Tanyang Gongfu Part 3: Processing

Tanyang Gongfu red tea is made from either the local Tanyang Cai Cha cultivar or oolong cultivars, and processed according to the meticulous and time-consuming ‘gongfu’ black tea method.

There are two important things to note. First, there are two types of Tanyang Gongfu: Traditional Tanyang Gongfu and New Technique Tanyang Gongfu. New Technique Tanyang Gongfu was covered in Part 2 of this blog series. This current blog will focus on the processing of Traditional Tanyang Gongfu.

Second, Tanyang Gongfu undergoes Primary Processing and Refined Processing. Primary Processing is the transformation of the picked leaf into a raw black tea: a hongmaocha (red maocha). The essence of ‘gongfu’ in Tanyang Gongfu lies in the meticulous Refined Processing, which, through a series of sieving, screening, and blending steps, transforms the red maocha into a high quality tea. 

Most household producers can do Primary Processing. Relatively fewer producers can do Refined Processing. Some factories will buy hongmaocha and do refined processing themselves. During the late Qing Dynasty, red maocha was also supplied to Tanyang Village from other areas. Maocha from Ningde, Xiapu, Zherong, Pingnan, and Zhenghe was transported to Tanyang Village, where merchants would purchase it, conduct refined processing, and send it to Fuzhou for export.

1. Primary Processing

The primary processing of raw tea (mao cha) consists of the four classic steps of black tea making:

Withering → Rolling → Fermentation/Oxidation → Drying

1.1.  Withering (萎凋)

Withering reduces moisture content through evaporation, increases leaf pliability, disperses grassy odour, and enhances enzyme activity.

Withering methods include:

  • indoor natural withering
  • sun withering
  • withering troughs with forced heated airflow

For natural withering, the leaves will be spread on indoor drying racks like in the above photo for about 24 hours, not exceeding 48 hours. Nowadays most producers use withering troughs because they are consistent and more suitable for larger scale production.

During withering, fresh leaves are spread to a thickness of 15–20 cm. Temperature is controlled at 28–33°C.

Proper withering indicators include:

  • leaves become soft
  • stems bend without breaking
  • surface gloss disappears, turning dark green
  • grassy odour partially dissipates, with a fresh fragrance emerging

Insufficient withering results in a thin, grassy, vegetal, astringent tea. Excessive withering produces a blackened leaf base, dull liquor, and weak aroma.

1.2. Rolling (揉捻)

Rolling shapes leaves into tight strips, creating an attractive appearance. The rolling time is usually about one hour. It can be done by hand but is almost always done by machine.

Rolling requirements:

  • Temperature: 20–24°C
  •  Relative humidity: 85–90
  • Maintain fresh airflow

Proper rolling indicators:

  • Cell breakage rate reaches 80–85%
  • Leaf juice exudes
  • Strips are tight and well-shaped
  • Aroma becomes intense
  • Over 90 percent of leaves are rolled tightly

1.3.  Fermentation (Oxidation) (发酵)

Though called fermentation, this is actually the oxidation of polyphenols, causing the leaves to redden and aroma to develop. 

The optimal fermentation conditions are:

  • Temperature of 22–26°C, in a ventilated room
  • Relative humidity above 90%
  • Time: 1-6 hours

Tender leaves must be separated from coarse leaves and fermented in a separate batch. The thickness of the piled leaves should not exceed 10cm. The fermentation time depends on whether the process is started in morning, noon, or evening, but generally lasts between 1 and 6 hours.

Proper fermentation indicators:

  • Leaf color turns bright copper-red
  • Grassy odour fully dissipates
  • Strong apple-like aroma develops

Alongside the rolling step, the fermentation step is crucial to the primary processing of the maocha, demanding the producer’s full attention. Over-fermentation causes a dull aroma, dark liquor, and bland taste. Under-fermentation produces a poor mouthfeel and off-notes. Sometimes poorly executed fermentation can manifest as a fishy smell in the spent leaves. Fermentation flaws are more likely to show up in aroma when the tea liquor and brewed leaves have cooled down. Visually, inconsistent fermentation may look like blueish-green tones in a lot of leaves.

