High Mountain Oolong: the most insane tea ever made

it's a cloudy afternoon in high low mountain the tea packers are just back from the fields we're in late may in the middle of the spring harvest at mr huang's wulongji plantation mr fong takes a look at today's harvest we'll be able to make delicious tea let's see how this oolong tea is made first the leaves are spread on the top floor in the greenhouse they need to be exposed to the sun for a brief period we don't necessarily want direct exposure to the sun though this is why there's a shading net on the ceiling today is cloudy the sun welting should take about an hour sunlight will allow the leaves to soften quickly mr huang doesn't get to sleep much during the harvest as it requires a 24 7 presence he likes to oversee each step of the process we've got beautiful leaves today the leaves are moved downstairs no need to pack them gravity will help us on this one this is a typical taiwanese factory design that saves a lot of time we spread them on flatbed baskets they will wither for a couple of hours inside the factory you need to get the thickness right as it determines the speed at which the key withers some of their water will evaporate allowing them to soften further it takes about 8 hours they are shuffled a couple of times during the process to ensure homogeneous weathering there's about 200 baskets worth of leaves today that's a lot of tea to shuffle and requires a permanent presence from the workers again mr huang inspects the leaves the smell tells you when they are ready we'll wait a bit more and go drink tea in the meanwhile mr hwang shows us how soft the leaves have turned during this process you see how the stem bends now this loss of traditions is crucial to make the next step work the leaves are put in a big tumbler for the next step shaking it's a simple machine in which the leaves go up and down each time they fall small bruises are created especially on the sides of the leaves this speeds up the oxidation process it only lasts a couple of minutes you don't want too much bruising just enough to bring out the best flavor out of the leaves to complete this step a second machine is used with a similar purpose it is used at the end of the shaking step to also loosen the leaves and give them a better shape now that the leaves are bruised they need some time to oxidize we'll leave them in this room under control temperature and humidity let's come back in a few hours we want to make a high mountain oolong with low oxidation you can now see red patches on the leaves this is about right now the smell has changed a lot we need to heat them up to destroy the enzymes causing the oxidation let's throw the leaves in it's time to stop the oxidation for that we use a cooking machine a tumbler heated up by gas 300 degrees celsius for 10 minutes that will ensure the tea does not exercise further you need to keep a close eye on the leaves cooking and make some tiny adjustments to get just the right amount of cooking we don't want them to burn the factory manager says they are ready let's take them out the leaves come out very moist we don't want that water to evaporate away you'll understand why soon good tea processing is all about the small details the leaves are stored in a plastic bag and left to cool down for a short time fragrance in the factory is amazing after a few minutes they are taken out of the bag with the moisture recaptured we put them into a funny looking machine it's rolling time [Music] the leaves are knitted gently over the machine wall it squeezes the juices out of the leaves allowing for stronger and quicker brew in the final product this machine also gives a basic shape to the team [Music] making good tea is all about paying attention and keeping close contact with the leaves even for teas that require a lot of machines the tea maker has a crucial role on each day the tea comes with different size of leaves and texture you have to adapt to it you can't rely on established parameters and call it today [Music] again mr huang controls the smell and texture of the tea it allows him to make adjustments in the processing the leaves are left to rest for a while at this point you could directly dry the tea and drink it but you'd find it quite bitter we need an extra step to make it softer and more enjoyable and this will take us a whole day and i do mean 24 hours this is really what makes high mountain oolong so labor intensive no other tea has such a long and complex processing you don't see that step in any other kind of tea the leaves are put into a large piece of cloth which is tightened to make a big tea ball the ball is tightened extremely hard to achieve the desired effect the bunch of leaves is placed in yet another machine that will add pressure on the bowl and shape the leaves inside into pearls the leaves are then taken out of the machine and loosened first in the tumbler and then by hand as you can see they don't look like pearls yet that's because we only did that once we need to repeat that process five times [Music] but we have another problem here if the leaves are too hard they will get crushed we need to keep them flexible remember when i said it was important to keep the moisture in that's where it comes into play along with temperature the leaves need to be reheated before each step to give them more flexibility but reheating will also get them dry so we're walking on a tiny thread here too much reheating and the leaves will dry out before having taken their final shape not enough and the leaves won't have good flexibility and will get crushed in the machine during the five repeats of this step the leaves dry progressively while taking their furl shape their tasting profile will change and you'll end up with fragrant tea without too much bitterness and there we go doing that shaping process from sunset to sunrise and even later mr huang has three teams of workers that relay each other it is intense work that occurs for 10 days twice a year next time you drink a cup of fine woolen tea dedicate a sip to their hard work it took two days of work to get these leaves into their final shape finally in the middle of the night the leaves are dried slowly in the machine you can give them some amount of roast by playing with the temperature of the dryer today we'll go for 90 degrees celsius and two hours of drying the leaves come out slowly and are lead on bamboo baskets for last time before being vacuum sealed into their final packaging [Music] you

Channel: Farmer Leaf

Views: 20,465

Keywords:

Id: WDuN3K2HgGQ

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 05 2022