Chen Dehua, a senior agronomist, once served as the director of Wuyishan Tea Research Institute, and made positive contributions to the promotion of Wuyi rock tea varieties and the marketization of Da Hong Pao. In 2006, he was awarded the first batch of representative inheritors of the traditional craft skills of the Da Hong Pao, an intangible cultural heritage of the country.
Cinnamon (jade cinnamon), the wuyishan dominant variety that is now prevalent in the tea market, was held at the cinnamon mid-term review conference in 1985 (presided over by the Provincial Science and Technology Commission), and tea experts inside and outside the province commented that it is a "new use of old seeds".
The author believes that the cinnamon (jade cinnamon) variety "has its name" in the 1940s, and the predecessors in the tea industry have mentioned many things when introducing the cultivated varieties of Wuyi rock tea, such as Lin Fuquan, director of the Chishi Tea Institute of Fujian Demonstration Tea Factory in 1941, in the article "Production, Manufacture and Distribution of Wuyi Tea Leaves", there is a mention that "the leaf surface is glossy, the leaf green is turned into a tile barrel, the disease resistance seems to be weak, and the investigation site is prone to coal disease." Liao Cunren mentioned in the article "Wuyi Rock Tea" in the "Wanchuan Communications" (1941.10.11) "Wuyi Rock Tea", the tree is 5 to 6 feet tall, very similar to the large leaf oolong, the leaves grow oval tong - the leaf side is slightly inward, and it "became famous" in the 1960s. In 1964, when the county tea research institute tea garden was first mined, there were cinnamon varieties in the variety garden, and the participants in the production were Lin Tingxiu and Chen Shusen, technicians of the Provincial Tea Research Institute. When the spring tea was picked in 1965, I found that the quality of cinnamon tea was excellent, so I was particularly impressed, and it was "famous" in the 1980s. In 1982, cinnamon of the Tea Research Institute won the title of National Famous Tea for the first time to participate in the national tea appraisal held in Changsha, Hunan Province, and it was also the first time that Wuyi Rock Tea won this honor in the national appraisal. Since then, Wuyi cinnamon has won awards in various famous tea competitions.
The introduction of cinnamon in the book "Chinese Tea Plant Varieties" (2001) is "originally one of the famous firs of Wuyi, with clones, shrub types, mesophylls, late species, diploid, flat foliage, internal removal of the leaf body, strong tenderness, rich and spicy aroma like cinnamon, strong resistance to cold and drought, strong reproductive power of cuttings, and high survival rate".
In 1981, the county tea research institute sent the main varieties of tea samples in the institute to the relevant units inside and outside the province for review, including Chen Rafter of Anhui Agricultural College, Zhang Tianfu of this province, Huang Haiyan, tea master of Anxi Tea Factory, Yao Yueming of Chong'an Tea Farm, Huang Zhenguo of Xingcun Tea Station and others. Judging from the feedback situation, it is almost agreed that the quality of cinnamon is better, with the reply of the year:
▲ Review form of Zhang Tianfu and Yao Yueming (1981)
Cinnamon is a high-fragrance variety in the Wuyi tea area, a rising star, it is the actual embodiment of Wuyi rock tea out of Wuyi Mountain, and its performance in the county tea research institute is still vividly remembered.
Cinnamon tea basic aroma
Under normal circumstances, the cinnamon picked by the small open noodles has a "creamy aroma", and the cinnamon picked in the middle open noodles has a "fruity aroma" (peach fragrance), which is the majority of this fragrance type, and the cinnamon picked near the large open noodles, when the red edge reaches three red and seven greens, the medium foot fire bakes the "cinnamon fragrance".
2021 Eagle's Beak Rock Cinnamon
The tea garden of the Tea Research Institute has more than 20 plots of cinnamon varieties, from the tianyou bee to the jiuqu creek and along the coast (siqu - eight qu), its quality performance is distinctive, the variety characteristics are more obvious, easy to identify (but now wuyishan cinnamon tea quality style is diverse).
