Written by Wei Shuihua

Head photo | Who is the most Chinese

One spring at the end of the 16th century AD, the son of Xu Yingyuan, the chief envoy of Guangxi, and the second rich man of Hangzhou Xu Cishu, a well-known literary artist in modern circles, wrote this description of the green tea picking season in his new book "Cha Shu": "Qingming is too early, Beginning of Summer is too late, and around Grain Rain, the time is just right." This seasonal choice is exactly the same as the good tea favored by old tea drinkers today: the taste is too light before Ming Dynasty, and the best picking season for green tea is before and after Grain Rain. A few years later, Xu Gongzi became famous because of this "Tea Book" and became one of the most respected tea theory masters after the tea sage Lu Yu.

But the strange thing is that his proposal of "Qingming is too early" was ignored by later generations, intentionally or unintentionally. Starting from the 18th century at the latest, the custom that tea must be sold before the Ming Dynasty and that the earlier it is, the more expensive it is, has permeated this country. The light and tasteless Mingqian tea has become a good gift, but tea lovers themselves drink Guyu tea. Who is it that put Mingqian tea on the altar of virtue and incompetence?

No. 1. Among the four major hobbies: tobacco, wine, tea, and coffee, the taste of tea is relatively simple. Deconstructing the taste of tea mainly comes from three aspects. Plant amino acids bring umami, polyphenols bring bitterness, and caffeine and theophylline bring "high" excitement and pleasure. Among them, the content of caffeine and theophylline mainly depends on the degree of fermentation of tea and the method of tea extraction, and has little correlation with the season. What is really highly related to the seasons are tea polyphenols and amino acids. Amino acids mainly come from the accumulation of nutrients in tea leaves during the overwintering process. The growth of plants mainly includes two parts: vegetative growth and reproductive growth. Vegetative growth comes first. Plants absorb various nutrients from the air, soil, and water and turn them into proteins, amino acids and other substances that they can use. Reproductive growth comes first. Finally, in a suitable environment, plants use the substances that will provide nutrients for growth to complete a series of changes in plant life such as germination, growth, and reproduction. Generally speaking, tea trees will complete the vegetative growth process first in winter when the ambient temperature is low, and a large amount of amino acids are accumulated in the leaves; but when the weather warms up, vegetative growth and reproductive growth will go hand in hand, and the leaves will grow faster and have more fiber. Thin, insufficient nutrient accumulation, in addition, some nutrients are absorbed by flowers and fruits, and the amino acid content is certainly not as rich as in spring. To use an inappropriate analogy, this is the same as winter wheat, which has a long growth cycle and its seeds are fully filled in winter, must be more delicious than spring wheat, which grows quickly. Polyphenols, on the contrary, are by-products of the reproductive growth of tea trees. People often say that uncooked tea "has a grassy flavor". This grassy flavor is brought about by tea polyphenols. The fresh aroma of green tea and the rich aroma of fermented teas such as oolong tea and black tea all come from the oxidation, decomposition and volatilization of polyphenols. Therefore, the taste of tea depends largely on the balance of theanine and tea polyphenols - the former provides a fresh and sweet taste, while the latter provides part of the bitterness and unique aroma. But a paradox is that for tea rich in amino acids, the sooner after overwintering, the better; while the amount of polyphenols depends on the growth status of the tea tree in spring, and is a flavor substance that increases with time. The seasonal timing of tea picking is essentially a unique compromise between theanine and tea polyphenols, which is a metaphor for the golden mean respected by Chinese scholar-officials. This is the key logical self-consistency for China to become the birthplace and popular place of tea. Picture source |@Who is the most Chinese No.22 In fact, Chinese tea drinkers of all ages have been looking for the best taste in this kind of compromise. Lu Yu said in the "Tea Classic": "The best time to pick tea is between February, March and April." Converted to the solar calendar, approximately March to May is the season worth picking tea. From Mengding in Sichuan, to Zisun in Zhejiang, to Yangxian in Jiangsu, tea areas at different altitudes and different tea varieties have different growth cycles. The three-month theory proposed by Lu Yu actually leaves ample time for the budding and maturation of tea leaves in different places. In the Ming Dynasty, what Xu Cishu said, "The Qingming Festival is too early, the Beginning of Summer is too late, and the time is right before and after Grain Rain" was actually from the perspective of the tea-producing areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, further refinement and improvement of the picking time in the "Tea Classic" Refinement. This is related to the further improvement of tea planting and breeding levels in the Ming Dynasty, and also to the maturity of fried green tea technology. It is worth mentioning that before the Song Dynasty, there was a kind of "Sheqian tea" that was earlier than Mingqian tea. She refers to Chunshe day, which is the fifth Wu day after the beginning of spring. People would worship the Earth God on that day.

