For a finished rock tea, it is the tea that first looks at the face of the person. It’s like meeting someone and predicting their first impression based on their appearance, body shape, and attire before we even start chatting.
Tiaosuo is the first face that appears on tea
You can probably learn some personal behavior, habits, and thinking information from the body management of the people you see. Behind the exterior lies many imperceptible depths, which are the fundamental understanding we truly need of things.
When we have free time to drink rock tea, observing the appearance of dried tea is not a necessary step. It is just a prelude to entering a state of tasting before drinking tea, so that we know that we are about to enter into a wonderful fate with the tea we encounter.
This process is like opening a blind box, which may bring you a surprising feast of taste buds, or a tasteless, speechless, or even contemptuous painful experience. So before that, accumulating some effective experience through observing the appearance of dried tea extensively is undoubtedly a good way to help oneself avoid some negative experiences.
Although it is not possible to know the whole leopard by just a glimpse, knowing some leopard tails is enough to deepen our multidimensional understanding of brewing tea.
Everyone knows that there are different appearance standards for different types of tea. The standard itself is a kind of screening, which is the basic quality requirement of taking its essence and discarding its dross. Do not give products that are perfunctory in the production process the opportunity to compete in the market.
Rock tea undergoes a process of rolling and twisting in its craftsmanship, which results in the shape of the rock tea being curled into strips. To become a bar, one must have the appearance that a bar should have. So, what should it look like? Tie the rope tightly! Just these four words.
Think about whether loose strip tea gives people a feeling of “collapse”, while tightly tied strip tea gives people a sense of “gathering” power expression. This metaphysical imagination is left for everyone to continue to feel. As a down-to-earth rock tea powder, we also need to find some codes behind the tight knots in our essence.
PART1 How is the appearance of rock tea formed?
There are many records of Wuyi rock tea in various historical books about tea, but there are not many descriptions of its appearance. According to historical records, the craftsmanship of Wuyi tea has undergone several transformations, from the Dragon Tuan Feng Cake during the tribute tea period, to the steamed green tea after the disbandment of the tea group in the Ming Dynasty, and the introduction of pine and radish stir frying green tea in the early Qing Dynasty before the kneading process.
The later stages of roasting and frying, combined with the fermentation process of black tea, continuously form a unique traditional rock tea technique. The unique appearance is formed under the triple process of frying, rolling, and baking. The formation of strands in rock tea is a natural process that gradually develops with the completion of techniques.
Under the action of charcoal fire, tea leaves shrink in strips
In Lin Fuquan’s book “The Production, Manufacturing, and Marketing of Wudeng Tea”, it is mentioned that “excellent rock tea products must have a solid and heavy dry tea shape, with moderate length of strands and a slightly tight and fine texture, except for the fragrance of narcissus. Due to their large leaves, the strands can be slightly thicker. To this day, the evaluation of rock tea still follows this standard.
Due to the large leaves of narcissus and other large leaves, it is difficult to achieve tight knots in finished tea, so the standards will be relaxed
In the latest national standards for oolong tea, whether it is Tie Guan Yin, Huang Jin Gui, Fenghuang Dan Cong, or Min Bei oolong such as cinnamon, or even single Cong, Buddha’s Hand and other varieties, or strip type oolong tea, as well as bead shaped oolong tea, the special grade standard for appearance is uniformly “tight knot”.
This seems to be a common and naturally formed aesthetic, a consensus among the people on the “appearance” of an object.
PART2 What is the process information behind the cable tie?
Craftsmanship creates the shape of the rope, and the rope also reflects the craftsmanship from the side. Unlike traditional tea making techniques such as double frying and double kneading, modern tea making processes mostly rely on machines to shape tea in one go, and only choose to knead it twice if the first kneading is not done properly.
The general duration of machine kneading is seven to eight minutes. During this process, the tea is kneaded in a sequence of light and heavy pressure to complete the entire kneading process. The surface of the leaf, which has been damaged by rolling and squeezing, and the wax layer, which has been ravaged and lost its tension, is broken and twisted into strips under pressure.
During this process, the cell wall of the tea leaves is also torn apart, and the tea juice in the cell fluid dissolves and adheres to the twisted leaf surface. After grabbing a handful of rough tea and squeezing it, it feels sticky to the hand. These are some soluble sugars, carotenoids, and lipids.
The raw tea leaves that have been kneaded and broken into pieces have become strands
The initial roasting after rolling and twisting promotes the formation of tea leaves. Under the influence of high temperatures ranging from 110 to 130 degrees Celsius, the moisture in the leaves is lost and further shrinks into strips.
The old leaves that were not rolled into strips during this process unfortunately became yellow flakes and are about to be removed from the ranks of finished tea products. It can be seen that ‘rolls’ are everywhere, even in tea. Under pressure, if you can’t get involved, you will face elimination. This analogy applies to human society, which is extremely frightening upon careful consideration.
After going through sorting and returning to the pile, they will continue to undergo one or two rounds of refined roasting. The power of roasting not only removes impurities and water flavors from raw tea, solidifies the soup and enhances its aroma, but also makes the tea leaves more firm and curly, resulting in a moist and dry tea color.
According to the experience of tea roasters, rock tea becomes denser and firmer as it is roasted. The texture of the roasted tea varies with each heat, and some aged tea with sufficient heat feels like sand when turned over.
PART3What is the flavor language behind tightly tied tea?
The tight knot of the rope is the fruit. The reasons behind this are multifaceted. It is a comprehensive representation formed by the interlocking of different tea processing steps. A rock tea appears to be tightly tied in appearance, at least indicating that it meets the standard in appearance, is a normal performance under good craftsmanship, and is pleasing in appearance.
The lower grade finished tea without forming tight knots can be said to have defects in the process. But for big leaf species like narcissus, it’s a different story.
In terms of picking standards, if the green leaves are too old, the leaf quality lacks moisture, the fibrosis is severe, which affects water flow and also affects withering and rolling. It can be imagined that under such a negative chain reaction, will you harvest a rock tea with good appearance and excellent taste? The answer is beyond doubt.
The age and tenderness of tea picking can also be determined from the clues
Speaking of two sides, sometimes rock tea has a tightly tied appearance, and its inner taste can also be unsatisfactory. After all, the quality of rock tea ultimately boils down to “aroma” and “water”.
The core of rock tea craftsmanship is to make green tea, and any factors that affect the making of green tea are also factors that affect the finished rock tea.
In recent years, ‘Da Gui’ has clearly led us into a trap.
There is no doubt that it is a rock tea with the potential to become a top student, both in terms of its tight appearance and the weight of its body and bones. Its soup and taste are also stunningly “stimulating”, but in the eyes of experts, no matter how good the skin is, it cannot escape their discerning eyes, which is clearly “done wrong”.
This real slap in the face was really unexpected, after all, it has dominated the rock tea circle for several years with its good skin and strong ferocity!
Beauty is justice, it seems that it doesn’t work here at Rock Tea. Behind the tightly tied rope is the clearance of rock tea appearance, followed by aroma clearance, taste clearance, and so on. Holding up the appearance as a door opener only enters the eyes of rock tea powder, but whether it can enter the heart of rock tea powder depends on its true strength.