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Keemun
Explanation and Description
In the middle of the last century, a mistake occurred in China in the manufacture of a specific tea. That tea was KEEMUN.
Until that mistake, this tea had always been processed as a green tea.
An Imperial Army was passing through a specific part of the province of Anhui. It was the area in which Keemun was picked and processed. A high ranking officer needed quarters for his officers to over-night in and the only available space large enough was a tea factory.
The factory was in the process of manufacturing Keemun (Quemon-Mandarin Dialect). The Imperial General Officer threw the tea factory workers out, even though they were in the middle of processing a batch of tea, and took over the factory.
The officers stayed only one night and left the next morning. After they had left, the factory workers hurried back to inspect the tea. Alas, it had been naturally processed into a black tea because it had not been fired to prevent the process.
The tea was cupped by the Tea Factory Master and proclaimed to excellent.
Keemun, from that point on was now processed as a black tea, although some rare and expensive Keemun green tea is still manufactured.
Puey Long is a process of tea manufacture, which imparts "spirit" to the tea. It means FIERCE FIRE. Rare and expensive Keemun teas go through the Puey Long process. Keemun is a tightly twisted China black tea. If one looks at the leaf of an expensive Keemun one can see the tight twisted configuration.
This definition applies, of course, to the very high grades of Keemuns such as the Mao Feng and the Houins. To impart this twist requires that the following take place at the Keemun factory.
The tea after withering and slight rolling is poured into a large bamboo tray where it is hand tossed three to four hundred times. This is called Pouching or Chinging the tea. This operation alone is very time consuming but it results in the oxidation of the leaves and turns their edges red. It is not rolled by machine.
The slightly fermented leaf is then carried to the Quo, a shallow iron pan that is set on top of the brick stove. The leaf is roasted in that pan and it is afterwards poured into trays to be hand rolled. The Tea Master manipulates the leaves in twisted shapes by rolling his hands against the sides of the tray. Thoroughly rolled leaf of the caliber of a Mao Feng Keemun requires that he work his way around the tray the same number of times that the tray has been tossed, in other words three to four hundred times.
The leaves are then carried back to the Quo, they are again roasted, again they are tossed, and again they are rolled. This process of rolling and roasting is repeated three times.
THIS IS WHAT IMPARTS THE SPIRIT OF THE TEA TO THE TEA. The spirit of the tea is what you receive when you drink tea.
Machine manufactured tea such as that which takes place in India, Ceylon, or other commercial manufacturing facilities, are not processed in a method which imparts a spirit to the tea. They are simply providing a large amount of tea to the world population of tea drinkers, the vast majority of whom could not care less whether the tea has a spirit or not.
The spirit of the tea. This is not an ethereal thing, which floats around us and comes down into the tea. It is imparted to the tea by loving hands. The hands of the Tea Master.
The Tea Man
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Copyright © March 1999