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One of the famous Chinese green tea is DongTing BiLuoChun,
which grows in Mount Dong Ting and Lake Tai area in Wu County in the Jiangsu
Province.
Legend has it that the east side of the Mount Dongting
once grew several wild teas. Local people used baskets to pick that tea
every year for their own use.
One year, that tea grew
particularly lush, baskets that people normally used could not accommodate the harvest, and so they saved the tea in glass cups. Heated in a glass
cup, the tea delivers an enormous fragrance, and hence people named it "Threatening Fragrance".
On one occasion, the
Qing Emperor Kang Xi visited Lake Taihu, governor Song Gong offered
the trial taste of the "Threatening Fragrance”. Kang Xi was surprised
by the color and the extreme fragrance. However, he felt that the name was not right and changed the name to "BiLuoChun."
The mild climate, clean, foggy and humid air in Lake DongTing and its surrounding areas provide a unique environment for tea growth. In addition to that, the
sophisticated picking process and the elegant post-pick work
form the unique quality characteristics for BiLuoChun.
BiLuoChun tea leaf is curly slim in shape, full of small hairs, and the color is dark green.
After brewing, leaves are clear in fragrant and green in water.
Especially with the hi-end BiLuoChun, you can put water into the glass before
putting in the tea leaves, the tea can still be slowly sinking, expanding
and expressing fragrance. It’s because the buds are so much stronger compared with other teas.
Therefore, the local Chinese people
have such a saying: BiLuoChun have "copper wire of the spiral, hairy
body, one softness (referring leaf buds), three freshness (referring to
color, smell and taste), nothing can be compared in the past."
BiLuoChun
tea picking starts from the late March and ends in late April spring.
The picking process strictly limits to ‘One Bud One Leaf’ - meaning one bud
and one leaf connecting by one small stem is considered one perfect set of
leaf. After the picking, filtering needs to be performed to remove all of the leaves and long stems.
Tea picking from tea trees usually
happens before dawn, then sorting and filtering followed around the
noon time with the tea drying during the evenings.
Presently,
tea processing is still done with manual methods including: Sha Qing
(Fixing) - Chao Rou (Speculation Rubbing) - Chuo Tuan (Rolling for
drying). The three processes are coherent in the same process.
The
DongTing uniquely stylish BiLuoChun tea, are well known for both
domestically and aboard. It’s officially used for state foreign
guests as a precious gift. BiLuoChun is not only sold in the domestic
market, but is exported to Japan, the United States, Germany,
Singapore and other countries.
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