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d) Fukien Fukien is a great tea-growing province
with a large domestic market. A special feature is its
production of flower-scented teas, for the manufacture
of which there are factories in Fu-chou.
e) Wu-i Mountains. Tea has been grown around
Wu-i for 1,000 years and it has been regarded as one
of China’s best teas and exported all over the world.
g) Chekiang The climate is humid and subtropical
controlled chiefly by monsoon airflows. Chekiang has
four principal tea districts:
Hang-chou district produces the famous Lung-ching (Dragon
Well) green tea
P’ing-shiu district has the largest tea acreage and
the highest production of
processed tea.
Chien-te, is in the south west.
Wen-chou is in the hilly south eastern region.
World War II caused serious damage to the tea industry
as tea gardens were abandoned and aging shrubs were
not replaced. During the 1950s a systematic rehabilitation
and development program was undertaken. Improved methods
of tea cultivation and processing were introduced and
new orchards established, and the province resumed its
position as China’s leading tea producer. It is one
of the most tourist-accessible tea regions, a train
connects Hang-Chou with Shanghai in a couple of hours.
h) Hunan. Red and black tea are grown on the
foothills of the Hsueh-feng Mountains and on Mount Mu-fu
on the eastern border. The teas destined to become Oolong
are brought to the factory and immediately put on to
a series of conveyor belts where cold and hot air is
blown over them to remove most moisture.
Later, they are transferred onto rollers for 10-12 hours.
This breaks down their “juices”, causing the leaves
to go red. Next they are cooked at 148o Celsius for
6 minutes. At this point many of the leaves are still
attached to twigs. Next they are cut into strips, though
the twigs are still not discarded. They go back onto
a belt and into another oven, this time for 20 minutes
before being cooled, and put through the process for
a second time.
At this point the leaves could be used to make tea,
though it would be of an inferior quality. The sorting
process comes next. In several large rooms women sit
at low tables, each one with a bamboo chair placed on
a flat basket to catch falling leaves. Here the leaves,
some in flat panniers, others in vast baskets, are meticulously
sorted into thick and thin, small and big, and at last
removed from their twigs. The tea is sorted several
times and then the good-quality ones are packed for
storage.
The inferior-quality leaves will be sold cheaply at
this stage.
After 6 month the packets are opened, reprocessed, graded,
tasted and repacked accordingly.
Tea’s medicinal properties are taken very seriously
in China. The Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine
and Pharmacology of Fujian Province has recently conducted
research into the effects of tea drinking on general
health. They concluded
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