Picking
The first step of producing tea is to pick
off the buds or leaves from tea trees.
Generally speaking, the tea can be divided
into two types: bud and leaf tea. Bud tea use bud as the main raw material, and
leaf tea use leaves as the main raw material.
Because buds are new, the bud tea is tender.
However, except the best whole bud tea, some common bud tea contains some of
old or new tea leaves, so the bud and leaf tea is different in the degree of
freshness. In general, the higher the proportion of buds and tender the leaves,
the higher the quality of tea. Yet there is some tea whose content is particularly
made of old tea leaves, such as Huangpian, Tie Kwan-yin, ect.
Airing
and withering
The steps following picking to produce tea
depends on the tea of different kinds.
For non-fermented tea, the next step is
fixation. Fixation is divided into steaming and stir fixation. Sun drying
precedes, that is, to lay the fresh tea leaves for some time to evaporate some
water.
For fermented and partially fermented tea,
the fresh tea leaves should be withered first. Withering is done outdoor or
indoor. Outdoor withering is to place tea in the sun to dry it, (when the sunlight
is too strong, tea leaves should be on the shadowy areas), until it is
softened, then it will be moved to the room for indoor withering.
During withering, the leaves should be
stirred from time to time. At first, the purpose to stir the tea is to make the
moisture in the tea evaporate evenly; later stir it more frequently and move
dynamically. Apart from the evaporation of water, it is necessary to make
friction between the leaves to promote oxidation.
Fixation
Fixation comes next to picking and drying,
and it divides into steaming and stir fixation. Steaming is used to be the main
way, but now stir fixation has become the mainstream. Stir fixation makes tea
more fragrant, and steaming makes tea greener.
Fixation aims to continue to evaporate the
moisture of tea, to damage the enzyme activity in the leaves, and to produce
fragrance. The pot temperature is a key factor to fixation. When it is low, the
enzyme will be more active than in room temperature, so the colorless
polyphenols in tea will rapidly oxidize, which makes the tea red; when it is
too high, the tea will be burnt.
Rolling
The next step to fixation or withering is
rolling. In this process, the integrity of the leaves is damaged, resulting in
their active ingredients easier to leach when brewing. Meanwhile, the shape of
tea becomes tight from loose in rolling, good for preservation. In addition,
different flavors are created by various rolling forms.
There are cold rolling and hot rolling, the
former is done after cooling the leaves through fixation while hot rolling is
done after fixation. The former is appropriate for tender leaves, because there
are more water-soluble pectin contents in it and it is easy to form strip; hot
rolling is appropriate to old leaves, because the coarse old leaves form strips
easily when they are soft and hot, meanwhile with less broken foam. Rolling is
an important step to make the shape of tea leaves. By strength rolling is
divided into soft rolling, medium rolling, and hard rolling. Soft rolling makes
the strip, needle-like tea. When rolling is too soft, the tea will easily maintain
the original shape. Medium rolling and hard rolling make the hemispherical and
spherical shape of tea.
Fermentation
For the fermented tea and partially fermented
tea, the next step after rolling is fermentation. Fermentation is to put the
rolling tea leaves in a specially-made plate in a certain thickness so that the
chemical composition in the tea leaves will undergo a series of oxidation reactions
in aerobic conditions, and change the quality of tea. In the fermentation
process, colorless polyphenols will eventually transform into tea flavins and
tea red pigment and color, smell, taste of tea will be changed. With the deepening
of fermentation, tea will turn from green to yellow green, then green yellow,
yellow red, and even black red. Grass fragrance is transferred into flower fragrance,
and ten fruit fragrance, and finally ripe fruit fragrance. The fresh natural
flavor gradually shifts to the mellow artificial flavor.
Pile-fermentation
and long term storage
Pile-fermentation is a unique dark tea
production process. It is to pile up the rolling tea to make the leaves undergo
chemical changes, forming the unique quality of dark tea.
The key point of pile-fermentation is to
keep enough water content, general not less than 60%; when it is low, water
should be sprayed, because in the pile-fermentation process water plays a major
role.
While maintaining adequate moisture, pay attention
to the reactor temperature should be kept between 30℃- 40℃， thus the
tea basement cover should be put. In the pile-fermentation, the tea billet
temperature gradually increases. If the temperature exceeds 45 ℃, need to
reduce the temperature of tea billet.
In the pile-fermentation process, the
chlorophyll in tea is destroyed, so the color turns from green to brown, and
the fragrance and taste change too.
Some dark tea is usually stored for several
years after pile-fermentation and ferrying. Storage is essentially the slow
oxidation of dark tea in the air.
Drying
Most tea needs drying. There are fried drying,
heated drying, and sun drying, etc., each with different characteristics. for
example, fixation, rolling and drying all completed in the pot, but White Pekoe
Sliver Needle is directly dried or dried after being spread in thin.
Fried drying is characterized by the
contact of tea and the heated solid surface (such as the pot shell), making tea
with strong fragrance; heated drying is characterized by the contact of tea and
hot air, making the tea has intact tea buds; sun drying is characterized by the
contact of tea leaves and sunlight, making tea with a special flavor.
Pressing
Pressing is a necessary step for the
condensed tea. Take puerh tea as example, this tea was compressed in a tea
factory where stone presses were used.
Low temperature “baking” was used to dry these cakes after the
compression process thus preserving their integrity! Normally we have delayed
sales of this cake for 2 weeks or longer to allow the water vapor from pressing
to dissipate. Further aging will only improve this wonderful tea!
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