About Jin junmei processing

Jin junmei and lapsang souchong from Tong muguan (Village), Wuyishan National Nature Reserve, and belong to the category of   black tea. Anyone who knows something about tea knows tongmuguan, the birthplace of the world's black tea.


 Jinjunmei is not a traditional black tea. It was only created in 2005. It is made of pure bud head. Only 60000 to 80000 bud tips can be made into jinjinjunmei. At present, there are few Jin junmei in Tongmuguan, and the price is very high.


 In terms of harvesting time, due to the high altitude (over 1000m) and low temperature of tongmuguan, the first wave of harvesting time of Jinjunmei every year is basically after Qingming Festival, probably after the middle of April, so Jinjunmei has no so-called "tea before the Ming Dynasty".


How is Jin Junmei refined?

Step 1: picking. The picking standard of Jinjunmei tea is that the leaf tip is more mature than red and green tea. Jin Junmei requires to take fresh tea buds and pick the most tender part of the bud head, which requires very high picking skills. Because of the high altitude of tongmuguan, the slow growth of tea trees, and no chemical fertilizer and pesticide, the black tea here is only picked one season a year, and the yield of golden eyebrow made from pure bud tip is less.

                                                 

 

Step 2: pick and choose. Many people think that the fresh leaves picked can be dried and withered. In fact, there is a process of sorting.  When we pick the new tea buds ,there will be some old leaves outside .So the tea was picked and arrived home .We have a sorting step .We call this as “peel the buds  ” .  Its purpose is to guarantee that the raw materials of Junmei are all bud tips.

                                                              the leaves from garden :
                                                                   

           

                doing the sorting  

  

        

          

                                                       After sorting :

   

Step 3:  Withering . Spread the tea evenly in the basket  .The withering of Golden eyebrows can be divided into indoor withering and sunlight withering. Now, due to the weather, it is often impossible to do the sun withering. Most of the golden eyebrows made in one day are withered in the indoor withering machine. This process takes about 3 to 4 hours, and the amount of water lost in this process is about 70%.

                                   

Step 4: Rolling .  using the hands to do the rolling step  ,to set the  shape and roll the  leaves into strips. (now more machine rolling instead of hands working )
                                                   

 Step 5: fermentation. The purpose of stacking the rolled  tea leaves together and covering them with wet cloth is to destroy the cells on the leaf margin, thus promoting the enzymatic oxidation and making a series of biochemical changes in the fresh leaves. The process takes about 7 to 8 hours, and the fermented tea turns red.



 Step 6: dry. Put the fermented tea into the baking machine, bake slowly with a gentle fire of about 90 ℃, and dry all the tea in about 3 hours, and the authentic Jin Junmei will be refined!