千年茶香指間留

◇ 文 |本刊記者 圖 |

4月12日上午，巴南二圣山茶園里，一位老人戴著草帽，俯下身子，仔細觀察著茶葉的長勢。在他身后，連片的茶山間云霧繚繞，蔚為壯觀。

老人名叫陳樹福，今年61歲，是市級非物質文化遺產項目“巴南茶葉制作技藝”代表性傳承人。

祖輩世代都在二圣茶山上以茶為生，這使得陳樹福從小耳濡目染，采茶、制茶的技藝幾乎就是他與生俱來的一部分。40多年來，每當新春茶樹抽出第一抹嫩芽，陳樹福就會守在山上，一直到五月初，春茶采摘季結束。

In the morning of April 12, an old man, wearing a straw hat, leaned forward and carefully observed the growth of tea at the Ershengshan Tea Garden in Banan District. Behind him was the spectacular view of stretches of tea hills shrouded in the mist and clouds.

The old man was Chen Shufu, 61 years old,the representative inheritor of "Banan Tea Making Techniques" of the municipal intangible cultural heritage project .

His ancestors used to make a living from tea production on the Ersheng tea hills, which allowed Chen Shufu to be exposed to tea production techniques and made it all natural to him. For more than 40 years,whenever the first tender buds of tea trees were about to sprout, Chen Shufu would stay on the hills until early May when the harvest season of spring tea ended.

“茶葉三天內是寶，三天后是草。”陳樹福必須隨時關注茶葉的長勢，以確保每一片葉子都能在最合適的時機被采摘。

"Tea buds are treasures within three days of sprouting, but would be reduced to grass after that."Chen Shufu had to watch closely the growth of tea leaves so as to ensure that every leaf could be picked at the best time.

在許多外人看來，手工采茶、炒茶或許是件雅事，但其中的辛苦，只有專業的制茶人最有感觸：一捧茶葉雖輕，但經年累月憑一雙赤手在炙熱的鍋中翻炒，絕沒有想象中的詩情畫意。

“炒茶的第一個步驟叫做殺青，也就是用高溫去除鮮葉中的水分和青草味，這樣茶葉才能長久保存。”

當鐵鍋的溫度達到300攝氏度左右時，新鮮茶葉被倒入鍋中，陳樹福手掌朝下，從鍋底抓起茶葉，迅速翻轉手掌搖晃，讓茶葉均勻散開落回鍋里……

“新鮮的茶葉非常脆弱，在高溫下，幾秒鐘的差異，就能影響茶葉的品質。炒的時間稍長，茶葉會過熱變黃；時間稍短，就不能去除茶葉中剩余的水分……”

炒茶師傅只能依靠經驗，用手心感受茶葉微妙的變化，來準確把握溫度和時機。這需要長年累月的訓練。陳樹福攤開手掌，40多年的制茶歲月，就深深烙印在那一手又厚又硬的老繭中。

巴南種茶、制茶歷史悠久。據《華陽國志·巴志》載，在周代，巴南就有精茶進貢朝廷。自明朝后，巴南茶葉還一度遠涉重洋輸出海外。

In the eyes of many outsiders, hand-picked tea and fried tea might be elegant things, but only professional tea makers would know the hardships：light as a handful of tea might be, it was never as poetic and picturesque as one would imagine that those tea makers who had been stir-frying in a hot pan with bare hands for many years.

"The first step for stir-frying tea is called Shaqing(water-removing), that is, using high temperature to remove moisture and green grass flavor from fresh leaves, so that tea leaves can be preserved for a long time. ”

When the temperature of the iron pan reached about 300 degrees Celsius, fresh tea leaves were poured into the pan, and Chen Shufu grabbed the tea from the bottom of the pan with his palm facing down,quickly turned over his palm and shook it, allowing the tea leaves to spread evenly back into the pan...

"Fresh tea leaves are very fragile. Under high temperature, a few seconds could make difference that would affect the quality of tea. The tea leaves will turn yellow with overtime and overheat; and it could remove the remaining water in the tea if stir-frying time is too short......"

Tea-frying masters relies only on experience and use their palms to feel the subtle changes in tea leaves to accurately control the temperature and timing. It takes years of training. Chen Shufu spread out his palms, and over 40 years of tea production was deeply imprinted in the thick and hard calluses.

Banan has a long history of planting and making tea. According to "Ba Annals of Records of Huayang State", in the era of Zhou Dynasty, Banan began to offer refined tea as tribute to the imperial court. After the Ming Dynasty, Banan tea was once exported overseas.

伴隨著年年的茶香，巴南茶葉在一代代制茶人手中慢慢形成了“外形挺直勻整，綠潤顯毫，香味馥郁持久，湯色黃綠明亮，滋味鮮醇干爽，葉底嫩勻鮮活”等特點，而“巴南茶葉制作”也隨之成為一項獨特的技藝傳承下來。

一朵嫩葉，從二圣的茶樹上被采摘下來，到成為一片形味俱佳的茶葉，要經過收鮮、攤晾、殺青、揉捻、理條做形、干燥等8道工序。一斤鮮葉制成二兩茶，需要耗時一個多小時，一位熟練的師傅連續工作十個小時，最多也只能生產兩斤茶葉。

上世紀八九十年代，每到春茶時節，茶廠車間里幾十位制茶師傅，一人架一口鍋，一字排開，每天都要加班加點。

在如今的機器制茶時代，很多炒茶工人離開了這個行當。“雖然機器做的茶外觀統一，很漂亮，但是要想炒出頂尖的好茶，還得憑手工炒茶師傅幾十年的技藝。”

如今，熟練地掌握“巴南茶葉制作技藝”的炒茶師傅，大約有4人，更多的人，正在陳樹福這樣的師傅帶領下，學習這門技藝。

With the tea fragrance year after year, Banan tea has gradually formed the characteristics of "straight and even appearance,green and apparent fine hair, rich and lasting fragrance, yellow-green and bright soup, fresh and mellow taste, tender and fresh leaf bottom",and accordingly "Banan Tea Making" has become a unique skill inherited.

A tender leaf is picked from the tea tree of Ersheng Mountain and becomes a piece of tea with good shape and taste, which goes through 8 processes, including fresh collection, spreading and drying, water-removing, twisting, shaping and drying. It takes more than one hour to make 100 grams of tea out of 500 grams of fresh leaves, and a skilled tea maker can only produce one kilogram of tea for ten consecutive hours of working.

In the 1980s and 1990s, for every spring tea season, dozens of tea makers in the workshop of the tea factory each would set up a pan in a row and worked overtime every day.

In today's era of machine-made tea, many tea stir-frying workers have left this trade."Although the machine-made tea has a uniform appearance and is very beautiful, it still depends on decades of skill of the manual tea stir-frying maker to fry top quality tea."

Today, there are about 4 tea stir-frying masters who have mastered the "Banan Tea Making Skills", and more tea makers are learning this skill under the mentors like Chen Shufu.