The fresh maocha made according to the traditional Tanyang Gongfu method often has a slight grassy-green note, which is not a deficiency, but rather an indication the fermentation is at the right level. Minor fermentation still occurs in the days, weeks and months after the tea is finished, and the green note will disappear after refined processing. If the tea is over-fermented at this maocha stage, however, the tea will taste good when fresh, but become dull over time. For this reason, experienced tea makers in Tanyang say they will never over-ferment, believing it is better to slightly under-ferment instead.

1.4. Drying (干燥)

Drying stops enzymatic activity, prevents (most) further oxidation, removes excess moisture, reduces grassy odor, enhances aroma, tightens leaf shape, and prevents mould.

Tanyang Gongfu uses a two-stage drying method:

  • First drying (mao huo): high temperature (100-120℃)
  • Second drying (zu huo): lower finishing temperature

After each bake, the tea will be left to cool for 40 minutes. A producer might try to correct flaws by over-roasting. Too much of a persistent brown sugar/caramelised smell in the liquor can indicate over-roasting.

When tea makers in Tanyang first produced Tanyang Gongfu, they distinguished it from Zhengshan Xiaozhong by using charcoal in the drying process instead of pinewood. To this day, Tanyang producers are very particular about the type of charcoal they use, which has to be taken only from the roots of trees. Roasting baskets are passed down through tea-producing families, becoming ‘seasoned’ over decades of use.

Above is a picture of red maocha being dried. After drying, the maocha is ready to undergo refined processing, or to be sold to another producer to do refined processing.

2. Refined Processing

2.1 Roasting

Before refined processing the tea may be roasted again, but this is uncommon nowadays. Historically this was done because maocha would be collected from different areas, where the dried raw tea would pick up moisture on the journey.

2.2. Pre-blending

Blending involves mixing different batches of maocha for consistency. Batches of the same quality should be mixed together, resulting in different quality grades. Traditional Tanyang Gongfu making involves pre-blending and post-blending. Pre-blending is the mixing of different hongmaocha, after the drying step. Post-blending is the mixing of different batches of finished tea after refined processing is completed.

2.3 Screening

Screening is the most time-consuming and labour intensive step of refined processing. It involves passing the leaves through bamboo sieves of varying filter sizes to remove dust and impurities and sort the leaves into consistent shapes and sizes. Screening is done by hand with sieves, and depends a lot on the skill of the person sifting the leaves, exemplifying the concept of ‘gongfu.’ There is saying in Tanyang that “you can work in the tea industry your whole life, but you will never learn how to sieve properly.”

The screening step is actually a collection of several smaller steps, corresponding to different techniques of hand-sifting. Each step uses a bamboo sifting device with different filter sizes. Each sifting technique has a name: Fine Sifting, Flat Sifting, Shaking Sifting, Round Sifting, Floating Sifting, Hard Sifting, and Fanning. With the exception of the Fanning step, which uses an airflow machine, all of these techniques are done by hand. It is difficult to properly show these techniques with photos alone. Later I will film a video of the full screening process.

2.4 Sorting

After this extensive screening step, the leaves will be all separated into different sizes and grades. Workers will also remove any remaining stems and impurities by hand, using a black lacquer table to make impurities more visible.

2.5 Post-blending

After sorting, the producer can blend batches of refined tea together into separate quality grades. Nowadays, each producer has their own method for doing this, depending on which products they are making.

2.6 Piling (Obsolete)

The final piling step is more of a holdover from the old export days, and is seldom practiced anymore. It involves putting all the completed batches of refined tea into one large pile or wall, layered according to grade. Then the 'wall' will slowly be removed and the leaves raked together and moved into wooden chests. The purpose of this was to make a single large batch of tea for export that uses all the higher grade leaves and the lower grades together, reducing waste. Today, producers blend according to their own desired products, and distinguish higher grades from lower ones, making this step obsolete.

 

Sources consulted: Fu'an Cha Zhi by Fu'an People's Publishing House

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