In the southernmost part of China, just a few kilometers from Myanmar, lies one of the most beautiful areas in the world, namely Jing Mai. At an altitude of 1600 meters, ethnic minorities, the Dai and Bulang people, wake up to a mountain cloaked in clouds.
It is early April, and there is hustle and bustle in the streets. The mornings are icy cold, but the sky is blue. The streets are filled with people serving noodles, boiled rice, and pickled vegetables. By 7 a.m., tea pickers are already on their way up into the mountains to the tea trees, either on foot, on motorcycles, or in small open vans packed full of people. They carry bamboo baskets on their backs and are in a hurry as the tea harvest has just begun. In their baskets, they have water and supplies for the whole day. These tea pickers return home at sunset.
Meanwhile, the rest of the town is waking up. The sun is rising, and they need to distribute the processed tea leaves from the night before onto bamboo mats before it gets too hot. They are tired because they have been working all night roasting the tea leaves batch after batch. Tea is typically processed in the evening and left to rest overnight, then sun-dried the following day.
Jing Mai is famous for Pu-erh tea. The process is somewhat similar to green tea, but most enzymes are preserved so they can develop during storage. Some family members pick the tea while others process it. It is impossible for one person to handle all the processes alone, especially during the peak season, so people help each other, as well as individuals from other areas. Often, there are not enough tea pickers to harvest all the tea trees.
It is now late morning, and the temperature is rising well above 30 degrees outside. Tea factories are often the floors of family homes. Every morning, the floors are cleaned of broken tea leaves and dust collected from particles in the warm air.
Throughout the day, there is time for a short nap or visits from friends and curious tea buyers. Tea buyers from the big cities come in their SUVs to visit or oversee the picking of tea from the oldest tea trees. Jing Mai has the largest area of ancient tea trees in the world. According to anthropologists, it was the Bulang people who established these tea trees over 1800 years ago.
Less than twenty years ago, Jing Mai was a relatively unknown area inhabited by ethnic minorities who were rarely visited by ordinary Chinese. At the beginning of this century, tea buyers began flocking to Jing Mai in search of precious rare puerh maocha from ancient tea trees. In 2010, the local government established a road, and in 2013, the area received UNESCO World Heritage status. Since then, tourism has steadily increased, with more hotels and a rising standard of living.
It is now lunchtime, and the tea pickers are bringing out their rice and vegetables. The morning’s harvest is collected in sacks and returned to the villages with a stream of motorcycles, about 50 kg of fresh leaves per trip. Fresh supplies of drinks are also picked up for the workers.
As soon as the fresh tea leaves arrive at the factories or village houses, there is no time to waste. If the leaves are stored too long in the bags, they will heat up and thus be exposed to oxidation. It is important to limit oxidation. If the leaves turn red, it will significantly affect the flavor. The fresh leaves are spread out on bamboo mats in the shade and cool air. This marks the beginning of the first phase in the Pu-erh tea process, namely the resting phase or withering.
At this point, the leaves are filled with water, and after a few hours, they become soft and easier to process. The resting phase is monitored by touch and smell. The aroma changes over time, and an experienced tea producer knows when it is time for the next phase.
The afternoon is quiet for the producers; they only need to focus on the drying phase from the night before and packing the maocha. Too much sun drying can highlight undesirable and negative flavor profiles, as the spring sun can be quite intense.
It is now 8:00 PM, and the woks are being cleaned of dirt and dust. The first batch of tea is ready for roasting. This phase is called Sha Qing, which is the process where the enzymes are reduced. When enzymes react with oxygen, the color changes to red. For Pu-erh tea, it is desirable to retain the green color. This is the same process used in the processing of green and some oolong teas.
When the wok reaches a temperature of 200°C, about 7 kg of the rested tea leaves are poured in. Eight kg of fresh tea leaves yield about one kilogram of finished tea. The leaves are roasted with large hand movements for about 30 minutes. The purpose is to reduce moisture content and heat the cells so that the leaves do not turn red. Unlike green tea, more active enzymes are retained. It is these enzymes that will later change the character of the tea from green to black through aging and fermentation over the years.
The tea process in the wok is time-consuming and is a precise craft. In larger factories, machines are often used for this process, which is ten times faster. However, the rare leaves from Jing Mai’s ancient tea trees are always processed in a wok. This allows for more control over the finished product but requires many years of experience. It is very physically demanding to work in the heat and steam, but the result is fantastic tea.
Sorting
Further along in the factory, a man is busy checking the kneading process in a rolling machine. The leaves are kneaded for about ten minutes to develop the flavor and reduce further moisture content. Previously, this process was done by hand or kneaded with feet. Today, this process has been replaced by machines.
As soon as the tea is fully processed, it is spread out on bamboo mats on the upper floor of the house to dry in the sun. The result is sun-dried maocha, which is the raw material used for sheng Pu-erh tea, either as loose tea, pressed into cakes, or for shu Pu-erh tea, which undergoes a complex fermentation process.
In the spring, the factory typically produces tea from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. all day. A smaller factory with two woks can produce 20-25 kg of maocha per day from about 200 kg of fresh tea leaves. Once the day’s harvest is fully processed, they can finally go to bed for a well-deserved night’s sleep. Such is life for a tea family from April to mid-May in the Jing Mai mountains.