In 2007, in order to upgrade the cultural content of Dongting Mountain Biluochun tea, protect the particular making skill of Biluochun tea, the original place of Biluochun tea Dongting Mountain began to apply Biluochun tea making skill as the national intangible cultural heritage.
Biluochun tea making skill has a very long history: as early as in Tea Record written by Zhang Yuan in the 23rd year of Wanli Period in the Ming Dynasty, it had quite detailed record for picking and making Dongting green tea (frying green tea leaves).
Biluochun tea making skill is greatly complicated, highly required and is a real “Kungfu tea”. 60,000 to 70,000 tender shoots are demanded to make one Jin (500g) Biluochun tea and six basic working procedures are required including picking, selecting fresh leaves, high temperature tea leaf sterilization upon being put into the pot, shaping by hot kneading, revealing fine hair after twisting into balls and drying by slow fire to make Biluochun tea; one Jin Biliochun is fried by dividing into three pots, each requires 45 minutes for frying, the duration and degree of heating for frying is critical, and frequently the top quality tender shoot will be made into inferior Biluochun tea owing to defects from the heating control and frying skill.
Dongting Mountain Biluochun tea making skill is an outstanding representative of manual making for China’s twisted shape tea and has profound historic value, significant cultural value, elegant craft appreciation value and higher academic study value.
It’s a great encourage for Dongting Mountain Biluochun tea brand value upon being selected into the intangible cultural heritage. The purely hand made tea is quite rarely seen in the green tea industry, revealing the quality of Biluochun tea.
