So it’s around 32 celsius (around 100 F), and one must keep the tea processing facility nice and hot for the oxidation/post fermentation, good enough to do in room temperature! This is also the appropriate amount of heat that the 20 hours or so of indoor sundrying and wilting can take place. You can’t even turn on a fan. The tea starts to wilt quickly, but still, it takes a long time and alot of work to get the water to travel out of the conduits of the leaf veins.
So buckets and buckets of sweat later, I find myself concentrating hard on tossing the leaves. It takes half an hour, and one must feel the leaves going from crunchy to re-moistened (from moving the water from the deepest parts of the stem up to the leaf surface), and then dried and crunchy again. A machine can sort of toss the leaves and replace the hand labor, but that is the great thing about this tea: you can not even approach getting the same quality, because the leaves are so small and fragile, and in the process of oxidation, you can not over heat the leaves nor break them. Every leaf must be intact.
Fluffing the leaves
Not sure how much weight I lost.
Me and hard labor
Is there a way to recycle buckets of sweat? Seems like it ought to have some secondary value. Interesting comments & your writing is great. At least it helps u lose weight. I guess hard work is good for the body as well as the soul. Welcome back to Berzerkley, where the cool breezes continue to blow.bd
By: Brenda on July 17, 2011
at 8:14 am