In Hangzhou in the spring, how can it be without the fragrance of Longjing?
Today (March 12), West Lake Longjing tea was officially mined. The City Express live broadcast team came to Manjuelong Village and went to the field to find out how the tea babies here looked.
In the morning, the sun finally appeared, and many tea farmers took advantage of the good weather to go around the tea garden on their backs, ready for the first batch of mining.
Speaking of Manjuelong, Hangzhou people are familiar with it, and will definitely say, Oh, you know, "Manlong Guiyu" and "Drink tea under the osmanthus tree", it seems that only in the autumn is the C position of the beauty of Hangzhou City, in fact, the Manjuelong in the spring is also a must.
Manjuelong Village is one of the core production areas of West Lake Longjing, with a total tea garden area of more than 900 acres, a more concentrated part of the Ma'er Mountain, mainly group species, which is the most traditional precious tea plant in the West Lake Tea District, that is, the "old tea shed" in the mouth of tea farmers. Another part grows on the White Crane Peak behind the village. The villagers describe the tea here as "hiding in the deep boudoir", do not like to show their faces, but are really "green and rich".
Ma'erShan Tea Garden
White Crane Peak Tea Garden
At 10:00 a.m., we climbed along the trail to the mountainside of White Crane Peak, where the rolling tea trees snaked and rolled and were full of greenery. Looking up into the distance, today's visibility is high, the whole West Lake panorama can be seen, and then climb up, you can also see the Qiantang River.
Photo by reporter Yu Xiwen
Hu Gongyang, the old secretary of Manjuelong Village, said, "The tea garden in the whole village is centered on the Tiger Running Spring, and the tea trees are all grown up drinking Tiger Running Water, and the Tiger Running Water and Longjing Tea 'Double Absolute' are in Manjuelong." ”
Manjuelong is located south of the West Lake and is a valley at the southern foot of the South Peak. Because there is water vapor in the West Lake and Qiantang River, the humidity on the White Crane Peak is relatively large, coupled with the continuous rain in recent times, it is conducive to the growth of spring tea, and the relatively early maturing varieties of Longjing 43 tea buds are also the earliest, and there are already some new shoots that can be picked.
The morning tea tree is stained with morning dew, and passing by the tea tree can wet your clothes. Sister Hu is in her 60s this year, wearing green clothes, green pants, and a yellow bucket hat, which is a professional waterproof suit. Sister Hu said that the morning in Hangzhou these two days was cold and wet, and wearing this special set of clothes was both warm and waterproof.
Sister Hu is an old tea farmer, she began to pick tea at the age of 20, and at 7 o'clock this morning, she began to pick tea, which has been picked for almost 3 hours.
"Can you only take this little in 3 hours?" The reporter glanced at Sister Hu's tea basket, which was only about one-fifth full.
"Tea picking is skillful, you can't arbitrarily pinch the tip of the tea." There is a word in Hangzhou dialect called "扚 (di, Hangzhou people like to become die)", which is very accurate here.
Sister Hu said that picking tea is first to see which tea buds have grown and matured. Too small does not work, nor does the color work; then it is better to pinch at the "two leaves and one core" of the tea leaves. "Two leaves and one core" is the general standard for tea picking, and the tea leaves in this part are the most tender and will not cause excessive waste. Finally, pinch, with your fingers gently pinching the tea leaves. The movement should not be too slow, pay attention to a fast and accurate fierce. After such a process, the tea picking action naturally slows down.
After walking through 3 rows of tea trees, we saw Uncle Hu again. Also wearing waterproof pants, the reporter looked at The Hu Dabo tea basket, and the "booty" was probably only half of Hu Dajie's.
"Lesbians are fast, our men are a little slower, and I still get up at 6 a.m. to pick them, longer than hers." It seems that picking tea leaves is not as simple as we think. Old tea farmers with 40 or 50 years of work experience can't pick a basket of tea leaves in a morning.
In the tea garden, many simple shelves made of moso bamboo poles were also found. It is very strong, people can stand up, so that tea farmers can pick tea leaves from high places. In order to prevent rainwater from pouring into the bamboo tubes on rainy days, the tea farmers wrapped a tarp on the mouth of the bamboo tubes facing the sky, and then tied them with ropes.
There are many tea trees in the tea garden, and in order to let the tea pickers not pick the wrong territory, each tea owner will erect a small sign in his tea tree area with his name written on it. The reporter found that in this area, the frequency of "small strong" appears very high. It seems that the size of the tea field of this "little strong" boss is quite large. Coincidentally, when we went down the mountain, we happened to encounter the boss of "Xiao Qiang" who came up the mountain to inspect his tea trees.
"Oh, don't call the boss, it's just a dozen acres." "Xiao Qiang" boss modestly waved his hand, "The scale can only be said to be large, but it is not the largest." ”
Usually, a large account like "Xiao Qiang" will invite tea pickers from Jinhua, Quzhou and other places to help, this year's tea picking season, he hired a total of 16 workers, a season down can pick about 500 pounds of tea leaves.
In addition to Longjing 43, Manjuelong Village is mainly a "group species", accounting for more than 80%. These old tea trees are relatively resistant to nature, like to grow slowly, the current bud length is still below 1.5cm, and the tea buds in some areas have even just sprouted. In the words of a local villager, "The tea tree is still sleepy, waiting for it to wake up." "According to the standard, the picking standard of special Grade Longjing tea is generally about 2.3-2.5cm.
Of course, it will not wait too long, and it is expected that in the late mid-March to the late March, it will enter the full-scale mining stage.
After picking the tea, the next process is to stir-fry the tea. Hu Guoxiong, a villager in Manjuelong, is the inheritor of the West Lake Longjing tea roasting technique, 52 years old this year, and has been stir-frying tea since he was 13 years old. When the live reporter came to his house, he was frying tea in front of a large pot, the diameter of the pot was about 80cm, but such a large pot could only fry a small dish of tea at a time. "The temperature in the pot is 200 degrees, the tea leaves are about 90 degrees, and the hand-fried is by hand, which is called 'killing the green', and the water of the tea leaves is taken out."
Tea people who stir-fry tea by hand have a characteristic, a pair of hands covered with blisters and calluses. "There is no way to do this, hand-fried tea, the hand is to become like this." Now a lot of it is machine processed, there are fewer manuals, and I am afraid that there will be no successor, so I have been taking apprentices. ”
Hu Guoxiong's parents are more than eighty years old, they get up in the morning to pick tea, the tea is processed by their son, and today there is still some desertion in the workshop, only he is alone, but tomorrow it will be lively. "It's just mined today, the tea workers are going to come tomorrow, tomorrow I'm here, 8 pots, all working."
Compared with previous years, this year, Hangzhou's West Lake Xixi Scenic Area carried out digital construction for West Lake Longjing tea. The 3 units in the jurisdiction are building the West Lake Longjing Tea Blockchain and Internet of Things project in order to more scientifically and effectively carry out the source control, process control and finished product control of West Lake Longjing tea, realize the one-thing-one-code commodity, and truly realize the traceability of a leaf from the tea garden to the teacup.
That is to say, from planting to fresh leaf picking, green pot, stalling, glow pot, stall cooling, finished products, each procedure has strict quality standards for control.
In addition, during the spring tea picking period, there will be a wealth of supporting activities. On March 30, the 2021 West Lake Longjing Spring Tea Festival will be held in Xixi Wetland, and the West Lake Longjing Tea Hand stir-frying Competition will be held in the second half of the year.