Green Tea Processing Craftsmanship

Ⅷ-148Traditional CraftsmanshipDouyun, GuizhouBatch 4 (2014)Extension ItemFeatured

01 · Historical Records

According to the 'Draft Gazetteer of Duyun County,' Duyun Maojian tea won a superior award at the 1915 Panama Exposition, earning fame overseas.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Duyun Maojian tea-making craft is a traditional green tea-making craft integrating processes such as kill-green, rolling, twisting into balls, hair-raising, and baking; it is practiced throughout the five subdistricts, ten towns, five townships, and three ethnic townships currently under the jurisdiction of Duyun City, Guizhou Province. Duyun Maojian tea has curled strips, a fresh green color, and visible white down; its inner quality offers a tender, delicate aroma, a clear liquor, a fresh and strong taste, and a sweet aftertaste. The Duyun Maojian tea-making process is complex and meticulous. The raw material must be one bud with one leaf that has just begun to unfold around the Qingming Festival, with leaf length not exceeding two centimeters, in a deep or light green color and sparrow-tongue shape; it must be carried back before sunrise and spread thin to air-dry on smooth boards in a cool, ventilated place so the tender leaves lose surface moisture. The tea-stir-frying process is intricate, relying entirely on the artisan's eyes, hearing, smell, touch, and experience. Then comes kill-green: using top-grade qinggang firewood, the iron wok is heated to its optimal temperature before the tea leaves are added, and both hands rapidly toss-fry to remove the grassy smell from the leaves. The rolling step requires keeping the wok temperature around 100°C, using a single-hand rolling technique to push and knead the leaves into strips. Then, using the motion of kneading rice-flour balls, the tea is rubbed into a ball in a specific direction; the ball friction-rolls between the two palms, causing the strips to rub against one another and raise the down. Finally comes baking: when the strips are tight, fine, curled, and the white down shows, the tea is baked in the wok. The finished tea is taken out; when the moisture has dried to about 80 percent and the white down appears, it is wrapped and placed in a ceramic earthen jar with charcoal at the bottom for 'drying,' and taken out as the finished tea product after half a month. The Duyun Maojian tea-making craft has distinctive characteristics, insisting on 'seizing the treasure from the fire in one wok, in one breath' in the same wok; the control of timing and wok temperature during processing varies according to the quality and humidity of the leaves and the processing time, procedure, and wok temperature. Duyun Maojian tea has a long history; the 'Gazetteer of Pingyue Directly-Administered Prefecture' records: 'Tea—in the Ming 'Unified Gazetteer,' all prefectures and counties have it.' The 'Preface to the Stele of the Reconstruction of the West Mountain Temple' by Song Wenxing, Prefect of Duyun during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, records that Duyun already had government-run tea gardens. As one of China's Top Ten Famous Teas, Duyun Maojian, like the making crafts of other famous teas, occupies an important place in Chinese tea culture.

Documented Process Records

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Duyun Maojian tea-making craft is the crystallization of the wisdom of multi-ethnic communities including the Buyei, Miao, and Shui peoples of southern Guizhou; it carries distinctive regional cultural characteristics, stands alone among the nation's famous teas, and is a valuable basis for studying the production and daily life of local ethnic minorities.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

This making craft is transmitted through both family and apprenticeship lines, with family transmission as the main form. Zhang Ziquan (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Buyei ethnicity, born in January 1965, a native of Duyun City, Guizhou Province. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item 'Green Tea Making Craft (Duyun Maojian Tea-Making Craft).' Duyun Maojian tea-making technician. After finishing junior high school he inherited the family trade, engaging in the production and traditional hand-processing of Duyun Maojian; through years of study and research he has developed a unique set of processing methods. Coupled with the ancestral practice of firing tea with fir branches, the tea he fries shows a verdant color and even shape, a delicate, fresh aroma, a fresh and strong taste with a sweet aftertaste, a clear liquor, and bright leaves at the bottom—excellent quality that is widely favored. He now owns nearly one thousand mu of tea gardens, has established the Shili Tea Village Cooperative, and has taught more than two hundred apprentices.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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