Lapsang souchong processing

Lapsang souchong  is the originator of black tea in the world. Produced in
Tong muguan Village, Wuyi Mountain, Fujian. Tongmuguan is located in the northern section of the Wuyi Mountains, with a high altitude, 1000-1500 meters above sea level, warm in winter and cool in summer, with an average annual temperature of 18 ℃ and annual rainfall of about 2,000 mm. Between spring and summer, the clouds are foggy all day and the sunshine is shorter. The frost period is longer, the soil moisture is sufficient, fertile and loose, and the content of organic matter is high. , Deepen the soil layer, so the tea is lush, the leaves are thick and soft.

At present, my family's Lapsang souchong  is divided into smoked ones and unsmoked ones:
Smoked style and unsmoked style  are distinguished based on whether they are smoked with pine needles or pine wood in the production process: those smoked with pine needles or pine wood are called "Smoked Lapsang souchong"; no pine needles or pine wood are used Smoked, it is called "Unsmoked Lapsang souchong ". The tea produced by these two different production processes of Lapsang souchong has obvious differences. Everyone also habitually calls smoked style as traditional craft , and unsmoked new craft .

The production process of unsmoked Lapsangsouchong   :
                             
 1:fresh leaves Picking:

                           the picking standard of the Lapsang souchong ,2leaves with one buds ,all the leaves are quite tender and fresh at the beginning of April .


2:Withering :    
                                               Fresh leaves just picked

                                               
                                               Withered leaves  (after 8hours )

3: Rolling :   
                                             

                           

4: Fermentation:  (in this step is about 5-7 hours depending on which cultivars and
                            the temperature)

 4:Drying:
                     After fermentation ,the tea leaves is quite wet ,so we use this machine to  dry the tea .For the lapsang souchong noramlly it is 85-95degree and around 3-4hours  .In fact this step  is just for  basically drying , after this step , we call this tea as Lapsang souchong Maocha .
                                       

This is the electric roasting machine (before drying )

put the fermentated  tea on this  bamboo sieve  

5:Mao Cha sorting :  pick out the tea stems and Huang pian (old and big leaves )


6:Roasting :
                          Most of local tea growers still use the electrical machine to roast ,

                          but also some tea growers  use the charcoal fire to do the roasting .

                          in this step  normally it is about 4-6 hours and with the temperature                                                                    90-105C
       

7:Package into box:
                                  package the tea into boxes
                                   

   

8:selling  to the clients :