Lao Yang has been in Suzhou for five years, tasting Dongting Biluo Spring Tea every year, visiting the tea gardens in Dongxi Mountain every year, and often communicating with tea growers, tea makers and tea sellers in Suzhou. This year's Dongting Biluo Spring Tea has been listed in large quantities, and the "scary fragrance" in Taihu Lake has once again aroused my tea addiction. However, the development of Biluochun in Dongting can never let me say love to Biluochun, but can only love and hate.
Dongting Biluochun is a famous stir-fried green tea unique to Suzhou and is one of the top ten famous teas in China. According to research, it has a history of more than 1,000 years. Authentic Biluochun is produced in the East and West Mountains of Taihu Lake in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, so it is also called "Dongting Biluochun".
Biluo Spring Tea was first called Dongting Tea in the local folk, also known as Scary Incense. Legend has it that a nun went up to the mountain to travel in the spring, picked a few tea leaves by hand, and after brewing tea, she was fragrant and blurted out that "the incense is frightening", so the locals call this tea "scary incense". During the Kangxi Period of the Qing Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor tasted this famous tea with turquoise soup and curly snails when he inspected it, and praised it, but felt that its name was indecent, so it was named "Biluochun". Regarding the origin of the name of this tea, in addition to the Kangxi Emperor's personal gift when he visited Taihu Lake, there is also a legend that Biluochun already had a tea name in the Ming Dynasty, and there is also a clever explanation to take its color turquoise, curled like a snail, harvested in spring, and picked from the characteristics of Biluo Peak, so it is named Biluochun. Biluochun has a long history, and during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, it has become a tribute tea for annual tribute.
Biluo spring tea is slender and slender, curled like a snail, tender and long-lasting, fresh and mellow, and sweet aftertaste. Because of its white and curly and tight shape, Biluochun tea has the reputation of "bee legs and copper wire feet" in Suzhou. The biggest difference between authentic Suzhou Dongting Biluochun tea and other green tea produced by the Biluochun process in other production areas is that Dongting Biluochun re-dry tea and tea soup have obvious and unique floral and fruit aromas, more bitter and balanced, and the soup is fresher and smoother, fresh and elegant. Some people believe that the Biluochun tea tree and peach, plum, apricot, plum, persimmon, orange, white fruit, pomegranate, Spring City red, Spring City green, and other fruit trees are staggered. Tea trees and fruit tree branches are connected, the roots are connected, the tea absorbs fruit aroma, and the flower tea tastes. Dongting Biluochun production area is a famous tea and fruit intercropping area in China.
The picking raw materials of Biluochun Tea are very delicate, and each kilogram of high-grade dry tea requires 60,000-80,000 buds to be fried. Some people have concluded that there are three major characteristics of picking raw materials for Biluo spring tea: one is to pick early, the second is to pick tender, and the third is to pick clean. Mined around the spring equinox every year, ending before and after the valley rains, the quality of the Mingqian tea harvested from the spring equinox to the Qingming Dynasty is the most valuable. Usually the bud leaves are first unfolded, the bud length is 1.6 to 2.0 cm raw material, and the leaf shape is like a finch tongue, which is called "finch tongue". The delicate bud leaves are rich in amino acids and tea polyphenols. The harvested buds and leaves must be carefully picked in time, and the fish leaves and non-standard buds and leaves must be removed to keep the buds and leaves uniform. Usually picking up one kilogram of bud leaves takes 2 to 4 hours of labor. In fact, the bud leaf picking process is also a fresh leaf spreading process, which can promote the mild oxidation of inclusions and is conducive to the formation of quality. Generally 5 to 9 o'clock picking, 9 ~ 15 o'clock pick 15 o'clock ~ night stir-fry, so that the same day picking, the same day stir-frying, not fried overnight tea.
