Red Circle Tea

We’re back from our vacation and on the hunt for tea again. As a follow up to our posts on Dragon Well tea, we wanted to answer a few more questions. We asked: what makes Dragon Well tea, as a plant varietal, unique. Here’s what Ms. Lee said: When Long Jing is picked, the base of the stem turns red. This is a signature of Dragon Well. The leaves are a little wider (“fatter”) and the shrubs themselves are tall and thin and the leaves, unlike oolong leaves, are naturally thinner.

She also mentioned, it’s also important to look at processing of Dragon Well. The buds are very sensitive and good processing means that the tips of the buds are as green as the leaves. Black tips on Dragon Well tea are a sign of poor processing – the wok was too hot and the leaves were slightly burnt.

We also learned that Shi Feng, Lion’s Peak, has a unique kind of white sand that occurs naturally mixed in with it’s yellow soil. This contributes greatly to the slow absorption rate of the mineral content in the soil. This means there are two reasons high elevation Dragon Well tea is better than other Dragon Well tea: first, high grown tea grows slowly, resulting in higher fragrance taste. That’s a great start for this tea, then, on Lion’s Peak, the sand acts as a barrier to slow erosion thus more minerals are retained the soil delivering them to the tea plant completely nourishing it.

Later that afternoon we headed to a local restaurant for lunch and tea and I asked: What does it take to make good Dragon Well tea?

Firstly, the soil is important.

We learned that Shi Feng, Lion’s Peak, has white sand mixed in with yellow soil. We have not found a complete answer for what kind of difference this makes with Shi Feng tea. We have a couple of other people’s opinions to check on, but my instinct says that white sand softens the effect of the mineral absorption giving Shi Feng a cleaner taste and “higher” fragrant notes. We’ll see what else we can find out and follow up.

On Mei Jia Wu, the soil appears yellow – more clay or sulfur, I wondered?  And the water, while good, will naturally have more potential for contaminants and this could effect the flavor of the tea in unlucky circumstances.

Secondly, growing environment is an important factor in making good Dragon Well. This is true of all tea plants; they are better suited to certain growing regions. Dragon Well varietal is best suited to the outlying area of Hangzhou, it’s temperatures, rain, humidity, sun, heat and cold (extreme temperature differences in the day ) are the friendliest conditions for these tea plants.

Thirdly, cultivating, processing and tending the plants also plays a critical role. The cycle of the Dragon Well tea begins after harvest. The trees are cut back in a specific manner. It is important to cut back just enough so the next year the plant grows more buds. If you over cut, then next year’s harvest will be too small. Also there is a summer pruning, but those leaves are not destined for sale. It is to “prime the plant” for later growth. The tea leaves are left under the tea bushes as fertilizer and mixed in with traditional fertilizer. There is fall pruning and, depending on the season, pest control can be considered. Finally, the following Spring, when the bugs have gone, and the buds sprout, spring Dragon Well is ready for picking and sale.

Spring processing is very interesting. The leaves are picked at daybreak. It is important that they are picked with the dew on them, and left to wither and absorb that dew. Then they are wok fried. Wok frying requires a very light coating of tea oil (less than ¼ of 1 teaspoon) in the wok.

It’s applied to the bottom of the wok and rubbed with a cloth to distribute it evenly. The leaves are hand swept from side to side and around then picked up, “fluffed” and restored to the wok.

This is the “kill green” step of stopping the oxidation process in the newly picked leaves. They are left to rest until the batch currently processed is done. This takes about an hour or more depending on the amount of leaves picked that day.

The leaves are then returned to the wok and processing continues. The leaves are pulled toward the person working the wok in a sweeping motion, and pushed away. This is the beginning of the flattening of the leaves. Next, the leaves are pushed down in the wok, then hand swept in a circle. Press, press press, sweep sweep sweep. It takes 4 jin of fresh tea leaves to make 1 jin of fried tea and it takes 6 hours to produce 1 jin equals 500 grams or 1.1 lbs of hand processed tea.

All the processing we’ve seen is electric, with one notable exception. We met a farmer who is using wood charcoal which he says for convenience. If the power goes out, and the tea is ready, he can still process his harvest. With the charcoal bricks, he can work for 1 hour, 8 hours, or 10 hours, as the harvest requires. See right: the little air vent at the bottom of the wok stand.

And left is the little smoke stack that he uses to control the heat of the wok. When the lid is lifted, it draws air from below, increasing the heat. Covering it means he is able to maintain a constant temperature.

Everyone else we visited is using an electric wok, but they still use the tea oil, and same hand techniques and it requires the same amount of time to process tea either way.