As the name suggests, this kind of Sheqian tea is not for drinking, but for worship. In the "Tea Mountain Tribute Baking Song" written by Li Ying of the Tang Dynasty, "the king's journey is four thousand in ten days, and the Qingming banquet will be held at that time" refers to the tea used for sacrifices, which must be delivered to the capital before the Qingming Festival; Ouyang Xiu's tea poem It describes many times that tea farmers "call to the mountains" to ask for morning tea; "History of the Song Dynasty" records an anecdote about Song Huizong asking various places to pay tribute to Sheqian tea. In essence, this is the imperial power and scholar-bureaucrats who are at the helm of the agricultural regime seeking good luck and good fortune for the year's farming, praying for good weather and good harvests. Tea affairs are the beginning of agricultural affairs, and agricultural affairs are the foundation of state affairs. Since the Huainan beggar Zhu Chongba came to the throne and ordered the ban on the form of the Dragon Ball and Phoenix Cake, the custom of offering tea as a sacrifice gradually disappeared. It has no connection with today's Mingqian tea. If we follow the normal historical trend, the picking time of Chinese green tea will be increasingly adapted to local conditions and species, forming a subdivision similar to the brewing of various types of wine in China. However, in 1644, the battle of Shanhaiguan due to multiple coincidences interrupted the process of civilization and changed the fate of Chinese green tea from then on. No.3 In the second month of the lunar calendar in 1751, Emperor Qianlong came to Hangzhou. After seeing the villagers picking tea, he wrote a limerick "Observing Tea Picking and Composing Songs": "You are tender before the fire, and you are old after the fire. Only riding on the fire The best quality. West Lake Longjing is famous for its old reputation. It’s time to give it a try and see how it works. "As one of the emperors with the highest personal accomplishment in Chinese history, Emperor Qianlong was proficient in five different languages: Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uighur. In this limerick, he quoted the sentence from Bai Juyi's "Thank you Li Liulang for sending tea to Xin Shu", "A letter on red paper, ten pieces of green buds before the fire". "Before the fire" refers to before the Qingming and Cold Food Festival when fire is prohibited. Although Qianlong was familiar with Tang poetry, Chinese was not his native language. He made two mistakes in his understanding of Bai Juyi's original poem: the poet wrote about Sichuan tea, not Jiangsu and Zhejiang tea, as the altitude, climate and tea varieties in the two places are different; the poet was grateful for the friend who sent the goose feathers from thousands of miles away, and It’s not about praising how delicious Mingqian tea is. For the Manchu aristocrats who were accustomed to drinking tea with milk, it was indeed not easy to understand the mystery behind the clear drinking of tea in Han culture. Picture source | @Who is the most Chinese The most ironic thing is that in the tribute files of the Manufacturing Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Qianlong period, the tribute time of Longjing tea was not actually in the early spring of Qingming, but around June to August of the lunar calendar. Collection and ashtrays store mature tea leaves. Later, the emperor himself seemed to realize his mistake. During his second and third tours to the south, he wrote two tea-picking poems respectively: "The price is high before the rain but cheap after the rain." Bake it into Grain Rain". This is equivalent to correcting his previous mistake of not being familiar with Hangzhou Longjing tea, but the sentence "Only the Qihuo brand is the best" has been widely spread and retained in the past ten years. Because the output of Mingqian tea itself is not high and rare goods are available, with the emperor's golden words of approval, countless tea merchants made mistakes and followed up the hype. As a result, the tea market was filled with comparisons and anxiety about "tea is more expensive than spring breakfast". Over the next two hundred years, the price became increasingly outrageous. A detail with comparative value is that in Japan at the same time as Qianlong, a folk chronicle called "The Book of Tea in Detail" records the improvement of green tea cultivation by the Japanese in the Edo period: after the tea trees begin to sprout in March every year, In order to control the growth rate of tea buds, tea farmers began to cover the tea trees with straw or cold gauze to slow down their growth and absorb more nutrients to increase the flavor concentration of the tea. Picture source | @Who is the most? The tea grown in China, called the "shading method", cannot be completed until mid-May every year at the latest. It should also be placed in a warehouse away from light and moisture for more than a month to allow the tea leaves to lose their heat before they can be sold. Although Japan inherited steamed green tea from the Tang Dynasty for hundreds of years, the Japanese tea-making process has not undergone any major improvements, and there has not been any technical iteration of roasting, drying, or frying the green tea like in China. But the pursuit of excellence in the taste of a small leaf may have been a metaphor for the outcome of the Sino-Japanese War. Know the smallest details. Picture source | @张你gang No. 4 Qingzhongye, a changing tea breeding technology began to spread on a large scale: cuttings. Prior to this, all tea tree breeding relied on cross-pollination. For example, because the genetic matching of parents is unstable, the next generation of tea trees obtained by pollination will undergo uncontrollable changes. But cuttings are completely different. This is essentially same-sex reproduction, which is equivalent to animal cloning to some extent. Through cuttings, certain individual characteristics of the tea tree can be stably inherited. This is a breakthrough in breeding technology that can preserve better tea genes.

