the firing was carefully accomplished to achieve an “imperial-grade” size and shape.
On a misty morning in the spring of 2000 we visited a modest Gunpowder tea factory in a remote upland of Zhejiang Province in eastern China. We were fascinated by a bank of these tumbler-dryers lined up and ready to be loaded and fired. We could only imagine how much of this famous tea is produced during a tea season, both there and in all the other factories like it throughout Zhejiang. As these belt-driven tumblers are powered by the same motor, many of them can be operated at the same time. Each tumbler has an individual connection to the master belt-drive, so each can be positioned online or offline. This clustering allows the tea factory to easily increase manufacturing capability when demand is heaviest during the peak harvest.
The Story of Tea Page 8