The making of Bai Wen red tea

July 28th, 2016. From 3 PM to 5 PM.
18 women are brought to this tea plantation to pick these tea fresh leaves by hand.

We are close to Songboling, Taiwan's biggest tea village near Nantou in Central Taiwan. This is a plantation of Taiwan Tea Extension Station No. 14 tea, also known as Bai Wen.

The farmer instructs the pickers to focus their harvests on the freshest leaves (2 and a bud).

It's a hard job under the sun, but the ladies are well protected and there's a light breeze that makes the weather more bearable than in the city.

The farmer has invited me to see how this tea is made, from the beginning to the end. I use my time to take pictures and to check the leaves. I found evidence that this small plantation has a nature friendly management:

The leaf on the left has been bitten by an insect and on the right, we can see a few black insect eggs deposited underneath the leaf. "This cultivar isn't very often bitten by insects, because this type of leaf has a more bitter taste than others", the farmer explained. This leaf is an exception. The leaves with eggs were more common, and the farmer told me that they would drop off during the production process.

In order to get the full experience of making this tea, I started to pick leaves and focused on the freshest ones. I didn't have a basket, so I would put them in the baskets of the pickers. Since this increases their yield (and the money they receive), one of the ladies lent me her traditional hat for a souvenir picture:

It's 5 PM now and the weight of each bag is recorded.

The leaves are collected in a big white bag and a truck brings the ladies home.

At the farm, a few minutes later, I help putting the fresh leaves on round bamboo mats.

The leaves are spread evenly and the mats are then stacked on these shelves.

July 28, 5 PM 26

These shelves remain indoors, close to the door, in a place with some wind. This indoor withering (drying) will take place until the early afternoon of the next day.

July 29, 8 AM

The leaves have lost moisture during the night. From the picture above, we can see that they are now lying flat. Half past noon, the next step starts: twist rolling the leaves in this machine for 2 hours.

This machine bruises and rolls the leaves gently, without breaking them. This short video shows the circular movement of the machine.
Since the leaves tend to become intertwined together, halfway through the process the leaves are screened, untangled using this machine:

This screening is done a first time after 1 hour and repeated a second time at the end of the twist rolling process. From the picture of my hand, you can see that the juices have come out from the leaves by now! 

At 3:05 PM, the leaves are now placed on these bamboo mats in a thick and even fashion.

These 3 mats are then covered with another bamboo mat and this white piece of fabric. They are placed on the floor, the coolest place in the room (which doesn't have air conditioning). The ideal temperature for the oxidation of the leaves is 25 degrees Celcius. I think we are quite close to this temperature at that time.

This oxidation process should take 5 to 6 hours, but the farmer let it go for 6 hours and 50 minutes, because he judges the tea is ready with its color and scent. The reason for the delay was a late afternoon shower that had cooled down the air.

At 10 PM, it's time for the last step of the red tea process: drying. For this, the farmer uses his common electric roaster set at a low temperature, 85 degrees Celcius. The leaves are stacked on separate metal trays. That's where we put 70% of the leaves.

The remaining 30% of the leaves were dried in this new, infra-red roaster. Its infra red function is supposedly superior, because its heat is similar to the heat of traditional charcoal roasters.

At 4 AM, on July 30th, the leaves were sufficiently dry. The roasters were turned off and the leaves were left to cool down inside with the door half open.

At 8 AM, after some rest (for the leaves and ourselves), we tasted the tea and compared the leaves from the 2 different driers. The infra-red dried tea tasted sweeter and so I purchased all the leaves that were dried in it (2.5 kg approximately). It's available here.

That same day I returned home and brewed it on this Chaxi.

It has the sweet taste of Taiwan's summer in the countryside!