Longjing, originally a place name and a spring name, is now mainly a tea name. Longjing tea is produced in Longjing Village, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Historically, it is divided into four categories: "lion, dragon, cloud and tiger", among which the quality of old wells produced by Shifeng is considered to be the best.
Longjing is a kind of roasted green tea, which is famous for its green color, rich aroma, mellow taste and beautiful appearance. Good tea needs good brewing. "Longjing Tea, Tiger Flowing Water" is also known as Hangzhou Double Unique. Tiger running water contains more organic nitrogen compounds, but less soluble minerals, which is more conducive to the development of aroma and taste of Longjing tea.
You can choose glass for brewing Longjing tea. Because of its transparency, the tea gradually stretches in the cup, one flag and one gun, ups and downs, and the soup is bright and green. If you look closely, it can be said that enjoying love is an art.
Produced in Longjing Village, Xihu Township, the suburb of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Longjing, formerly known as Longhong, is said to have been discovered in the Three Kingdoms period. In the Ming dynasty, people dug out shapeable stones from the bottom of the well to fight drought, so they renamed it "Longjing". Longjing tea production was recorded in the Tang Dynasty and was famous in the Song Dynasty. Su Dongpo's tea tasting poem "Baiyun Mountain has a new rain flag" describes the characteristics of this kind of tea as a colorful flag. In the Qing Dynasty, Longjing tea was especially admired by Emperor Qianlong. Xiangzi is known as "golden bud" and "unparalleled product". Longjing tea has four different producing areas: Shifeng, Longjing, Wuyun Mountain and Hupao Mountain, and there are four different varieties of "lion, dragon, cloud and tiger". Among them, "Lion Peak" and "Longjing" have the best quality. Longjing tea is "green, fragrant, mellow and beautiful", and these four characteristics are called "four musts". Its leaves are flat, shaped like a sparrow tongue, smooth, green and neat. Especially the "tea before tomorrow" picked before Qingming and the "tea before rain" picked before Grain Rain, the leaves are more tender. After brewing, the leaves are tender and even, and the leaves are like colorful flags and buds are like cannons, which complement each other, so this kind of tea is also called "flag cannon". Its soup is bright and delicious. Fresh and tender tea buds are processed at a high temperature of 80 degrees Celsius. It is a special "craft tea" to keep the color, fragrance and beauty of tea leaves and make each tea leaf "straight, flat, flat and bright".
West Lake Longjing Tea is famous for its "green color, strong fragrance, sweet taste and beautiful shape". It is a treasure among famous teas at home and abroad. Anyone who has really tasted West Lake Longjing tea can appreciate its unique qualities of color, fragrance, taste and shape. West Lake Longjing Tea was designated as a royal tribute in Qing Dynasty, and was listed as a national gift tea after the founding of New China. The production of West Lake Longjing tea has a long history. In the Tang Dynasty, Lu Yu of Cha Sheng recorded the tea production in Tianzhu and Lingyin Temple in Tea Classic. At that time, tea was called "Xianglin tea", "Baiyun tea" and "Baoyun tea" according to the origin of Lin Dong.
Longjing tea began in the Song Dynasty and didn't really become famous until the Qing Dynasty. Historically, it is divided into five brands: lion, dragon, cloud, tiger and plum. After the founding of the people's Republic of China, it merged into three brands: lion, dragon and plum.
The unique quality of West Lake Longjing tea is produced by special environmental moisture and soil conditions and unique processing technology. Longjing tea area is adjacent to West Lake in the east, Qiantang River in the south, surrounded by mountains in the northwest, with rolling peaks, green mountains and green waters, towering ancient trees and streams flowing all over; Tea trees have been in the water vapor ecological environment of "no rain and long flow, no clouds and no water" for many years. White sandy soil and yellow loam, which are weathered by residual slope of "West Lake Yingshi" rock, siltstone and silty mudstone, contain trace elements suitable for forming high-quality tea.
Longjing tea is named after the spring, and Longjing Village has Longjing Spring, which does not dry all year round. According to legend, Longjing Spring leads directly to the East China Sea. As early as the Three Kingdoms period, people prayed for rain by the well. Li Deling, the chief soldier stationed in Zhejiang in the Ming Dynasty, was stationed at the foot of Fengling Mountain. In the 13th year of Orthodox (1448), there was a drought in Hangzhou, and the ranks went to Longjing to get water. There was insufficient traffic at that time. Li ordered soldiers to dig wells and take out the silver bars, jade buddhas, gold ingots and other sacrificial objects in the Northern Song Dynasty. Dig it out again, and suddenly dark clouds are gathering and spring water is surging. Later, Li De built a temple next to Longjing Spring and named it Longjing Temple after the spring, which is now Longjing Tea House.
Emperor Qing Qianlong visited the south of the Yangtze River six times, visited Longjing Tea District four times, tasted tea and made poems, and presented eighteen teas as imperial tea in front of Gong Hu Temple at the foot of Shifeng Mountain. These four poems profoundly describe the picking, frying, shape and quality of Longjing tea and the hard work of tea farmers. In the poem "Meeting Tea in Longjing", the taste, unique tea-making style, tea soil and picking season of Longjing new tea brewed by Longjing spring water are described, especially the praise of its elegant quality makes Fengtuan Imperial Tea dwarf. The full text of this poem is:
Longjing spring, Longjing new tea, is called cooking.