The main production process of Biluo Spring Tea is to kill the green, knead, rub the ball and dry it. The time for quenching, kneading and kneading during stir-frying is generally about 45 minutes. The traditional drying process is generally when it is about 90% dry, and the tea leaves are spread on mulberry paper, and the paper is placed on the pot and baked until it is dry. The temperature of the pot is about 30 ~ 40 ° C, and the water content of the dried leaves is about 7%, which lasts for 6 to 8 minutes. The journey takes about 40 minutes. When the current farm is fried on the spot, the finished product packaging is generally handed over to the customer to take away after the frying is completed, and the drying process is sometimes omitted. Unwashed and refined farmhouse tea, because of its high water content, its shelf life, short shelf life, not resistant to storage, easy to oxidize yellowing. In order to ensure that the water content of the finished tea meets the standard and extends the shelf life of the tea, the regular tea factory timely and moderately dried and refined the tea leaves after being stir-fried.
Dongting Biluo Spring Tea is particularly important in the two links of withering and stir-frying in the production process. The unique floral and fruit aroma of Dongting Biluo Spring Tea can only be fully displayed in the case of moderate wilting, and excessive wilting and insufficient wilting will affect the production of floral and fruit aromas. The stir-frying process largely determines the taste of the finished tea. Lao Yang has tasted a high-grade Biluochun due to excessive stir-frying, and its burnt smell overshadows the tea aroma, and there is no freshness in the tea soup, which seriously reduces the quality of the tea leaves.
1. Dongting Biluochun and Suzhou Green Tea
As early as 2002, Dongting (Shan) Biluochun was awarded the National Origin Area Protection Product, and was the first agricultural product in Jiangsu to implement protection. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China clearly stipulates that dongshan town and xishan town in Wuzhong District, Suzhou City, are the administrative areas under the jurisdiction of Dongting Mountain Biluo Spring Tea Origin. In terms of tea varieties, the "Measures for the Protection of origin of Dongting (Mountain) Biluo Spring Tea" requires that the origin protects the small leaf species of the traditional Dongting local group, rather than foreign varieties. Therefore, the authentic Dongting Biluochun must be made from the raw materials of the local group small leaf tea planted in the Dongxi Mountains of Suzhou. Suzhou photovoltaic, Tingshan, Gongshan, Yangshan and other places all produce Biluo spring tea, but according to national standards are not Dongting Biluo spring tea, can only become Suzhou Biluochun or Suzhou green tea.
2, Dongshan Biluochun, Xishan Biluochun which is good
Dongting Mountain consists of Dongting East Mountain and Dongting West Mountain. Dongshan is a peninsula that juts out into Taihu Lake. Xishan is the largest island in Taihu Lake. The East Mountain and the West Mountain are separated by water, are within easy reach, and are connected by a bridge.
In Suzhou, the environment and climate of Dongxishan are similar, and the Biluochun tea produced in Dongshan and Xishan has high quality. But we can't ignore the influence of the microclimate of the plot where the tea plant grows on the quality of the Biluochun. Generally speaking, the Biluochun in the mountain dock is better than that of the lake, the tea trees in the lake are steamy, and the tea leaves made are light in taste; the clouds in the mountain dock are swirling, and the aroma of the tea flowers and fruits produced is better than that of the tea planted near the lake; the tea leaves produced on the mountain are more balanced, the aroma is higher, and the taste is better than the tea on the flat ground. Any level of crop management can have a great impact on the quality of crops, and plots with high levels of planting management generally produce better crops than plots with low levels of crop management. Therefore, in terms of raw materials, it is difficult to distinguish which is better, and both are similar. Dongshan and Xishan have good tea and bad good tea, and there is no absolute Dongshan and Xishan which is the best. For ordinary tea lovers, whether it is The Biluochun of Dongshan or Xishan, as long as the delicious tea is good tea.
3, fried green is not Dongting Biluochun
The fresh leaves of Dongting Biluochun are picked at the spring equinox to the valley rain; the tea picked after the valley rain shall not be called Dongting Biluo spring tea, which is locally called "fried green". The most upscale biluochun is harvested before and after the Qingming Dynasty, and the tea picked after April 15 is "fried green". Although Biluochun and Fried Qing use tea raw materials and the same process of processing in the same place of origin, due to different harvesting times, the taste of Fried Qing is far less than that of BiluoChun, and the sales price is also extremely different. High-grade Dongting Biluochun can buy three or five thousand yuan a catty, while the same fried green tea can only be sold for three or four hundred yuan. Generally speaking, Biluochun is sweet, fried green is bitter, fried green is the most common green tea that the people of Suzhou drink daily, and old tea customers also like to fry green more.
