The tea named after the great monk or temple in China is probably the exclusive "Huiming tea". It is easy and very willing to attach the two to the so-called "Zen tea one taste", but Huiming monk, Huiming Temple, Huiming tea, is the origin of the inter-society, what kind of twists and turns the Huiming tea seen today has experienced, and listen to the story.
Photography / Indian Mountain Forest
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the origin of Huiming tea and temple tea</h1>
The famous Zen case on Dayuling occurred in the first year of Emperor Gaozong of Tang (661). Huiming and Huineng bid farewell, got their "Yu Meng Zeju" proverbs, traveled to southern Zhejiang, and met nanquan Mountain (that is, the area around today's Jingning Shumu Mountain) by Muhe Creek, the local language "Mu" and "Meng" harmonic sounds, and also see the mountains here, the water is clear and elegant, so that it is convenient for this place to build a temple, plant tea widely, and educate the mountain people. However, did the Huiming monk build a temple in Nanquan Mountain? Is there any kind of tea? Where does Huiming tea come from? Accounts differ and opinions vary.
According to the Tongzhi "Chronicle of Jingning County", the monk Huiming practiced Meditation in Jielu on Nanquan Mountain, and planted tea trees next to the Zen room, while removing diseases and relieving the pain of the surrounding people. The townspeople felt its virtue, and in the second year of Tang Xiantong (861), they built a temple in its name, and called the tea tree next to the temple Huiming tea. This is the more popular and authoritative version in Jingning at the moment, which traces the history of Huiming tea back to the Tang Dynasty.
Photography / Lin Fenghai
As for the "attached tea nunnery" in the third volume of Qianlong's "Jingning County Chronicle", it is recorded that during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the monks of Huiming Temple established the Huiming Temple Foot Nunnery at the foot of the mountain as a "tea nunnery", "here to burn tea to help pedestrians". It can be expected that at that time, Huiming Temple was offering Buddhas, hospitality, and satisfying their own drinking, but also to help the people, which shows that the tea garden temple and tea production of Huiming Temple at that time were very large. From this, it can indeed be shown that Huiming tea is actually a vein from the Zen Gate, originating from "temple tea".
According to Mr. Ye Tong, who was the director of the Industrial Department of the Jingning County Government in the sixteenth year of the Republic of China (1927), he recalled: "When I was young, I was still in the Qing Dynasty, studying at the Wuben Academy, and the teacher once led us to hike to Huiming Temple. The monks of the temple waited for the tea, and all the teachers said that this was real Huiming tea and should be tasted. It is said that every year, the monks of the temple will choose the good tea leaves grown next to the temple, bake them themselves, and give them to the county officials to give to the lord, which is called "tribute tea".
Photography / Liao Yueping
Various legends about the origin of Huiming tea have long been hidden in the long river of time. The Huiming tea I drink now, I think it has gone through several reincarnations. Brushing away the fog of time, but just the kung fu of a cup of tea, the so-called "Zen tea taste" of Huiming tea, this is a little taste. However, is this taste the same as the cup of tea that the monk Huiming drank in the past? This answer may no longer matter.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Vegetable Garden Tea and The Golden Prize</h1>
Time continues to rotate. In the seventh year of Qing Shunzhi (1650), Lei Taizu, who had moved south from Luoyuan in Fujian Province, came to the Huiming Monastery in Nanquan Mountain to open a foundation and became the ancestor of Huiming Temple. From the establishment of the Huiming Temple to Chengcun in 861 AD, it has gone through several generations of Song and Ming Dynasties, during which the records and anecdotes about Huiming tea have only fallen into a few words, but a cup of tea is cloudy.
Photography / Li Yefei
Legend has it that Lei Taizu planted tea at the temple next to the Huiming Temple, and the people of other regions also moved to this place, slowly forming villages. The people surnamed Lei learned to grow tea and make tea from the monastery, and gradually transplanted the temple tea cuttings and transplantation in their own fields and vegetable gardens for their own drinking and hospitality, thus entering the "vegetable garden tea" stage of Huiming tea.
From then until the 1950s and 1960s, the more than 300 years that Huiming Tea's "temple tea" and "vegetable garden tea" ran parallel to each other was indeed a good coincidence.
According to legend, at that time, every year in late spring and early summer, the villagers of shexiang would bring tea to the door to sell, and the tea in Huiming temple village was particularly popular, and the price was slightly higher. It is said that tea produced elsewhere can only be brewed once, and Huiming tea still has an aftertaste after brewing. This is the growing environment and geographical location of Huiming tea, huiming temple is located in the Nanping Shumu Mountain, facing the Hexi depression, most of the year there is a heavy fog shroud, and the mud and rocks are also suitable for the growth of tea plants, so it obtains excellent tea quality.
In the later period when Huiming tea "temple tea" and "vegetable garden tea" were parallel, in the fourth year of the Republic of China (1915), a major event of far-reaching significance occurred in the history of the development of Huiming tea: Huiming tea won the first "Panama International Exposition" award!
Courtesy photo / Jingning County CPPCC
On the occasion of the Panama International Exposition, under the control of Ye Tong, who is in charge of the local industry, and Hong Zisheng, the product collection affairs group of the expo, Huiming tea was selected to participate in the exhibition. It is said that Hong Zisheng's mother-in-law is good at making tea, and Hong Zisheng picks Huiming tea buds and commissions them to make. The specific preparation method at that time was also described in the manuscript of the "History of Tea at Huiming Temple" by Mr. Ye Tong, who witnessed the incident: the tea buds were put into the pot and stir-fried, and the tea leaves needed to be spread evenly, so that they were heated, the water evaporated, and they were scattered at any time; the heat had to be properly mastered, not fried; when the pot was started, it was slightly tossed and turned; and then dried in the baking cage. The tea leaves thus made are green in color and have a pekoe on the surface, called "white hair tip". Some people commented that it is comparable to Longjing.
This is the "Gold Award Era" of Huiming Tea, and it is also the reason why it was later called The Gold Award Huiming Tea.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > traditional Huiming tea</h1>
It is said that "alpine clouds and fog produce good tea", Huangshan Maofeng, Lushan cloud, all uniform hair tips, all have a similar excellent growth environment. The tea garden where Huiming Tea grows on Mt. Huimu is still at a more dangerous peak, climbing up the mountain road for more than 20 minutes from Huimingsi Village to an altitude of more than 1,500 meters before arriving at the Huiming Tea Garden of Mt. Huiming.
Photography / Li Suren
Therefore, the spring of The Mountain of Aomu comes later, and the spring tea elsewhere has been picked one or two times earlier, and the tea of the Aomu Mountain will not sprout until late March, while the traditional Huiming tea picking is usually one bud and two leaves, and it is later. Labor is not expensive, nothing more than the family, the old with the small, the tea season is also in the agricultural leisure, at dawn and dusk, in front of the house and behind the house to pick a few. The iron pot at home is stir-fried, slightly kneaded when the pot is raised, and then the roasting cage is dried, and the ancient tea making method is still used, and the season is only about ten pounds. Tea for the people, in the final analysis, is only their own ordinary drinking, coupled with the small output, has not become a climate, has not formed a "commercial tea", resulting in economic benefits.
By the 1950s and 1960s, Huiming Temple had fallen, and the tea gardens belonging to the temple had disappeared; during the period of the grain-based people's commune, the people also changed tea to grain, planting rice, potatoes, tomatoes in a large area, and there were few teas left in the original vegetable garden.
In the mid-to-late 1970s, several villages near Huiming Temple were re-integrated into two administrative villages, Shumushan Village and Huiming temple village, and a new 197-acre tea garden was opened in Huiming temple village, and a collective tea factory was established, although it was not fully commercialized, but it opened a base mode of mass production tea gardens, and the production process of Huiming tea was standardized and sorted out, and now the so-called "traditional Huiming tea production process" began here.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the path of commercial tea</h1>
Most of the tea industry in Shexiang is passed down as a family unit. In the 1990s, locals still mainly used tea from their own tea gardens and sold it to supply and marketing cooperatives. Later, Jingning County Huiming Tea Development Co., Ltd. was established, which became the key point that the story of Huiming Tea could not be avoided, and it not only took the lead in registering the "Huiming Tea" trademark brand, but also contracted the tea garden belonging to Huiming Temple Village. The tea garden behind the Huiming Temple that we see today is no longer owned by the temple, but is owned by the company, and the tea industry has become the main source of income for the villagers, and the era of commercialization of Jingning Huiming tea has officially begun.
