Chapter 686: Unpalatable Raw Pu'er Tea
Chief Yien gave a signal, and soon the villagers brought a lot of Pu'er tea and boiled it on the spot. Finally, he asked the most beautiful girl in the village to make tea for everyone.
When the dark-skinned, big-eyed Bulang beauty placed the ceramic bowl filled with Pu'er tea in front of Lin Sanqi with both hands, Lin Sanqi felt like he was on a pilgrimage.
I thought to myself, damn, this is authentic Lao Banzhang. This bowl is probably worth several thousand dollars. I think drinking it will make me immortal. I must taste it carefully.
Decades later, the annual output of authentic Lao Banzhang tea does not exceed 50 tons at most, but more than 5,000 tons are sold on the market, so ordinary tea drinkers can hardly drink real Banzhang Pu'er.
Before Lin Sanqi became rich, Laobanzhang was something out of reach for people like him from a village in the city.
"Dear guest from afar, please have some tea."
The girl had a smile on her face, but she was actually thinking, are these Han people crazy? They traveled thousands of miles just to drink a sip of tea?
“Okay, okay!”
Lin Sanqi took the tea, pretended to smell it, and then his eyes lit up:
"Hmm~~~ What a nice smell, such a nice tea smell, hahaha, ah, puff~~~"
Lin Sanqi took a sip of tea and almost spit it out. In the end, if he hadn't been afraid of being beaten to death by the enthusiastic ethnic minorities, he would have swallowed it.
Why?
It's too bitter.
Lin Sanqi looked at the orange-yellow tea in the bowl and thought to himself that these rich people were really sick. They treated such bitter tea as a treasure?
It's really hard to drink even if it's not bitter.
At this time, whether it was Director Zhao, the cadres in Menghai County, or the villagers in Banzhang Village, they all looked at Lin Sanqi curiously.
The locals know exactly what Pu'er tea tastes like, and it's definitely not delicious.
So they were even more puzzled. Why was this Han cadre interested in such tea?
If you were interested, why did you look like you were constipated after taking a sip?
Is it too delicious?
Shouldn't he look intoxicated?
Lin Sanqi raised his head and saw everyone staring at him blankly. He could only awkwardly and unwillingly praise:
"Good, good tea, it's truly the best tea in the world. It's the most fragrant and sweetest tea I've ever tasted in my life~~~"
The local officials who followed him all breathed a sigh of relief, and Minister Zhao's face instantly broke into a smile:
"Xiao Lin, is this the Pu'er tea you're looking for?"
How could Lin Sanqi know if it was the Laobanzhang tea he wanted? He had never tasted it before, but since there were so many places, it should be correct.
"Yes, that's the Pu'er I'm looking for. Village Chief Yien, can you let me see your tea?"
Immediately, a villager came with a wooden tray with a pile of Pu'er tea leaves on it. Village chief Yien introduced it:
"Commissioner Lin, this is the tea leaves picked from the tea trees in our village. They go through the steps of picking, drying, rolling, and pressing to maintain their freshness and original flavor."
Lin Sanqi was holding the tea leaves when he realized something was wrong:
"Wait, isn't this Pu'er tea fermented?"
Mayor Yue Xiang added:
"Commissioner Lin, you don't know that our Yunnan Pu'er tea is different from the green tea in Jiangnan. Ours is not fried, but simply dried in the sun.
After the tea leaves are naturally dried, they lose their moisture and are then rolled to shape the leaves, curling them into strips. Finally, they are pressed into tea bricks.
Lin Sanqi understood that what is popular these days is raw Pu'er, not cooked Pu'er. It has not been fermented, so no wonder it tastes so bitter and pungent.
It seems that if he wants to purchase these teas, he has to teach the purchasing station how to make ripe Pu'er.
Lin Sanqi then asked the question that concerned him most:
"Village Chief Yien, how many ancient tea trees are there in your Banzhang Village?"
"Ancient tea tree? What does ancient mean?"
People in the village only know about tea trees, but have no concept of ancient tea trees.
Lin Sanqi explained: "It means the tree is over 100 years old, and the trunk must also be over 100 years old."
One villager couldn't help but laugh, "If the tree is over a hundred years old, then the trunk must be over a hundred years old too. What a waste of words!"
Yulang County Magistrate was a very smart man. He immediately knew what the problem was and quickly helped to explain:
"Commissioner Lin, I understand what you mean. The Agricultural Science Institute is indeed conducting experiments in some villages. They leave the roots of ancient tea trees and then graft new tea branches onto them. This results in the tree being an ancient tree, but the branches are not necessarily ancient branches."
Oh~~~The villagers all suddenly understood.
But Lin Sanqi knew that the original intention of the Agricultural Science Institute's grafting technology was good, which was to increase tea production.
However, the biggest consequence of this technology was that the ancient tea trees were cut down and turned into weird tea trees.
If you want to know if there is any difference in the taste of Pu'er produced by this "new ancient tea tree" and Pu'er produced by "ancient tea tree", it is not necessarily the case.
Scarcity makes things valuable. Later, Hong Kong capital began to hype the concept of "ancient tea trees" because ancient tea trees are too rare, which provided the conditions and basis for hype.
