The harvesting of high mountain 2024 fall crop Minnan Oolong was done in the end of October. The tea garden is on the peak of Daiyunshan Mountains. The elevation is 1100m. It’s mainly planted by three tea cultivars, Tie Guan Yin, Jin Guan Yin and Huang Jin Gui. In the end of October, the tea leaves are grown to the point which is just good to process oolong tea. At the same time, the weather becomes cool and humidity in the air gets lower, which is ideal for high quality oolong teas, escpecially the qing xiang type. (It’s generally believed that Fall crop of Minnan Oolong outstands for its floral flavor, while Spring crop of it outstands for its depth of taste. Thus more percentage of Fall crop is made into Qing Xiang style, and more percentage of Spring crop is made into Nong Xiang style).
This is our contract tea garden in Daiyunshan producing Minnan Oolongs. It is a small tea garden with an area of only 8 hectres. While it is one of the best tea gardens In South Fujian, according to our experience and profession. It is one the peak of high mountain. And it is well mananged. It is in the transtion to organic. Currently it is EU-compliant.
On Oct.30, the harvesting of Tie Guan Yin tea cultivar is ongoing. The Jin Guan Yin and Huang Jin Gui would be ready for harvesting three days later.
Unlike green tea which requires tea bud and young leaves, the material of Minnan oolong has to be grown enough. The quality is decided a lot by the extent of maturity of leaves.
After the tea is harvested, it is spread into a thin layer for sunlight withering (Liang Qing 晾青). This processing just lasts around ten minutes.
After slight withering, the tea is sent for Zuo Qing (做青) . This processing is composed by shaking and colliding, and oxidation. The shaking and colliding is done in the bamboo drum and on bamboo plate. The shaking and colliding damage the intact structure of cells on the surface and edge part of the tea leaves, thus make the oxidation happen.
The tea is in the bamboo drum. As the bamboo drum rotates, the tea leaves are collided.
The tea is taken out from the bamboo drum and put on the bamboo plates.
The tea is kept in an air-conditioned room for oxidation. It lasts a few hours.
A few hours later, the tea is taken outside for another round of shaking and colliding.
The shaking and colliding and put oxidation repeats 3-5 times, and lasts from overnight to next morning.
On the next morning, the nature of oolong tea is well made, partly fermented (oxidized) and partly unfermented. （The key to decide oxidation or not is the intactness of cell strucure. If the cell is damaged, it will be oxidized. Oppositely, the oxidation won’t happen, due to the protection of intact cell structure. During the shaking and colliding, only part of the cells on the surface and edge part of tea leaves are damaged. That’s why it is oolong tea, semi-fermented.)
The well fermented tea is sent in the iron drum for killing (frying). After killing, the tea leaves are stabilized (the enzymes in tea leaves are killed by high temperature), and no more oxidation will happen later.
These are the fried tea leaves. Besides killing of enzymes, the frying also helps reduce some water content in the tea leaves.
This is the special processing step of Minnan Oolong of Qing Xiang style, flinging. The fried tea leaves are packed in a cloth bag and tied on a rotation machine. The cloth bag will be flung hardly on a stone board as the machine rotates. The purpose of this processing is to reduce some fermented part of the tea leaves and make the tea greener. That’s why qing xiang oolong is also called as ‘green oolong’.
The mechanics of flinging processing is that the fermented part of tea leaf lose more water content after frying than unfermented part, and it is more crispy. Thus by flinging, lots of the fermented parts are removed, and become broken scraps.
After flinging, the tea goes through a siever.
These are broken scraps and rest of leaves.
This tea is compressed in a cuboid, which shapes the tea body.
After one time of compressing, the tea is sent for decomposing in a rotation drum.
The compressing and decompsoing repeats tens of times
To further shape the the tea body, the tea is packed in a big cloth bag. The bag will be tightened and rolled to ensure the tea turn to granule shape in the end.
After the tea body is made, it will be decomposed and then sent for drying (roasting).
The tea is dried in oven.
This is the mao cha of 2024 Fall Crop Tie Guan Yin Oolong.
The stalk was sorted out by hand. This is the final product of Tie Guan Yin. It is one of the best oolong tea of this year! It has fascinting orchid like flavor and has depth of taste. And the flavor and taste is quite harmonized. Nice aftertaste lingers.
Jin Guan Yin
Jin Guan Yin has even stronger orchid like flavor than Tie Guan Yin, but its taste is a bit lighter than Tie Guan Yin.
Huang Jin Gui
Huang Jin Gui is also named as Huang Dan. It has a kind of sweet floral flavor like osmanthus, or sometimes hint of Gardenia. Its aftertaste is also sweet.
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