was a teenager, he read a travel note describing the scenery of Wuyi Mountain. It wrote: "The light white clouds suddenly changed color and aggravated. The wind fanned from the bamboo forest and went straight up the hillside. The clouds gradually converged in the sound of Wan Lai's roar, like a Hu Jia. Thousands of troops and horses are about to attack in the unified general." So, there is a landscape stored in my memory. The clouds and rain of Wuyi Mountain, the landscape of Wuyi Mountain, and the people of Wuyi Mountain are picturesque and infinitely fascinating.
Later, I finally had the opportunity to visit Wuyi Mountain, climb the Tianyou Peak, drift over Jiuqu River, and perceive the majesty and beauty of Wuyi Mountain.
Fortunately, I came to Wuyishan again this summer. Since it's a revisit, I don't take the usual path. On the suggestion of a local friend, I will take a "Rock Tea Tour". The rock tea is named after "the rock has tea, but the rock does not have tea", and is known as "rock bone flower fragrance". It is a famous Chinese tea and the best oolong tea. Rock tea is mainly produced in the southeast foot of the northern section of the Wuyi Mountains. According to different growth conditions, it is divided into Zhengyan, Banyan and Chau tea. As the name suggests, Zhengyan has the best quality. It is produced in Huiyuankeng, Niulankeng, Dakengkou, Liuxiangjian and Wuyuanjian at high altitudes, which is also called "three pits and two streams". Produced in and around the low altitude area below Zhengyan, the quality gradually deteriorates and is called Banyan and Chau tea.
This time we mainly visit the "Niulankeng" core area of Zhengyan. Niulankeng is located in the Wuyi Mountain Scenic Area, with fertile soil and short sunshine hours. It is said that fences were set up by farmers in the past for raising cattle, so it was called "niulan pit". Dou Zhuan Xing Yi, who would raise cattle in such a golden place nowadays?
went down the simple step road, and saw the gurgling stream and the thick tea fields. According to Lu Yu's "Tea Classics", "The upper one grows rotten rocks, the middle one grows oak soil, and the lower one grows loess." The Wuyi Mountain is rich in weathered rocks, which is most suitable for tea trees. "Cinnamon" in Niulankeng is the main species of Zhengyan, which is abbreviated as "beef" locally, and "horse meat" and "heart meat" from places such as Matouyan and Tianxinyan sound strange. In addition to cinnamon, there are more than 800 tea varieties in the "three pits and two streams", including Bantian Demon, Water beetle, Laojun Mei, Beidou, Bergamot, and Narcissus.
Niulankeng is actually an east-west valley depression. There are stone roads along the stream, and there are many cliffs on the south side, such as "tiger", "shou", "Red Army passing this mountain" and so on. "Three pits and two streams" left behind many legends and stories related to tea, just like "water beetle", originating from Tianxin Rock. A heavy rain washed it to Niulan Keng. Both parties filed a lawsuit on the ownership issue, costing thousands of dollars. To spread far and wide.
Rock tea is picked on sunny days in April and May, usually with "one bud and three leaves". Although just after Lixia, the tea pickers did not slacken in the slightest. There are tea pickers wearing hats and bamboo baskets in every tea garden. Along the way, we met men carrying bamboo baskets and sacks, and we leaned over to let them go first. A burden is less than a hundred catties. The rugged mountain roads and stumbling steps show the labor of tea.
Of course, hard work will always be rewarded. The market price of Niulankeng cinnamon is surprising. In the Yancha market, the cheapest "beef" is more than 8,000 yuan per catty, and the boutique price is more than 100,000 yuan. In fact, the most expensive rock tea is not cinnamon from Niulankeng, but a little higher than Niulankeng, the mother tree Dahongpao of Jiulongyu. There are only six plants, and the picking has already stopped, so there is no market. The mother tree Dahongpao is now listed as the "main natural landscape" and "cultural heritage and landscape" of Wuyi Mountain, and is "enshrined" as the spirit and symbol of Wuyi Mountain rock tea.
There is a story about Dahongpao and the local Tianxin Temple. During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, one of the elders went to Beijing to rush for an exam. He fainted on the side of the road due to heat stroke and was rescued by the abbot of Tianxin Temple with strong tea. After this act, the Toad Palace won the laurel and returned to repay the favor, and put the number one scholar Dahongpao on the tea tree, so "Dahongpao" got its name. During the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the tea monk of Tianxin Temple studied the craftsmanship of oolong tea. "Dahongpao" became synonymous with Wuyi rock tea, known as "Oolong Tea Supreme".
In Ming Dynasty Yongle, the court pardoned Tianxin Yongle Temple and gave Tianxin Temple tea as "Dahongpao". Now there is a "Dahongpao Ancestral Court" stone inscribed by the present people, which shows the origin of Tianxin Temple and Dahongpao .
"beef" whySo expensive? Because cinnamon has high requirements for the growth environment, low yield, and the ancient tea-making technology, theoretically only ten catties of green leaves can produce one catty of tea, which is not easy to obtain, so it becomes the royal family of tea. In fact, the total amount of Wuyishan cinnamon finished tea is only 6,000 jin, which can be pulled in one cart. Is it not expensive? There is a brand of cinnamon tea called "Cheating", known as "one or two gold one or two tea", the market price per catty in 2017 reached 136,000 yuan. Just looking at the name, I couldn't help laughing. The original meaning was "the father of Niulankeng tea", that is, it was taken from the first batch of cinnamon tea trees planted in Niulankeng.
used fast food at Tianxin Temple, and then went to visit the ancient tea craftsmanship. The head of the "cheating father" is called Wu Yongpeng, who specializes in cinnamon and grows spirit, and is known as the "Prince of Cinnamon". He looks young, but he is an "old driver" with more than ten years of tea making experience. The yard of the
handmade tea house is full of freshly picked tea leaves. This is "greening" and then "standstill", that is, spread out evenly in shallow bamboo trays and placed in a constant temperature room. Next, it will go through "shaking green", "finishing green", "fried green", "kneading", "drying" and "re-baking" to the final product. This process was completed in one go, and there was no stopping in the middle, so the yard was filled with tea masters, one process was completed, and the next step was immediately entered. The tea-making process is similar, and the differences between the different brands of tea are also in the details of these processes. Today I can see the first three processes and related equipment, and I also experienced a shaker during the standing process. "Prince Cinnamon" said that this process can make the tea have red edges, and the finished tea "three reds and seven greens" originated from this.
"Prince of Cinnamon" also has a proud work called "Three Days and Two Nights", which takes 60 hours and 3,600 minutes, exactly three days and two nights to make a tea.
To visit the "cheating father", of course you must "drink a pot". A few people in the same group, drink two "bubbles", 8 grams each, worth more than 4000 yuan, ordinary people, how can they handle it? It's a pity that I am a "cow drink", which can only be described as "its taste is very good", which is really "cheating".
It was late at night, and the "shaking green" began, and the air in Wuyi Mountain was filled with a strong fragrance of tea. I remembered that there was a TV series called "Tea is Hometown Thick". However, there was no tea in the north. The most impressive thing was that the old man sitting cross-legged on the kang boiled "pots of tea" on an earthen stove.