For example, Comrade Chen Siqi made the control species collected from the Imperial Tea Garden's Famous Fir Specimen Garden, cinnamon, which is made of small-open raw materials (fresh leaves), and the quality of mao tea has a "creamy aroma" (typical). Cinnamon collected from the Baihuazhuang River in 1982 was made by Guan Chaoying with a 920-type comprehensive green machine, and its product review has a distinct cinnamon aroma (it is the cinnamon tea of the Tea Research Institute that won this honor in the national famous tea appraisal held in Changsha, Hunan). In 1982, Chong'an County pre-selected to participate in the national famous tea appraisal held in Hutao Changsha was carried out in the downstairs conference room of the former Tea Bureau, and the author was only the tea sample manager and did not participate in the evaluation. When the judges decided on the last two tea samples, hesitated, through the Chong'an Tea Farm tea master Zeng Guitong put forward his views: if according to the current market most consumer trends like gaoxiang will choose this tea, if according to the rock tea style (with cinnamon incense) then choose this number of tea, after this prompt the judges said a word, of course, there is a rock tea style, and finally unveiled, there is a rock tea style (characteristics) is the Chong'an County Tea Research Institute's tea sample, the higher fragrance (peach fruit aroma) is the provincial tea research institute Huang Xiuyan comrade gave me to taste the tea sample, Because I felt that the characteristics of the variety were obvious after tasting and evaluating, I "mixed" him in and pre-selected other tea samples. In the Changsha review, in fact, the total score of cinnamon in the evaluation results is also more than 90 points, but slightly lower than Tieguanyin, and later in the report of various types of famous tea in the local price, cinnamon quoted 100 yuan / jin, other types of tea are not at this price, so posterity misrepresented cinnamon won the first place (I was specially sent to the conference team to send oolong tea review cup, so I was fortunate to be a "bystander" to know these situations). In addition, the Tea Research Institute also has Ying Mushroom Zai, Li Xiuhua, Xu Bin, Chen Zhenying, Wu Lanqin, Xiu Ming and other people have been in the Tea Research Institute to produce cinnamon tea, the tea made by these people, all the external contestants have won awards, the quality of the cinnamon of the year can really be juxtaposed with today's cinnamon tea king ranks.
Cinnamon seed origin and "variation"
Cinnamon was originally one of the famous fir of Wuyi Mountain, most of the legends are produced from wuyi mountain horse pillow peak, there are also said to be produced from Hui Yuan, but at present can not find the old tree (the author has two on the horse pillow bee).
The variety garden established by the Tea Research Institute in 1959 on Tianyou Peak, its cinnamon tea area is less than one point, only a few dozen plants, according to the specific person in charge at the time, Comrade Zhu Shouyu, there was a part of the tea spike cut from the Chong'an Tea Farm (Zhu was transferred from the Chong'an Tea Farm to the Tea Research Institute), and according to Huang Yuehong, deputy secretary of the Tianxin Brigade, when he saw the cinnamon tea tree in the Variety Garden in 1965, he said to me with emotion: The cinnamon you have here is pruned from my water curtain cave. You are now better looking here than I am in the Water Curtain Cave (the Cinnamon Tea Garden in the Water Curtain Cave has a long flat on the left side of the road from the road to the Water Curtain Cave, and the growth of about two minutes is not good).
Another tea farmer now reacts that cinnamon has changed, there are two kinds, in fact, this is a misunderstanding, when cutting the spikes from the Tianyou Variety Garden, it was found that there was a plant in the cinnamon tea bush that was not cinnamon tea, but the growth was very good, at that time, due to the lack of awareness of the purity of the tea seedlings, it was thought that only one plant was irrelevant - the result caused the current consequences, the fault is in me - not the mutation of cinnamon.
Wuyi cinnamon development process
Although there are many reasons why cinnamon tea now has this red-hot phenomenon, the author, as a first-hand witness, understands that it benefits from the attention of the government, especially Comrade Cheng Zhicai, the leader of the Provincial Science and Technology Commission (he went to wuyi tea area for the second time from 1978 to 1979 for field research). Soon, the Provincial Science and Technology Commission decided to support the wuyi tea area to develop 200 acres of cinnamon varieties of tea, 400 yuan per mu of free ribs, if necessary, you can also give interest-free loans, but also give Wuyi famous fir recovery and finishing work to support. This development of cinnamon can be said to be the first time that Wuyi Rock Tea has begun to develop good varieties in a planned way.
The development of cinnamon tea garden, first of all to solve the problem of tea seedlings, the new development of the tea research institute can provide seedlings no more than three acres, almost after 1973 to develop the new tea garden, coupled with the seedling land is very small, so by the star village brigade You Yongsheng comrade negative ambition, decided to raise seedlings in the rice field next to the East Bridge of the star village, the tea research institute sent people to carry out technical guidance, when the tea research institute cinnamon picking spring tea only hit the top and do not pick tea, in order to cultivate a large number of spikes, but can only meet the first batch of forty acres of planting needs of tea seedlings, Subsequently, the cultivation management of cinnamon tea plants was increased, and the seedling ears were increased, and the planting task of 200 mu of cinnamon tea was finally completed.