Why are the ancient tea trees on only a few hills such as Banzhang Village and Mansong Village particularly valuable, and eventually become the king? In fact, there is a funny thing about this.
When the Agricultural Science Institute was promoting new technologies, villages such as Banzhang Village and Mansong Village were too remote and far away, with inconvenient transportation, so the Agricultural Science Institute was unwilling to go there.
Finally, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise and the ancient tea tree was preserved. Decades later, it became the pig that took off in the wind.
The same principle applies to the ancient city of Pingyao in Shanxi.
All other ancient cities have been demolished, leaving Pingyao Ancient City intact. This is not because local cadres have a vision for tourism, but because Pingyao was too poor at the time and could not afford to demolish it, so it was preserved.
Village Chief Yien thought for a moment, and finally said uncertainly:
"We haven't counted exactly how many ancient tea trees there are. Commissioner Lin, just look, those mountains across the way are covered in tea trees. Back then, our ancestors wanted to start a tea business and traveled along the ancient Tea-Horse Road to the snowy region.
But now that the ancient Tea Horse Road is abandoned, the tea can no longer be sold, so all those ancient tea trees are left there. Villagers who want to drink tea have to pick it themselves, and there is no one to manage it, so they don’t make much money in a year.”
At this time, an elderly villager interrupted:
"I have a rough idea. Our Banzhang consists of five villages, with a total of more than 80,000 tea trees.
Among them, there are more than 9,000 trees over 800 years old, 30,000 trees over 500 years old, about 40,000 trees over 200 years old, and less than 10,000 trees over 100 years old.
As for the newly grown tea trees, we are not very clear about them. Commissioner Lin, if you want ancient tea trees, let me tell you this: our Banzhang trees are second to none in all of Menghai County.
Village Chief Yien's eyes rolled, and he immediately realized what was going on, so he quickly tried to make up for it and boasted:
"Yes, our tea is pure and natural without any pollution. Back then, the great monks and nobles in the snowy areas particularly liked the tea produced in Laobanzhang. Hehe."
The village head, Yue Xiang, who was standing nearby, couldn't stand it any longer and carefully reminded him, "Be truthful in front of your leaders."
Lin Sanqi didn't care. He thought the village chief was thinking about his own village and wanted to cheat more outsiders in exchange for more supplies, which was understandable.
That night, Lin Sanqi, Director Zhao and others stayed in the village.
It is said to be the best house, but in fact it is just a wooden building, drafty on all sides, without even a wall.
While swatting the mosquitoes that he could never kill, Lin Sanqi looked at the moon in the sky and thought that these ethnic minority people were really open-minded.
There is no fence, no walls, not even a bed. If a couple does something loving in the middle of the night and encounters a woman who likes to scream, wouldn't the news spread throughout the village?
Will all the men and women in the village compete together in the middle of the night when they have nothing to do?
Thinking that the scene was too beautiful to look at, Lin Sanqi sat up and applied floral water all over his body, lit a few more mosquito coils, and finally fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning, Lin Sanqi and Director Zhao, led by local county and township officials, as well as village officials from Banzhang Village, headed towards the tea mountain.
A group of young villagers cleared the way ahead and cleared away all the weeds and branches along the way.
Walking through this tropical rainforest, Lin Sanqi was already sweating all over, but as he looked at the tea mountains getting closer and closer, he became excited.
That's not a tea mountain, that's a gold mountain.
At this time, the old village chief Yien pointed to the green forest in front of him and said:
"Commissioner Lin, look, these are the ancient tea trees from our Banzhang Village. They are all over the hills as far as you can see."
Unlike the tea gardens in the Jiangnan region, which are all short tea trees, the green rows are very neat and beautiful. Coupled with a few tea-picking girls, it creates a beautiful Jiangnan scenery.
The ancient Pu'er tea trees in Yunnan are very rugged, with the average height of each tea tree being over 10 meters.
Lin Sanqi walked closer and picked a piece of tea leaves, and found that the leaves were very large. If he had seen it somewhere else, he would never recognize it as a tea tree and would have thought it was just an ordinary green plant.
Lin Sanqi asked curiously:
"Village Chief Yien, when is the Pu'er tea picking season? Is it past the picking season when I come here now?"
The old village chief laughed and said:
"It is indeed past the best picking season. Generally, the best picking time is from March to May. Spring tea is divided into the first spring picked before Qingming Festival, the second spring picked in mid-to-late April, and the third spring picked in May.
The first spring tea leaves are tender green and rich in aroma, making them the finest Pu'er tea. Commissioner Lin, don't worry, we've already harvested all the spring tea. We've stored all the tea in our village, ahem, but haven't sold it yet."
Lin Sanqi felt relieved when he heard this. As long as the tea leaves were there, it would be fine.
But he also felt a little regretful. This kind of top-quality Mingqian Pu'er tea could be sold for hundreds of thousands of yuan per kilogram. If it was not stored properly, it would all be Lin Sanqi's money that would be lost.
Yes, Lin Sanqi already regarded these Pu'er teas as his.
(End of this chapter)
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