Ancient traditions still make the best tea in China

19 October, 2010 in D. WRITER'S STUFF by Mark Barratt-Boyes by Mark | 238 comments

Note: As a guest of CNTO Sydney, Mark Barratt-Boyes visited Hangzhou Zhejiang Province on Sept. 2010.

My first cup of China’s famed Longjing Dragon Well tea at the China Tea Museum near Hangzhou is not what I expect. My only previous experiences of green tea have been at a Chinese restaurant, usually with dim sum, so I’m anticipating something sublime.

Hangzhou Tea

“Does it taste like spinach?” asks Jean Yan, a tea consultant at the museum.

I nod my head in agreement.

“Ah, you never drink the first cup. It’s for smelling only,” Jean says. She pours the water from the cup and as a jug boils away merrily, I learn another part of the ritual. “Always wait a couple of minutes after the water boils for it to cool down to 80 or 90 degrees. If you pour boiling water on the leaves it burns them and spoils the taste.”

“Just like coffee grounds,” I reply, and receive a blank response.

Hangzhou Tea

We wait five minutes for the tea to infuse and turn the water a light emerald green. As I watch, the tea leaves open up and swell in size.

Then I take another taste. It’s as delicate as a breeze wafting over a meadow, with a subtle, lingering, fragrance from the wisps of steam and a clean, refreshing taste on my palate. I swallow the rest of my cup and ask for more.

Adding a little honey as a sweetener is acceptable, she says, but there is no need. The same leaves can also be used to make several cups.

Hangzhou Tea

“Dragon Well tea is good for high cholesterol. The steam soothes dry eyes, and we mix tea leaves with egg white to make a moisturiser.”

The China Team Museum is only a few minutes from the bustling, prosperous city of Hangzhou and its famed West Lake, in a rural valley where rows of neatly manicured tea bushes are set against a backdrop of rugged hills.

Hangzhou Tea

The series of plain buildings, opened in 1991, has various displays, including the history of tea and old tea sets dating back centuries.

Hangzhou’s four distinct seasons, with warm, humid summers and regular rainfall, make for perfect growing conditions. There is a saying among tea growers: “Tea leaves are a treasure if picked earlier and as useless as grass if picked too late.”

My guide for the day, Peter Yang, or Yang Jinfei, says spring, especially the middle of March, is the best time for picking the leaves, as they are at their freshest. Picking is also done in late spring and autumn, but summer is the worst.

The tea bushes can be picked for up to about 100 years, but every 25 years they are left for a few years to regenerate.

The museum is located near the village of Mei Jia Wu, set among about 130 farms averaging four hectares in size. “The oldest son inherits the farm,” Peter tells me. There are no factories, and the families do all the work.

Once the leaves are picked, the tea is prepared following a set of instructions laid down about 1250 years ago by Lu Yu, who could perhaps be called the patron saint of tea. He devoted his life to studying tea, and the 10 chapters of his book, The Classic of Tea, describe the best way to do everything from the correct tools to use to how to drink it properly. Before Yu’s time, tea was mixed with spices, dried fruit and other ingredients, but he persuaded Chinese of the fine qualities of tea itself.

Only the top shoots are picked, at selected times of the year. They are crushed, then dried in the open air.

Hangzhou Tea

Then follows a laborious process where the leaves are baked by hand for eight hours in hot iron bowls to stop the fermentation process. I watch one man at work, and he shows me some of the different hand movements he uses according to the temperature, colour and moisture content of the tea leaves.

I ask Peter why this step can’t be done by a machine. “It would break the leaf.” He tells me each kilo of dried tea leaves has 72,000 pieces.

It’s easy to understand why Longjing tea is expensive, even by western standards. A 25 gramme tin costs about $60, while more expensive varieties can easily cost three times as much.

It’s a far cry from the cheap tea bags I throw in a mug every morning for breakfast.

Share and Enjoy: