Those who love green tea will chase spring tea, and those who love spring tea will be foolish to Longjing.
As one of the top ten famous teas in China, West Lake Longjing is famous for its "green color, sweet taste and beautiful shape", and it is also talked about because of the eighteen imperial tea trees given by the Qianlong Emperor.
However, not all Longjing is a superior Longjing, as the saying goes, "Mingqian tea, as expensive as gold", before and after the Qingming Dynasty, the price of Longjing tea varies greatly. And longjing in different places of origin, some hundreds of pounds, some thousands of pounds, if you do not understand the mystery of this, when buying tea, it is likely to buy ordinary Longjing tea at a high price.
So the same west lake Longjing, why is the price difference so large?
The production areas are different, and the prices are thousands of miles
In the past two days, there is a message that has blown up the circle of friends of tea people: a 133-acre Zhengyan Mountain Farm in the Wuyi Rock Tea Zhengyan Production Area, through 62 rounds of bidding, was finally sold at a rent of 7.4 million yuan / year, with a lease period of 10 years, a total of 74 million.
Although the price is staggering, it also shows the value of the core production area.
In 2002, the "Origin Area Protection Product Longjing Tea" (renamed "Geographical Indication Protection Product Longjing Tea" in 2008) was released, officially determining that the tea produced by 18 districts, counties and cities in Zhejiang Province can be called Longjing tea, which is divided into three production areas: West Lake, Qiantang and Yuezhou. Only those produced in the West Lake production area can be called West Lake Longjing tea.
Some researchers have selected a number of Longjing No. 43 in the West Lake production area, Qiantang production area and Yuezhou production area, and their production time, raw material standards and processes are the same, comparing the main components and content differences of their aromas, and the results are as follows.
The results show that from the West Lake production area to the Yuezhou production area to the Qiantang production area, not only the aroma composition is different, but also the main component content shows a downward trend, which indicates that the aroma content of the West Lake production area is more abundant.
In addition to the differences between different production areas in Longjing, even in the West Lake production area, it is divided into primary production area and secondary production area.
Among them, the first-class production areas have five core production areas of Shifeng Mountain, Yunqi, Longjing Village, Hupao and Meijiawu, which were historically called "Shilong Yunhumei". The rest of the West Lake Longjing tea base is a secondary production area.
The climate of the first-class production area is mild, the rainfall is abundant, the light is mainly diffuse, the average annual temperature is 16 °C, the annual precipitation is about 1500 mm, and various superior natural conditions are very conducive to the growth and development of tea plants.
Picking time
Earlier we said "Mingqian tea, expensive as gold", tea plants after winter recuperation, absorb nutrition, in the spring began to sprout, at this time the bud head contains rich substances, high amino acid content, tea polyphenol content is low, therefore, tea taste more refreshing.
In addition, the temperature before the Qingming Dynasty was generally low, so there were fewer pests and diseases, and tea plants could thrive without spraying pesticides.
After the Qingming Dynasty, as the temperature gradually rises, the buds are no longer tender, and even grow rapidly into old leaves, there is no freshness and rich aroma of Mingqian tea.
In fact, not only is the price difference between before and after the Qingming Dynasty, even if it is all Mingqian tea, the tea picked in the previous few days and the tea picked later are also different in quality.
West Lake Longjing picking time is generally around March 20 to start picking, this batch of new tea, full of buds, rich in substances, more tender, but because the picking period is particularly short, the time is tight, so the price is almost a few thousand yuan a catty.
After the Qingming Dynasty, the raw materials became coarse and old, and the tea leaves could be picked from the buds and leaves, so the price would gradually come down, but the taste was of course not comparable to the Ming Dynasty tea.
Craftsmanship
The traditional production process of West Lake Longjing is hand-fried, but now in order to pursue efficiency, there are also semi-manual and machine processing processes.
The machine tea making efficiency is high, the production is fast, the quality is good, and it can meet the needs of large quantities.
Handmade tea, the need for a high level of stir-fried tea master handmade, tea quality is not as good as machine tea, but the taste, aroma than machine tea is much better.
Handmade tea due to slow frying, low output, high technical requirements, more time investment, more taste, therefore, often than the price of machine tea is several times higher.