Inch bud self-decaying rock, baked into Grain Rain before the season.
Why does Phoenix Group brag about how the tongue moistens the heart lotus?
Ready to refute, laugh at me, I am still Zen.
"The fountain of the West Lake, with the tiger running as the most important, is the tea of two mountains, and Longjing is better." (Ming Gao Lian's Four Seasons Appreciation) "Longjing Tea, Tiger Flowing Water" is a double wonder of Hangzhou West Lake, which is a famous tourist attraction at home and abroad. Good tea and good water add luster to the beautiful West Lake. Su Dongpo, a poet in the Song Dynasty, once wrote a poem: "I want to compare the West Lake to the West" and "I have never been as beautiful as a beauty". West Lake Longjing tea is produced in the mountains of West Lake in Hangzhou and has a long history. As early as the Tang Dynasty, Lu Yu recorded in the Book of Tea that Tianzhu and Lingyin temples produced tea.
West Lake Longjing tea is concentrated in Shifeng Mountain, meijiawu, Wengjiashan, Yun Qi, Tiger Run, Lingyin and other places, where forests are dense, bamboo forests are densely covered, tea gardens are shrouded in mist and shade. The ecological conditions here are unique, the climate is mild, and the rainfall is abundant. The annual average temperature is 16℃, and the annual precipitation is about 1 500mm, especially in the spring tea season, with continuous drizzle and frequent streams. The soil is deep, mostly sandy loam. The "gravel on the ground" mentioned in Lu Yu's Tea Classic in the Tang Dynasty coincides with the birth of Longjing tea with good quality on noisy loam. Tea varieties in Longjing tea area have tender and tiny leaves and are rich in amino acids and vitamins. Superior natural conditions and excellent varieties provide good innate conditions for the formation of good quality of Longjing.
The picking and processing technology of Longjing tea is quite exquisite. Longjing tea picking has three characteristics: first, early, second, tender, and third, diligent. It's always expensive to pick Longjing tea early. Tea farmers often say, "Picking three days early is a treasure, and picking three days late is a natural grass." In Ming Dynasty, Tian Yiheng once said in "Essays on Boiling Springs" that "golden buds should be ripe, but not harvested after Grain Rain", indicating that high-grade Longjing tea has always emphasized early harvesting. Usually, Longjing tea picked before Tomb-Sweeping Day has the best quality, which is called Qianming tea, while the quality picked before Grain Rain is still good, which is called Yuqian tea. In addition, the picking of Longjing tea emphasizes delicacy and completeness. There is only one bud called "Lotus Heart"; Pick a bud and a leaf, the leaf looks like a flag and the bud looks like a gun, which is called "flag gun"; Take one bud and two leaves, and the leaves roll like a sparrow tongue, which is called "sparrow tongue". Usually, to make 1kg super Longjing tea, 70,000 to 80,000 delicate bud leaves need to be picked. The picking standard is a complete bud and a leaf, the bud is longer than the leaf, and the total length of the bud and leaf is about 1.5cm ... Tea farmers in Longjing tea area can see three or five groups of tea picking girls on the Green Tea Mountain almost every day, carrying tea baskets and picking delicate Longjing tea with skilled hands like chickens pecking rice. For a long time, the system of picking goods on time and in batches has been passed down from generation to generation, and it is used to picking the big ones and leaving the small ones according to the standards. Spring tea is usually picked every day or every other day in the early stage, and must be picked every few days in the middle and late stage. Therefore, about 30 batches should be picked in the annual tea season, and the picking times are unique to Longjing tea.
The collected fresh leaves need to be thinned indoors, and the thickness is about 3 cm, and the middle and lower raw materials can be slightly thicker. After spreading for 8~ 10 hour, the leaves lost water, the weight decreased by 15~20%, and the water content of fresh leaves reached about 70%. The purpose is to emit grass fragrance, enhance tea fragrance, reduce bitterness, increase amino acid content and improve freshness. It can also make the fried Longjing tea look bright and clean, with green color and no caking, and improve the quality of tea.
The spread fresh leaves need to be screened, divided into three grades: large, medium and small, and fried separately, so that different grades of raw materials can be fried just right with different pot temperatures and different gestures.
High-grade Longjing tea is fried with one hand in a smooth special iron pot, and the techniques are constantly changing. Stir-frying methods include shaking, patting, holding, throwing, grasping, pushing, buckling, pressing and grinding. , known as the "Top Ten Skills". When frying, the technique changes constantly according to the size and tenderness of fresh leaves and the forming degree of tea blank in the pot, which is very clever. Only those who have mastered skilled skills can fry Longjing tea with good fragrance, taste and shape. And because it is operated by hand in the hot pot, the labor intensity is very high. It is no wonder that when Emperor Qianlong watched Longjing frying in Hangzhou, he also lamented the great labor and the fine skills.