However, the economic foundation determines the superstructure. The high price of Mingqian tea has prompted tea farmers and tea merchants to use cutting technology to repeatedly select varieties and further advance the tea picking time. A typical case of the alienation of taste by technology and economy. In 1965, the Tea Research Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences used cutting technology to cultivate a Longjing tea with a tea yield 30% higher than that of ordinary tea trees and a budding and harvesting time more than 10 days earlier than ordinary tea trees. Because it is the 43rd generation Longjing cultivated in the 1960s, it is named 6043. After the 1970s, it was referred to as Longjing No. 43. Since 1972, the cultivation of Longjing No. 43 has been fully promoted in Longjing producing areas throughout Zhejiang. According to the archives of Longjing Village, Xihu Street, Hangzhou City, after Longjing No. 43 is put into production, the two major benefits of early market launch and increased output can increase the annual income of tea farmers by 10 times. For farmers, the huge benefits have led them to pull out old tea trees that have been planted for decades or hundreds of years and plant Longjing No. 43 instead. What’s even more frightening is that just a few years later, green tea areas such as Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Hubei followed suit and planted Longjing No. 43. The population diversity of green tea has suffered the greatest catastrophe in history. To this day, no matter whether the green tea is labeled as West Lake Longjing, Enshi Yulu, Huangshan Maofeng or Anji White Tea, the first batch of green tea to be launched in early spring is essentially Longjing No. 43 grown in various places. In fact, the functional positioning of Mingqian tea also determines that few people will pursue the delicate and restrained taste of a cup of tea, but the face and price when giving gifts. -END-In the West Lake State Guesthouse on the Yanggong Embankment of West Lake in Hangzhou, there is a small tea garden. At the door of the tea garden is a sign "Chairman's Tea Picking Place". This is the place where Chairman Mao personally picked tea when he stayed on April 28, 1963. Yang Zhongfang, who received the chairman at that time, recalled that the chairman once said to the administrator of the tea garden of the State Guesthouse: "The Longjing tea now is the best. You must take good care of it and don't let it go to waste." It is a pity that no one seems to be able to remember the days when the Chairman picked tea; on the contrary, a foreign feudal emperor, due to omissions caused by cultural differences, still dominates the trend of the country's tea industry. This is a mirror that reflects the prosperity of the world, and it is also a genre painting that satirizes the comical world.