Basic Introduction to Guanyin Lake Green Tea
Guanyin Lake Green Tea is a specialty of Xiaochang County, Xiaogan City, Hubei Province.
Guanyin Lake Green Tea is a product protected by geographical indication. “The filial piety of Meng Zong spreads across the world, and good tea comes from the shores of Guanyin Lake.” The proposed protected area is a tourist destination, a Buddhist site for over a thousand years, a well-known revolutionary base, and the birthplace of filial piety culture (with the custom of “a cup of tea in the morning, daughter-in-law serving mother-in-law,” which shows Respect for the elderly), as well as the birthplace of tea culture. It has a long history of tea cultivation, produces high-quality tea, and especially the tea around Guanyin Lake is of the best quality and enjoys a high reputation in Hubei. It is well-known in Xiaogan and is an essential item for gifts and home use.
Guanyin Lake Green Tea is mainly distributed in the Guanyin Lake Ecological Cultural Tourism Resort, Xiaowu Township, Xiaohetown, Weidian Town, and Wangdian Town of Xiaochang County. The cultivated varieties are mainly Echa No.1, Fuding Dahao, and other excellent varieties. Benefiting from the reform and opening-up policy, a number of private tea enterprises represented by Xiaochang County Guan's Tea Co., Ltd. have emerged. They operate under a model of “company + base + farmers + standards,” producing according to the form of “four unifications, five fixations, and one dispersion.” This includes the “four unifications” of seedling selection, fertilization, plant protection, and processing, the “five fixations” of geographic location, area, quality, price, and purchase, and the “one dispersion” of farmers growing tea independently. This has basically formed an agricultural industrialized operating pattern that integrates planting, picking, processing, storage, transportation, and sales.
There are eight large-scale processing enterprises for Guanyin Lake Green Tea with total assets of 225 million yuan. They have registered trademarks such as “Guan's” and “Wusheng,” among others, and possess more than 600 pieces of various machinery. Six companies' bases and products have been certified as organic tea, three companies' products have been certified as green food, and five companies have passed ISO9000 quality certification. All eight companies have obtained food production licenses.
In 2013, the planting area of Guanyin Lake Green Tea was 68,500 mu, with a yield of 1,368 tons and a value of 680 million yuan. The series of Guanyin Lake Green Tea products include: Guanyin Lingcao, Guanyin Yaxiang, Guanyin Jiaming, Guanyin Lvyun, Guanyin Gongya, Guanyin Yulu, and Guanyin Longjian. Professor Nide Jiang, a doctoral supervisor in tea science at Huazhong Agricultural University, composed a poem about it: “Layered mountains overshadow Hua Peak, holy water ripples around Guanyin Palace. Seven bowls to taste the fairy herb, its spirit, elegance, excellence, and jade dragon.” These products are popular in Henan, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangdong, Shenzhen, and more than twenty other provinces, municipalities, and regions, and are also exported to Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and other countries and regions. They have helped lift over 25,000 local farmers out of poverty, increasing their per capita income by over 550 yuan. They are one of the pillar industries for building a strong agriculture, prosperous farmers, and beautiful countryside.
Quality and Technical Requirements
(1) Varieties
Fuding Dahao, Echa No.1, Zhongcha 108, and other suitable tea tree varieties for making Guanyin Lake Green Tea.
(2) Location Conditions
Guanyin Lake Green Tea grows at an altitude of 450m-800m, in a soil type of yellow-brown loam with a pH value of 5.5-6.5, high organic matter content, effective soil layer thickness of over 0.5m, and good drainage.
(3) Cultivation Management
1. Planting
Late autumn or early spring is the best period for transplanting tea seedlings, carried out on overcast days after rain or on windless sunny days. Single-row planting has row spacing of 1.5cm and plant spacing of 30cm; double-row planting has wide row spacing of 1.8m, narrow row spacing of 0.33-0.4m, and plant spacing of 0.33m. Each hole contains 2-3 tea seedlings, planted at a depth of 0.05-0.1m. Tea seedlings must be disinfected before transplanting.
2. Pruning
Young tea trees undergo shaping pruning to promote vegetative growth of the canopy, strengthen the development of main branches, increase the number of effective branches, and cultivate a broad canopy and robust tree vigor. Tea gardens in production alternate light pruning with rejuvenation pruning. Light pruning can be done annually or every other year, generally in mid-November or mid-March of the following year. Deep pruning is typically done once every 4-5 years, either before or after the Spring Tea harvest. For tea trees over 30 years old with weakened main branches or dead upper parts of the canopy, coppicing is performed, preferably before the spring tea harvest or secondarily afterward, cutting off all above-ground branches and leaves 5-10cm above the ground.
3. Fertilization
Based on soil fertility and tea tree growth, apply ample decomposed organic fertilizer and supplement with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers. Heavy application of basal fertilizer, timely top-dressing, and skillful application of foliar fertilizer.
4. Environmental and Safety Requirements
The use of pesticides and fertilizers must comply with national regulations and must not pollute the environment.
(4) Fresh Leaf Harvesting
Harvest in batches and promptly: when the number of new shoots with one bud and one leaf unfolded reaches 8 to 12 per square meter on the surface of the tea canopy, it is the appropriate time to begin harvesting. Harvest the first shoots and leave the weaker ones, harvest the higher shoots and leave the lower ones, and harvest the central shoots and leave the side shoots. Different types of tea trees are harvested differently: young tea trees are primarily cultivated and secondarily harvested; three-year-old tea trees leave two leaves in spring, one intermediate leaf in summer, and three leaves or one leaf in autumn; mature tea trees are primarily harvested and secondarily cultivated.
Use plucking and hand-picking, avoiding picking with fingernails, twisting, stripping, or grabbing. Do not pick fish leaves or tea fruits.
(5) Processing Technology
1. Process Flow
Fresh leaf withering — killing (first killing, second killing, delayed rehumidification) — shaping (lining, second lining) — baking (double machine dehiscing, finishing and aroma enhancement).
2. Process Requirements
Withering: Fresh leaves that pass inspection should generally be laid out to wither in a ventilated place. The thickness of the spread-out leaves is generally 1cm-3cm, and the time is generally 4h-6h, with a weight loss rate maintained at 5%-10%. For rain-soaked leaves or fresh leaves picked during rain, a fresh leaf dryer is used for withering, with a thickness of 3cm-6cm and a time of 2h-3h.
Killing: The feeding rate for the first killing should be controlled within the range of 1kg/min, with a temperature between 170°C and 230°C and a time of 55s-60s.
Second Killing: After the first killing, set the temperature of the killing machine between 280°C and 300°C and kill the tea for 30s-40s to achieve a high-temperature, rapid second killing. The combined weight loss rate after the two killings should be 20%-30%.
Rehumidification: Use delayed rehumidification technology, extending the rehumidification time from the traditional 15min-20min to 30min