Gunpowder Green Tea

Gunpowder green tea is the Chinese biggest quantity of tea for export. It is orginated in Pingshui of Shaoxing region. In Song Dynasty, the Shaoixng Region had been pioneering in producing loose leaf green tea, when most of other Chinese places were still producing cake tea and compressed teas. In the later history, the green tea of Shaoxing had evoleved into the tightly round shape. In the early time of Qing Dynasty, the round green tea of Shaoxing had been famous. And it was named as 贡熙, Hgson, which means the tribute tea to the Emperor 康熙 Kangxi.

The tea was exported to the foreign countries in big quantity. The dark greeish color and the tightly round shape body of it looks like the gunpowder, so it was aslo named as Gunpowder Green Tea. It was the dominant type of export tea of China in the 19th century, and the peak was in 1894. The record was 12,500 tons. In the later years, the export to the Western countires had decreased as the export tea catogories expanded. While the export to North and West African countires had increased a lot. Now the Chinese Gunpowder Green Tea is the daily necessity to almost all the families in those countries. The Muslim people like drinking Chinese green tea along with sugar and mint.

The Gunpowder Green Tea is coded as 3505, 9575, 9374…according to different grades.

In China now the main prodcution place of Gunpowder green tea is Shaoxing, Jinhua, Anhui, Hubei and Hunan.

The Plucking and Prcocessing of Gunpowder Green Tea

The Gunpowder Green Tea is the few Chinese Green Tea needs to be made by grown tea leaves. The material is one bud two leaves to three leaves. The plucking of Gunpowder Green Tea starts after Qing Ming and lasts till Summer.

The processing flow of Gunpowder Green Tea is Shaqing (Killing)-Rolling-Secondary Frying-Chao Xiao Guo (Frying in small pan)-Chao Dui Guo (Frying in counter pan)-Chao Da Guo (Frying in big pan).

Li Ya Gen is the master of Gunpowder Green Tea processing in Pingshui

1, Shaqing kills the enzymes in the tea leaves. And the leaves lose some water during Shaqing. The shaqing of Gunpoeder green tea is special in that it will be fried in covered pan or drum for a few minutes. After killing, the leaf texture should be soft and green, without burning.

2, Rolling will squeeze out the tea juice and make the tea leaves rolled.

3, Secondary Frying will make further water loss. The temperature in Secondary frying is lower than Killing.

4,Chao Xiao Guo is the frying in the small pan to make the primary round tea body of gunpowder green. The temperature in the pan is controlled low to 80 degree.

5, Chao Dui Guo is the critical processing to make the tight round tea body of gunpowder green tea. In this handling, the tea will move in the radian way from the opposite. The tea is forced to form the tight round shape. The temperature is controlled below 60 degree.

6, Chao Da Guo is the last processing of the gunpowder green tea. In this step, the shape of the tea is finally fixed. And the water content of tea will achieve less than 6%.

Later the tea will be sent for refine processing to grading.