The traditional handmade Huiming tea making technique is a tedious job: first picking, with a bud and two leaves as the mainstay, the large bamboo plaque for 6 to 8 hours to spread the green, the high temperature of the pot (the temperature of the bottom of the pot can reach more than 200 degrees Celsius), the late stage of the green gradually reduce the temperature of the pot, in the pot while kneading, while stir-frying, when the tea strips first appear bent, switch to the combination of rolling and stir-frying. At this time, the temperature of the pot rises slightly again, and then places a large bamboo plaque on the spread, cold kneading, and then puts it into the bamboo basket to bake on the charcoal fire, and then puts it in the large pot after a few days to re-bake. Watching tea to make tea is nothing more than experience: the humidity in Jingning Mountainous Area is large, how long is the time of greening, how high is the water content of tea green, how much is the temperature of greening, to what extent is it done, when to rebake, and what is the drying time... Determining the taste and resistance of the tea is an account that accumulates over time.
Local stir-fry tea masters have accumulated nearly thirty years of tea scriptures, and the account between the hands and eyes and the era of tea mechanization also play a role, and the machinery also needs to be controlled and measured artificially. This set of all-handmade "traditional Huiming tea making process" formulated in the 1970s has basically declined after nearly 20 years.
In 2000, Jingning fully opened the process of modernization of the tea industry, the tea garden base was reclaimed and planted, and the production process also entered the mechanized production era of drum machine greening, kneading machine twisting, electric frying pan frying green, and dryer roasting green. Since then, Jingning Huiming Tea has gone to the national market and become a strong competitor in the domestic tea market.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the true color of Huiming tea</h1>
Huiming tea also went through many detours in the early days, since the 1970s, the whole of Zhejiang has widely introduced wuniu early, Longjing No. 43, because the picking time is early, can occupy the market opportunity, and Longjing is famous, the market recognition is high. In addition, with the process of mechanization, the leaf buds of the local dove pit species are relatively delicate, and the mechanical kneading type is easy to break, which is quite affecting the appearance. Under the impact of the early market economy, coupled with the modern fast and intuitive aesthetic orientation, many tea merchants are keen to use single buds to make straight-striped tea. In fact, the early spring bud core is not fully developed, the content of all aspects of the inclusions is low, especially chlorophyll and tea polyphenols, so that the tea color is gray, the soup color is also shallow, the taste is more bland, and it is completely devoid of the characteristics and true color of Huiming tea. Therefore, for a long time, Huiming tea was silent, drowning in the supply of tea green and OEM processing for many Zhejiang teas, and the origin was unknown.
Photography / Zhang Guanglin
What is Jingning's Huiming Tea? How to evaluate a good cup of Huiming tea? These questions have become urgent questions for local people to answer in the process of tea industry development. The answer, obviously, is not all of the above. In fact, "one cup light, two cups fresh, three cups of glycol, four cups of rhyme still exist", what gives Huiming tea such a taste is the growing environment of the highest tea area in Zhejiang Province, the native dove pit species and the complementary picking specifications and production process. The traditional Huiming tea huigan also has the bitterness of alpine tea; the taste is rich, the layering is distinct, and the characteristics of durable foaming are due to the picking specifications of one bud and two leaves, as well as curved tea and heavy kneading, which can bring about a rich production process of tea inclusions. More and more Jingning tea people also realize that the good of other places is not their own characteristics, the so-called "original source", need to know the origin and the true color, in order to have development and improvement.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > today's vegetable garden tea</h1>
Nowadays, although the vegetable garden tea in the village of Shumushan is somewhat deserted, every year locals still go up the mountain to pick a batch and use traditional craftsmanship to make it. This kind of tea because of its native species, picking specifications and coarse, as well as abandoned growth environment, into tea contrary to the current pursuit of the single bud, straight and sweet taste; and that kind of early vegetable garden tea planting messy, tea plant growth degree is not the same, unlike the modern tea garden base planting, mass production mode; coupled with the local dove pit seeds and leaves are particularly delicate, difficult to pick, extremely labor-intensive; the traditional tea making process requires full hand-made, but also extremely difficult to control the quality.
Therefore, this traditional Huiming tea has not been the main product type on the market, most of them are just tea people make some at home, in order to feed the neighbors and friends, still continue the ancient tea industry form of Shexiang.
This ancient taste is the essence of the people's usual drinking, although time passes, lifestyle changes, there will always be some connotation and essence will not change, there will always be people to remember, pursue, covet.
- END -
Written by 丨Gong Zi Meng
Edited by 丨 Song Pengfei
The original text is taken from "Wind and Material China Chronicle Jingning" with additions, subtractions and changes
Book "Fengwu China Zhi Jingning"
The unsigned pictures in this article are from "IC photo" or "Figureworm Creative", and any website, newspaper, television station, company, organization, or individual may not be used in part or in whole without the permission of IC photo or Figureworm Creative.