The frying of senior Longjing tea is divided into three processes: green pot, moisture regain and frying pot. Green pot, that is, the process of water setting and preliminary modeling, when the pot temperature reaches 80 ~ 100℃, apply a little grease to make the pot smoother, put in about 100 grams of spreading leaves, and start by grasping and shaking hands. After spraying a certain amount of water, gradually switch to holding, pressing, shaking and throwing hands for preliminary modeling, with light pressure.
Spread it thinly after taking out of the pot, cool it, sieve it, and bake the tea at the bottom of the sieve. Generally speaking, the time for daubing and wetting is 40~60 minutes.
The purpose of baking is further shaping and frying. Usually, four pots of green pot leaves are combined into one pot, and the leaf amount is about 250 grams. The pot temperature is 60 ~ 70℃, and it needs to be fried for 20~25 minutes. The pot temperature should be controlled in three processes: low, high and low. Gesture pressure gradually increases, mainly grasping, buckling, grinding, pressing and pushing. The point is that the hand never leaves the tea, and the tea never leaves the pot. Stir-fry until the fluff falls off, smooth and smooth, and the tea fragrance is exposed and broken. When the water content reaches 5-6%, it can be taken out of the pot, spread and cooled, and the yellow tablets are removed and the tea powder is screened out.
Longjing tea in the West Lake mountainous area is divided into four categories in history: lion, dragon, cloud and tiger due to the differences in ecological conditions and frying technology. The lion name is produced in Shifeng area of Longjing village, the dragon name is produced in Longjing and Wengjiashan area, the cloud name is produced in Yunqi and meijiawu area, and the tiger name is produced in Hupao and Siyanjing area. Later, according to the development of production and the actual differences in quality and style, it was adjusted and divided into three categories: "Shifeng Longjing", "Meiwu Longjing" and "West Lake Longjing". "Shifeng Longjing" has a strong and lasting aroma, fresh taste and yellowish color, and is known as "brown rice color". "Meiwu Longjing" is beautiful in appearance, smooth and green in color. "West Lake Longjing" has tender leaves, but its fragrance is not as good as that produced by Longjing and Meiwu. Among the three categories, "Shifeng Longjing" has the best quality.
Senior Longjing tea is green in color, flat and smooth in appearance, shaped like a "bowl nail", bright green in soup color, blue in fragrance, sweet and refreshing in taste, and has the reputation of "green in color, fragrant, mellow in taste and beautiful in shape".
When tasting advanced Longjing tea, brew it with glass teacups and boiling water at about 85℃, and open the teacups after 1 min to avoid stuffy and ripe taste. After brewing, the bud leaves are scattered in the vertical cup with one flag and one shot. Bud Ye Ting stands upright, undulating and lifelike, just like the blooming of orchids and bamboos. Enjoy drinking, leaving fragrance on your teeth and cheeks, which makes people feel deeply. Longjing tea is characterized by rich fragrance, mellow taste and not strong. Taste it slowly, you won't realize its fragrance characteristics without hard work. Lu Ji, a tea man in the Qing Dynasty, once praised: "Longjing tea is really sweet but not fragrant, and it tastes like tasteless. After drinking, I feel that my teeth and cheeks are harmonious, tasteless and even tasteless. Benefiting people is not shallow, so it can cure diseases, which is as expensive as a treasure. "
Debate: Presided over Tianzhu Temple, surnamed Xu Wuxiang, eloquent method number, 109 1 died in Longjing at the age of 80.
Scholars in previous dynasties praised West Lake Longjing Tea, and more than 40 monographs have been found. Su Dongpo and Tang Tao's quatrains "I want to compare the West Lake to the West Lake", "I have never been a beauty" and "I am not allowed to be a tea farmer when the lakes and mountains return" reflect the literati's love for Longjing tea.
After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou, Chairman Zhu De and other party and state leaders of the older generation, as well as General Secretary Jiang and Chairman, visited the tea area several times to pay attention to the production of Longjing tea. Chairman Mao's inscription "Longjing tea, flowing water, the best in the world". President Zhu De wrote "Wangxihu Tea Area", "Shifeng Longjing produces famous tea and produces 100 teams; The slope is 400 mu, and the annual income has increased. " Poetry. Zhou Enlai, Prime Minister of the State Council, visited meijiawu Village in Longjing Tea District for five times to inspect and guide the production of Longjing tea, and personally revised "Tea Picking Dance" written by famous composer Zhou Dafeng twice. Now, meijiawu Village has a memorial hall for Premier Zhou Enlai, which has become a tourist attraction in the tea area.
"tea things" has been included in the music textbook of primary and secondary schools by UNESCO. The lyrics say that "tea picking is fast and economical, changing machines is fast and economical, and changing steel is fast and economical", which expresses that West Lake Longjing tea has made great contributions to the country's economic construction in the era of material shortage.
Today, when we are about to enter Hangzhou Station by train, we can hear the beautiful melody of "tea things" played on the train, which seems to have brought us to meijiawu and Longjing Temple in those days, and listened to Premier Zhou's teachings, businessmen and national construction plans; Drink West Lake Longjing tea with Aisingiorro Hongli, and talk about the past and today's heroes.