Our Chinese friend, Yu Ling, decided that she would like to show us the famous tea village on the outskirts of town and this time we were joined by Simba Kang another English teacher, who is also the one supposedly ‘in charge’ of the Foreign teachers. His English is very good and he improved it when studying for his Masters in Sweden. We felt lucky to be going with these two as Yu Ling used to be a guide for Chinese tourists in this area and so she knew how to avoid the tourist traps and with their good english there was a hope that we might understand what was happening and learn from them.
The day was drizzly and damp but we decided to go anyway although later we all thought it would have been better to go another time as it was cold as well as damp.........
We were picked up by taxi and headed south through two very long and horribly smelly tunnels to the country where we were dropped in the centre of the village famous the world over for its Longjing Green tea. The village is Meijiewa Tea Farm and the ride, which took about 45mins, cost only 40 yuan ($5.85) for 4 of us.
We were lucky to go this particular weekend because it was the last weekend for picking the Spring crop of tea which is the very best tea. They pick it 3 times per year - in Spring before March 31st, in the Summer and again in the Fall.
This tea has a history of over 1200 years and has been famous since the Tang and Song Dynasties. It was the Royal tea in the early Qing Dynasty. It tops ‘Chinese Ten Renowned Teas’ for its ‘green colour, fragrant aroma, nice shape and sweet taste’.
It is interesting to note that it can be divided into five categories including:
Lion = Shifeng - This is the first grade and ‘Afore Tomb Sweeping Day Tea’ is the best i.e. the weekend that we went..
Dragon = Longjing
Cloud = Yunqi
Tiger = Hupao and
Mei = Meijiawu
Most of the tea pickers come from neighbouring provinces and are not local although the tea farmers are and their houses are large and luxurious as would be expected.
Walking through the village we were encouraged to visit every house along the way where assistants and farmers wanted us to come and watch the firing/cooking process, to buy some and to stay and eat a meal there too. (Boy were we glad we had Yu Ling with us)
The tea is picked and gathered in lovely little baskets made specially for that purpose, weighed and brought to the processing area (front porch as far as I could make out), washed and dried in a very large flat winnowing basket. Then it is fried!!!!
It is fried three times in a large cauldron inside a wooden barrel, which used to be heated by wood beneath the metal container but is now heated by electricity with a thermostat to get a more even heat.
A little tea oil is placed in the cauldron then a bunch of dried tea leaves are put in and moved around constantly, by hand, in a special circular motion. The first firing is at 120 degrees for 30 mins. It is then cooled and again fired for 20 mins at 80 degrees and the process is repeated at 60 degrees for 15 mins. Quite an exercise. We asked about commercial production but did not seem to get an answer other than it is all done by the farmers here in the village as you see!!!
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