Jintan Que Tongue Tea [Specialty of Changzhou, Jiangsu]

What is Jintan Sparrow Tongue Tea? Authentic Jiangsu Changzhou specialty: Jintan Que Tongue Tea

Summary:Do you want to know what Jintan Que Tongue Tea is? This article is a detailed introduction toJiangsu Changzhou specialty - Jintan Que Tongue Tea. It was compiled and edited by the editorial team of China Specialty Network after reviewing and collecting relevant information about Jintan Que Tongue Tea. The full text takes about 9 minutes to read, mainly including the basic introduction of Jintan Que Tongue Tea and the product characteristics of Jintan Que Tongue Tea? The production method of Jintan Que Tongue Tea and the awards and honors of Jintan Que Tongue Tea.

Basic Introduction to Jintan Que Tongue Tea

Jintan Que Tongue Tea is produced at Fanglu Tea Plantation in Jintan City, Jiangsu Province. Founded in 1983, the tea plantation is located at the foot of Maoshan Mountain. This article briefly introduces the tea plantation environment and quality characteristics of Jintan Que Tongue Tea. Finally, it provides a detailed introduction to the tea making process, including the picking, frying, boiling, shaping, and storage techniques of handmade tea, as well as the key processes of mechanical tea making: withering, shaping, and drying.

Jintan City is located in the northern subtropical monsoon climate zone, with three types of landforms: hilly and gentle hills, low-lying polder areas, and high pitched plains. Tea gardens are all distributed in the hilly and gentle slope areas with Maoshan and Fangshan as the north and south main peaks. The forest coverage rate in this area is over 55%, and the soil texture is Lower Sichuan yellow brown soil. The soil layer is deep, with a pH value of 4.5-5.5 and weak acidity. At the same time, there are no industrial pollution sources, which is completely suitable for the growth of tea trees.

Jintan Sparrow Tongue Tea has received numerous praises for its exquisite shape resembling a sparrow tongue, emerald green color, and fresh and tender aroma. In order to adapt to market demand and development, Jintan City has introduced famous tea machinery to conduct mechanism experiments on Jintan Que Tongue Tea, overcoming the shortcomings of manual frying, such as high labor costs, high costs, and unstable quality. Through experiments, the suitable varieties of Jintan Que Tongue Tea and the appropriate temperatures for each frying stage were also identified.

1. Tea tree varieties

Tree species suitable for processing Jintan sparrow tongue, such as Guiye, Jiukeng, and Zhejiang Nong 113, are excellent varieties of small and medium-sized tea trees with fewer hairs, plump buds, medium leaf shape, and high amino acid content.

II. Site Conditions

Low mountain and hilly areas, soil type is red yellow soil, soil pH value is 4.5 to 6, soil depth is more than 1 meter, and there is no hard disk in the subsoil;

; The groundwater level is below 1.5 meters; Soil organic matter content ≥ 1.5%.

III. Cultivation Management

1. Tea tree planting: Late February to mid March in spring; Late October to mid November in autumn. Planting density ranges from 35000 to 55000 plants per hectare.

2. Fertilization: Implement balanced fertilization in tea gardens to prevent fertilizer shortage and excessive fertilization. The fertilizer mainly uses decomposed organic fertilizer, combined with an appropriate amount of chemical fertilizer. The base fertilizer is mainly organic fertilizer, which is deeply applied in autumn by digging trenches, with a fertilization depth of more than 20 centimeters. 1500 to 3000 kg of cake fertilizer or commercial organic fertilizer or 15000 kg or more of farm organic fertilizer is applied per hectare. 3. Environmental and safety requirements: The use of pesticides, fertilizers, etc. must comply with relevant national regulations and must not pollute the environment.

Regional Scope

The production area of Jintan Que Tongue Tea is located in the administrative regions of Xuebu Town, Zhiqian Town, Zhulin Town, and Zhixi Town in Jintan City, Jiangsu Province. What are the product features of Jintan Que Tongue Tea? Jintan Sparrow Tongue Tea is famous for its flat and elegant appearance, resembling a sparrow tongue, uniform tea strips, green and smooth color, high aroma, bright soup color, fresh and refreshing taste, and tender and even leaf base. It is listed as one of the six characteristic industries of Jintan Agriculture.

The production method of Jintan Que Tongue Tea

The mechanism of Jintan Que Tongue Tea is as follows: fresh leaves are spread out → withering → shaping and straightening → cooling → drying.

Picking process

1. Fresh leaf picking:

(1) Picking time: late March to mid April

(2) Picking standard: Pick single buds to one bud and one leaf at the beginning of development according to the standard. Do not pick purple bud leaves or leaves damaged by pests and diseases.

2. Process flow: Fresh leaf spreading → withering → cooling → straightening and shaping → drying

3. Process technical requirements:

(1) Fresh leaf spreading: After the fresh leaves enter the factory, they are inspected and graded, and spread separately according to grade, variety, and plot.

. During the spreading process, fresh leaves must not come into direct contact with the ground. The placement area should be cool, clean, dry, and well ventilated. Spread with a thickness of 3cm to 5cm. Spread for 4 hours to 7 hours. The leaves are soft, the color turns dark green, the grassy scent disappears, the fragrance is revealed, and there is a slight floral fragrance. The weight loss is 15% to 20%.

(2) Qingqing: The Qingqing temperature is between 120 ℃ and 160 ℃, lasting for 2 to 3 minutes. The Qingqing leaves are soft and can be held in a ball that can be slowly released. There are no red stems or leaves, no burnt edges, no green grass odor disappears, and the fragrance overflows. This is considered moderate Qingqing.

(3) Cooling: The withered leaves should be cooled in a timely manner to dissipate heat, release water vapor, and evenly distribute the moisture inside the leaves. The cooling time should be controlled for 15 to 25 minutes.

(4) Straightening and shaping: The temperature of the straightening pot should be between 90 ℃ and 100 ℃, and the degree of straightening should be that the tea strips are straight, not sticky when pinched by hand, and cooled when taken out of the pot; The temperature of the shaping pot is 70 ℃ to 80 ℃, and the degree of shaping requires the tea strips to be flat and straight, basically shaped, about 70-80% dry, and then spread out to cool.

(5) Drying (Huigan): Heat the pot at 65 ° C to 75 ° C, stir fry until the tea strips are lightly folded and broken, twist them into powder by hand, and when the moisture content is 5.5% to 6%, remove from the pot and let cool.

Awards and honors of Jintan Que Tongue Tea

In 1985, Jintan Que Tongue Tea passed the technical appraisal of Jiangsu Province and ranked first in the total score at the Jiangsu Famous Tea Selection Conference.

. In the same year, it was awarded the title of high-quality tea at the National Famous Tea Exhibition and Evaluation Conference. In 1986, Jintan Que Tongue Tea was awarded the title of National Famous Tea by the Ministry of Commerce. In 1990 and 1991, Jintan Que Tongue Tea was continuously recognized by the Ministry of Commerce as a nationally renowned tea. In 1995, Jintan City was named the "Hometown of Chinese Green Tea (Famous Tea)". On December 26, 2012, the former General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine approved the implementation of geographical indication product protection for "Jintan Que Tongue Tea". In 2015, the list of China's Famous Tea Gold Award and Golden Camel Award at the Centennial World Expo was announced, and Jintan Que Tongue Tea won the first place in the Green Tea category Golden Camel Award. In 2018, according to the evaluation of the regional public brand value of Chinese tea, the brand value of Jintan Que Tongue was 766 million yuan.