tea ceremony inheritance system

Chapter 83 Making Tea Cakes
This morning, the genius was slightly bright, and the sun hadn't risen yet, so Su Zhongkang came to the roof early.

Today happened to be the day when Xianding Yunwu tea could be picked, so he got ready to get busy early in the morning.

Ever since he heard what Deng Yin and the others had said, Su Zhongkang had thought about it in his heart. He planned to use the tea greens from the first water to make steamed green tea cakes by using the techniques of tea cakes in Song Dynasty.

There are six main processes in the production of cake tea in the Song Dynasty: picking tea, sorting tea, steaming tea, grinding tea, making tea and roasting tea.

Song people had extremely high requirements for tea picking conditions.Since Su Zhongkang decided to imitate the ancient method, he naturally wanted to complete each step as much as possible according to the conditions.

First of all, the people of the Song Dynasty had requirements for the seasonal climate. They stipulated that tea picking should be in the cold climate of early spring, which is "not too cloudy to freeze, and not too sunny to be dazzling", that is, before the vernal equinox or even the waking of insects. It's midsummer, and that's not enough.However, there is no way to do this. Fortunately, the location of the teahouse is near Chashan Park, and the climate in the morning will still be a bit chilly, so we can only make do with it.

Secondly, the requirement for the time of tea picking on the day must be in the early morning before sunrise. "The method of picking tea must be in the early morning, when the sun cannot be seen. In the morning, the night dew is not shining, and the tea buds are fat and moist; when the sun is seen, the yang energy will weaken it." , so that the buds are plump and inflamed, and they are not bright when they are exposed to water." The second requirement is relatively more important than the first requirement, so Su Zhongkang honestly got up early and prepared.

The last requirement is, "Any buds must be broken with nails, not with fingers. With nails, they can be broken quickly without kneading, and with fingers, they can be easily damaged due to high temperature." That is to say, the tea should not be physically damaged or polluted by sweat during the picking process. to maintain its freshness.

The second step of picking tea is to sort the picked fresh leaves, mainly to pick out the dark green that is harmful to the color and taste of the tea.

The process of picking tea is also used to classify the quality of tea raw materials used to make tea cakes.In the Song Dynasty, the tea grades of cake tea were divided into three categories: medium buds, small buds and water buds.The middle buds refer to the buds and leaves that have grown into one flag and one gun, that is, one bud and one leaf; the small buds refer to the buds and leaves as small as eagle claws; and the water buds are the thin line of buds picked from the center of the small buds.

It can be seen from this that the tea selection process in the Song Dynasty has been refined to what extent. No wonder the annual output of Longtuan Shengxue is only a few catties. This water bud has become the insurmountable peak of the tenderness of tea raw materials.

According to the ancient method, Su Zhongkang quickly and decisively picked the young leaves with one bud and two leaves with his nails.If it were placed in the Song Dynasty, this would not even be considered as Zhongya, but now he only has such a baby pimple, which is not like the family and business in the Song Dynasty.

If he really did that, the buds and leaves of this tea tree would be completely ruined.

This tea tree has been cultivated by the tea ceremony system, and it is already several circles larger than ordinary tea trees.

It took Su Zhongkang less than half an hour to pick all these buds and leaves, which are only more than a catty of young leaves.

Because the amount of young leaves is too small, Su Zhongkang directly skipped the process of picking tea.

He took the green tea back to the tea room downstairs, rinsed it with mountain spring water again and again, and then began the process of steaming the tea.

For steamed tea, Song people also pay special attention to its heat, neither undercooked nor overcooked, because both undercooked and overcooked will affect the color of the tea soup.

Su Zhongkang was very careful in this step. If the green tea was steamed, he wouldn't even have a place to cry.

Fortunately, he still had some experience in his memory, and he finally survived without any danger. Although he didn't reach a very perfect state, he was considered so-so.

After steaming the tea, it’s time to grind the tea.This process is mainly to grind the leaf-shaped tea leaves with water, and then repeatedly process them into powder, which is also called "research paste".

For Song tea, the finer the tea powder, the higher the quality, and the better the effect when ordering the tea.Especially for those top-grade tea cakes, the requirements for tea grinding are extremely high, and the man-hours spent are one of the important parameters of the quality of the finished tea.

After steaming green tea, add water, grind until the water is dry, which is called monowater, then add water, and then grind until dry, until the tea powder is fine enough, then stop.It is recorded in ancient books that the tea grinding process of "Longtuan Shengxue", which is the first class in the world, is "sixteen waters", and the tea research process of cake tea of ​​other classes is "twelve waters".

The tool for grinding tea in this step is a stone mill, which is relatively easy to find in the south.

This process is really time-consuming, Su Zhongkang spent the whole morning to grind the tea powder to "sixteen".

In fact, with the quality of the green tea this time, it is unnecessary to grind the tea powder so finely.However, this way, the amount of green tea is less, and the grinding time for each water is less. Secondly, this is Su Zhongkang's first handmade tea cake, and he wants to make it the best, so Su Zhongkang just It took a little longer to grind.

It is worth mentioning that after the tea research process is completed, the following two processes do not require such a large physical effort.

This tea making is to put the ground tea powder into the juan (juan) mold to make tea cakes.The dragon and phoenix tea cakes of the Song Dynasty were pressed in this process with a mold engraved with dragon and phoenix patterns.

Su Zhongkang didn't have matching molds, so he had to buy a few molds that looked relatively small to apply.

The last process, also known as "over-yellow", the best roasted tea is to use charcoal fire, which has thorough firepower and no flame.What it pays attention to is to slowly bake the tea cakes with charcoal fire. Without the flame, there will be no smoke, and the tea flavor will not be damaged by the smoke.

Therefore, what this process pays attention to is the materials and duration of the roasting used. The amount of roasting depends on the thickness of the tea cake itself.

These six processes complement each other and are interlocking, and the man-hours consumed are relatively large.

Su Zhongkang got up early in the morning to work until he reached the top of the willow on the moon, and then he made such a small amount of tea cake.This is because Su Zhongkang is nimble, has rich experience in hand-made tea, and has no side to the relationship. If it is placed in the Song Dynasty with low productivity, it will not be enough to give twice the time.

Originally more than a catty of green tea, only three taels were left when the finished product was finished, a total of six cakes.

Su Zhongkang quickly put away the six priceless tea cakes.This is completely in accordance with ancient methods, handmade.

If nothing else, these three-two-six cakes are the only Song Dynasty tea cakes in the whole world.

If these were put up for auction, if people who knew the goods like Wu Mingshun or Cao Lei saw them, they would definitely pay a lot of money, and would like to offer them up like family heirlooms.

However, Su Zhongkang did not intend to make these tea cakes public immediately.

Because, when he has not fully grown up, these tea cakes may not bring him happiness, maybe it will be disaster!
　Thank you for the reward I love to read, I love to read, and I love to read.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)