Picking
The first step of producing tea is to pick
off the buds or leaves from tea trees.
Generally speaking, the tea can be divided
into two types: bud and leaf tea. Bud tea use bud as the main raw material, and
leaf tea use leaves as the main raw material.
Because buds are new, the bud tea is
tender. However, except the best whole bud tea, some common bud tea contains
some of old or new tea leaves, so the bud and leaf tea is different in the
degree of freshness. In general, the higher the proportion of buds and tender
the leaves, the higher the quality of tea. Yet there is some tea whose content
is particularly made of old tea leaves, such as Huangpian, Tie Kwan-yin, ect.
Airing
and withering
The steps following picking to produce tea
depends on the tea of different kinds.
For non-fermented tea, the next step is
fixation. Fixation is divided into steaming and stir fixation. Sun drying
precedes, that is, to lay the fresh tea leaves for some time to evaporate some
water.
For fermented and partially fermented tea,
the fresh tea leaves should be withered first. Withering is done outdoor or
indoor. Outdoor withering is to place tea in the sun to dry it, (when the
sunlight is too strong, tea leaves should be on the shadowy areas), until it is
softened, then it will be moved to the room for indoor withering.
During withering, the leaves should be
stirred from time to time. At first, the purpose to stir the tea is to make the
moisture in the tea evaporate evenly; later stir it more frequently and move
dynamically. Apart from the evaporation of water, it is necessary to make
friction between the leaves to promote oxidation.
Fixation
Fixation comes next to picking and drying,
and it divides into steaming and stir fixation. Steaming is used to be the main
way, but now stir fixation has become the mainstream. Stir fixation makes tea
more fragrant, and steaming makes tea greener.
Fixation aims to continue to evaporate the moisture of
tea, to damage the enzyme activity in the leaves, and to produce fragrance. The
pot temperature is a key factor to fixation. When it is low, the enzyme will be
more active than in room temperature, so the colorless polyphenols in tea will
rapidly oxidize, which makes the tea red; when it is too high, the tea will be
burnt.
Rolling
The next step to fixation or withering is
rolling. In this process, the integrity of the leaves is damaged, resulting in
their active ingredients easier to leach when brewing. Meanwhile, the shape of
tea becomes tight from loose in rolling, good for preservation. In addition,
different flavors are created by various rolling forms.
There are cold rolling and hot rolling, the
former is done after cooling the leaves through fixation while hot rolling is
done after fixation. The former is appropriate for tender leaves, because there
are more water-soluble pectin contents in it and it is easy to form strip; hot
rolling is appropriate to old leaves, because the coarse old leaves form strips
easily when they are soft and hot, meanwhile with less broken foam. Rolling is
an important step to make the shape of tea leaves. By strength rolling is
divided into soft rolling, medium rolling, and hard rolling. Soft rolling makes
the strip, needle-like tea. When rolling is too soft, the tea will easily
maintain the original shape. Medium rolling and hard rolling make the
hemispherical and spherical shape of tea. 
Fermentation
For the fermented tea and partially
fermented tea, the next step after rolling is fermentation. Fermentation is to
put the rolling tea leaves in a specially-made plate in a certain thickness so
that the chemical composition in the tea leaves will undergo a series of
oxidation reactions in aerobic conditions, and change the quality of tea. In
the fermentation process, colorless polyphenols will eventually transform into
tea flavins and tea red pigment and color, smell, taste of tea will be changed.
With the deepening of fermentation, tea will turn from green to yellow green,
then green yellow, yellow red, and even black red. Grass fragrance is
transferred into flower fragrance, and ten fruit fragrance, and finally ripe
fruit fragrance. The fresh natural flavor gradually shifts to the mellow
artificial flavor.
Drying
Most tea needs drying. There are fried
drying, heated drying, and sun drying, etc., each with different
characteristics. for example, fixation, rolling and drying all completed in the
pot, but White Pekoe Sliver Needle is directly dried or dried after being
spread in thin.
Fried drying is characterized by the
contact of tea and the heated solid surface (such as the pot shell), making tea
with strong fragrance; heated drying is characterized by the contact of tea and
hot air, making the tea has intact tea buds; sun drying is characterized by the
contact of tea leaves and sunlight, making tea with a special flavor. 
Pressing
Pressing is a necessary step for the
condensed tea. Take puerh tea as example, this tea was compressed in a tea
factory where stone presses were used.
Low temperature “baking” was used to dry these cakes after the
compression process thus preserving their integrity! Normally we have delayed
sales of this cake for 2 weeks or longer to allow the water vapor from pressing
to dissipate. Further aging will only improve this wonderful tea!
