A doctor who travels through two eras

Chapter 686: Unpalatable Raw Puer 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 Ban Zhang. I estimate that this bowl alone is 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 there are more than 5000 tons 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?
"Good good!"

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, poof~~"

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?

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 is 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 that everyone was staring at him blankly. He could only praise him awkwardly and against his will:
"Good, good tea, it's really the best tea in the world, the most fragrant and sweetest tea I have 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 are looking for?"

How could Lin Sanqi know if it was the Laobanzhang tea he wanted? He had never tasted it before, but there were many places, so 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:
"Commissioner Lin, this is the tea picked from the tea trees in our village. It goes through the steps of picking, drying, rolling and pressing to keep the freshness and original flavor of the tea."

Lin Sanqi was holding the tea leaves when he realized something was wrong:
"Wait, your Pu'er tea leaves are not 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 are free of moisture. Then they are rolled and shaped 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 it's no wonder that 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.

At this time, Lin Sanqi asked the question that he was most concerned about:
"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 and said, "If the tree is over a hundred years old, then the trunk must be over a hundred years old too. What you said is unnecessary."

County Magistrate Yulang was a smart man. He immediately knew what the problem was and quickly helped explain:

"Commissioner Lin, I understand what you mean. The Agricultural Science Institute is indeed conducting experiments in some villages, where 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 the branches of an ancient tree."

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.

The biggest consequence of this technology is that the ancient tea trees were cut down one after another, turning them into tea trees that are neither fish nor fowl. If you want to know if the Pu'er produced by this "new ancient tea tree" is different from the Pu'er produced by the "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 only the ancient tea trees on a few hills such as Banzhang Village and Mansong Village particularly valuable, and finally become the king? In fact, there is a funny thing about this.

When the Agricultural Science Institute was promoting new technologies, villages like Banzhang and Mansong were too remote and far away, with inconvenient transportation, so the Agricultural Science Institute was unwilling to go there.

In the end, it was 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, and only Pingyao Ancient City remains intact. This is not because local officials 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, look, the mountains across the street are all covered with tea trees. Back then, our ancestors wanted to do tea business and took the Ancient Tea-Horse Road to the snowy area.

But now the ancient Tea Horse Road is abandoned, and tea can no longer be sold, so all those ancient tea trees are left there. Villagers who want to drink tea can pick them themselves, and there is no one to manage them, so they can’t sell much in a year.”

At this time, an elderly villager interrupted:
"I have a rough count. Our Banzhang consists of five villages with more than 5 tea trees in total.

Among them, there are more than 800 trees over 500 years old, 200 trees over 100 years old, about trees over years old, and less than trees over years old.

As for the newly grown tea trees, we are not sure about that. Commissioner Lin, if you want ancient tea trees, let me tell you this: our Banzhang trees are second to none in the entire 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 by boasting:
"Yes, our tea is pure and natural without pollution. Those great monks and nobles in the snowy area liked the tea produced in Laobanzhang very much. Hehe."

The village head Yue Xiang next to him couldn't stand it anymore and reminded carefully: "Be truthful in front of the 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, windy on all sides and 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 or wall here, not even a bed. If a couple does something they love in the middle of the night and encounters a woman who likes to scream, wouldn't the news spread throughout the village?
Will there be nothing to do in the middle of the night, so all the men and women in the village will compete together?
Thinking that the scene was too beautiful to look at, Lin Sanqi sat up and rubbed 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 and village officials from Banzhang Village, headed for 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 in 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, and found that the leaf was 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 smiled and said:
"It is indeed past the best picking season. Generally, the best picking time is from March to May each year. Spring tea is divided into first spring picked before Qingming Festival, second spring picked in mid-to-late April, and third spring picked in May.

The first spring tea leaves are tender green and have a strong aroma. They are the best Pu'er tea. Commissioner Lin, don't worry. We have already picked all the spring tea leaves. They are all stored in our village. Ahem, they haven't been sold yet."

Lin Sanqi felt relieved when he heard this. As long as the tea was 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 per kilogram. If it was not properly preserved, all the money lost would be his, Lin Sanqi's.

Yes, Lin Sanqi already regarded these Pu'er teas as his.

(End of this chapter)