In 1989, Comrade Hu Jiwen of the Lantang Squad of the Tianxin Brigade was raising seedlings on a large scale in the Sangu farmland, and the source of the spikes came from the newly developed cinnamon tea in Xingcun (the tea garden managed by Comrade Peng Deniu) and also used spring shoots to leave spikes for summer cuttings, which not only met the development of cinnamon tea in wuyi tea area (but also sold to other tea areas).
Judging from the current cinnamon cultivation situation, its seed sources are directly or indirectly from the Dry Tea Research Institute.
Good seeds require good methods - the art of making
Good seeds need the cooperation of many good methods in order to give full play to the advantages of good seeds.
Under the normal premise, whether each program is perfect or not, it can affect the quality of the finished product, and it is now only described in terms of production.
Withering (sunning): This procedure is the basis for affecting the quality of tea, it is no less important than drying the green procedure (the quality of tea making on rainy days is an example), so the operation should be mastered rather light than surrounded, the weight loss rate is 6-10%, the appearance of the second leaf drooping, losing luster, fresh leaves have a clear fragrance (key mark), it is the premise of the "all the way incense" in the production process of cinnamon tea, and it is also the foundation for all future procedures.
Do green (shake green): it is the key to determining the quality style, in the state of "all the way incense", to grasp the principle of looking at the sky, looking at the green tea, shaking the green light and heavy, fermentation and standing time, eyes, nose, hands at the same time, that is, must "smell the aroma, see the degree of red edge, touch the leaf condition" to determine the degree of shaking green, can not blindly seek speed, to go with nature, the temperature of the green room is mastered at 23-25 ° C, the humidity is about 65%, and the tea maker should establish the concept of changing from "finishing the tea" to "making tea".
Stir-fried green (killing green): to be high temperature, machine frying temperature (about 280 ° C), handmade pot yarn temperature of about 230 ° C, the amount of leaves should not be excessive, machine frying 50 a 60 kg (to 55 type kneading tea machine prevails), hand fried 2 a 8 kg to make green leaves.
Kneading: the strips are based on the outside of the tea cord.
Baking: Timely baking, is crucial, the temperature is mainly based on the performance of the drying equipment, drying batch, kneading leaf condition. Hairy fire (the first drying), such as machine baking, generally about 130 ° C; baking cage is open to rapid (baking) and then spread out.
Foot fire (second drying): at about 100 ° C (varies depending on tea), hand roasting is based on dark fire, baking until dry (water content of about 7%).
In short, the baking temperature (according to the actual situation) and the degree of drying should vary from tea to tea - avoid "one size fits all".
The current status and improvement of cinnamon tea
Wuyi tea area cinnamon has been vigorously developed as a dominant variety, but the quality has also undergone great changes, that is, many reasons (factors) affecting the quality of tea have changed, and the quality characteristics of cinnamon in that year are obvious, with high aroma, richness, spicy taste, and easy to identify. Nowadays, the characteristics are weakened, the aroma characteristics are not as good as before, but the taste has become thick and delicious, that is, "the incense is not as good as before", "the taste is better than before", and the variety characteristics are not as good as before.
The author believes that the reason: cinnamon varieties belong to the shrub type, although the natural growth height can reach more than 3 meters, the width can reach 2 meters, but it is still a shrub type, because the shrub, small tree, tree varieties of tea are different in the optimal biological age, so it is believed that the age of the cinnamon tree has a great impact on its quality, and the folk also generally recognize this phenomenon (this phenomenon is not only cinnamon varieties), which may be a key factor. On the other hand, excessive fertilization of tea plants causes fresh leaves to be dark green, which is not conducive to greening (fermentation) and thus affects quality. This phenomenon is mostly recognized by tea farmers.
At present, from the perspective of many participating tea samples, to improve the quality, first of all, the fertilization of tea trees should be reasonable (after measuring the eight-year annual yield of cinnamon in Baihuazhuang, it can reach 516.1 kg / mu, but the quality cannot be guaranteed), so the author believes that at present, at least "tea weight loss" can be proposed, and how to fertilize reasonably... The second is to re-prune or tai liu on the tea plant to improve the tenderness of fresh leaves (younger).
(Originally published in Tea Edge, No. 5-6, 2016)
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