4. Small leaf species and exotic tea plant varieties in Dongting group
The small leaf species of Dongting group is a tea tree variety native to Suzhou, which has always been a high-quality raw material for making Dongting Biluochun. The unique floral and fruit aroma and excellent taste of Dongting Biluo Spring Tea are closely related to the excellent tea plant variety of small leaf species in the Dongting group. After the 1980s, in order to improve tea production and advance market time, Dongxishan planted a large number of tea varieties that sprouted early in other places, such as Wuniu Early, Longjing 43, and Sichuan Tea No. 4.
Most tea makers and tea lovers in Suzhou believe that biluochun made of foreign varieties of tea trees is not as high in aroma, good taste and authentic taste as biluochun made by local groups. Lao Yang compared and tasted four authentic Dongting Biluochun with tea friends a few days ago. Respectively, the four kinds of Biluo spring tea grafted by Sichuan tea species in Dongshan, Xishan and Gujing are three origins of Sichuan tea species grafted with local tea trees and Dongting small leaf group species, and it is found that the refined tea that has been further dried after being fried in Dongting small leaf group has a high aroma, rich floral and fruit aroma, and the taste is the best, and the tea produced by the tea plant grafted by Sichuan tea is bitter and bitter, the flower and fruit aroma is not obvious, and the aroma is poor.
Planted in the deep valley of Dongting Mountain, Biluochun, because of the small quantity and high quality, the price is difficult to "put down the body", and the price difference between fake Biluochun and the authentic "Biluochun" is more than 10 times, and it is still profitable. According to Ji Xiaoming, secretary general of the Wuzhong District Tea Association, in 2018, the national tea output was 2.616 million tons, green tea exceeded 60%, Biluochun accounted for 14.6% of the national green tea production, and Longjing accounted for 14.8%, which is the two big heads of green tea. Dongting Biluochun is expected to produce 130 tons this year, accounting for only more than 0.1% of the national Biluochun, that is to say, in the Market Sales of Biluochun, the average 1,000 kilograms is only 1 kilogram of authentic Dongting Mountain Biluochun. Driven by commercial interests, the origin of Biluochun has encountered problems such as difficulty in protection and a large number of counterfeit goods impacting the market, and the protection of origin is facing new difficulties.
Every year before the Qingming Dynasty, tea leaves in Zhejiang and Guizhou have passed off as Biluochun in Dongshan and Xishan. In an interview with the media this year, Lu Jiannong, a tea farmer in Dongshan, said: "In the past, tea merchants in Zhenxia, Zhejiang and Guizhou on the streets of Zhenxia and Dongshan Town could not even stay in hotels, and there were foreign tea merchants everywhere who made fake 'Biluochun', and the locals later participated in it." These foreign tea merchants loaded Aoba to Dongshan and Xishan in large boats, hired a stir-frying tea master to fry, and some mixed Aoba into the locally produced Biluo Spring Aoba and fried them, selling them at high prices for profit. In DongxiShan, there was a case where the father-in-law sold Biluochun from other places to his son-in-law by pretending to be Dongting Biluochun. In order to drink the authentic Dongting Biluochun every year, Lao Yang also has to ask friends and find relationships to drink. Officially because of the rampant goods of Dongting Biluo Spring Tea, Lao Yang loves and hates Biluo Spring Tea.
On March 22, 2019, Suzhou Dongshan and Xishan Biluochun tea leaves were officially mined. On March 27, in response to the origin protection product Dongting Mountain Biluo Spring Tea, the market supervision department of Wuzhong District of Suzhou launched a special anti-counterfeiting law enforcement action. In order to restore the "root positive seedling red" of Dongting Mountain Biluo Spring Tea, Wuzhong District conducted a census of germplasm resources of Biluo Spring Tea, listed and protected pure-bred biluochun tea, purified and rejuvenated the varieties of Dongting Biluochun, and promoted the local pure-bred small-leaf tea in a large area, hoping to gradually restore the planting coverage of the original group population of Biluochun through further promotion and implementation. The measures for the protection of the origin of the relevant departments in Wuzhong District have brought new opportunities to the sustainable development of Biluochun in Dongting Mountain.
Author: Jiangsu Lao Yang
Photo: Jiangsu Lao Yang
Edit: GuanRu