Fengguan Zen Tea || Green Tea Ping Shui Zhu Tea

Pingshui pearl tea is a unique traditional tea in Zhejiang, developed from Rizhu tea, and is known for its unique charm of pearl-like shape, green color, high flavor and alcohol. For hundreds of years, export sales have not declined, becoming China's main export of green tea products. As a famous market town in the southeast of Shaoxing, Pingshui was already a distribution center for tea processing trade as early as the Tang Dynasty. In the nearly 300 years from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, pearl tea produced in Zhuji, Shengzhou, Yuyao, Tiantai and other surrounding counties and cities was mostly concentrated in Pingshui for refining, processing, transshipment and export. Therefore, the pearl tea produced in Zhejiang has gradually become known as "pingshui pearl tea" in international trade, and has been used to this day. At the beginning of the export, Pingshuizhu tea was translated as "Hgson" (Gongxi), which means tea leaves that paid tribute to the Kangxi Emperor, so it attracted the attention and boasting of European and American capitalists. In the mid-18th century, the price of flat water pearl tea in the London market in England was as high as ten shillings and six pence per pound, and the price of tea was no less than that of jewelry, so it was also called "green pearl". There is also a translation called "Gun powder", which Chinese mean gunpowder bullets, and before the invention of the Rifle Gun, gun ammunition was also as round as a ball. After the "five ports of trade", businessmen from Britain, the United States, France and other countries directly operated the business of "Pingshui Pearl Tea". In the 50 years from 1843 to 1894, the average annual export was 200,000 quintals, up to 250,000 quintals, it can be said that Pingshui pearl tea created a record for China's green tea exports. Of course, the formation of pingshui bead tea has also gone through a long process of evolution. As early as the Song Dynasty, when other tea areas still followed the tuan cake tea method, the Pingshui tea area was no longer tuan cake, and the fried green method was used instead. Lu You noted after his poem "An GuoYuan Tea Trial" that praised Rizhu Tea: "Rizhu is more tea, not a ball and no cake, but fried green, known as goshawk claw, then plucked bubbles." This is a poem with great historical value, from which it can be seen that in the era of Lu You 800 years ago, there was a similar fried green tea in the Pingshui tea area today, and a method similar to that of today's people was brewed and drunk with boiling water. Due to the long history of the stir-frying method, tea farmers have explored a set of processes and collection methods such as cutting, moving, sprinkling, fanning, and stir-frying, so that the inherent quality of Japanese tea can be fully utilized.

About the Qing Dynasty, the frying method of the Pingshui tea area has a new change, that is, the bead tea method is produced, and the tea leaves are kneaded into a ball, and the outer part forms a granular shape, a fine circle and a tight knot, like a pearl, so it is called bead tea.

Quality characteristics: its shape is round and tightly knotted, so it is also called "round tea". The color is green, the fragrance is strong, and it is durable, and is known as the "pearl of green".

Production process: Pingshui bead tea needs to go through the initial production and refining of secondary processing, and the key process is the initial production. The method of stir-frying is very exquisite, and it must go through three processes: killing, kneading and drying. The drying process can be divided into four process projects: "fried two green", "fried three green", "fried on the pot", and "fried in a large pot". It takes about 10 hours to fry a pot of bead tea by hand, and the labor intensity is very large, so there is a saying that "the pound of tea is sweaty and heeled, and the tea of a season is thin and scorching". Since the 1960s, the pearl tea stir-frying revolutionary machine has been created, and the whole process of pearl tea has been mechanized, which has greatly reduced the labor intensity, improved the efficiency of roasting tea, and also improved the roundness of the shape of pearl tea.