Xinyang Maojian tea picking and processing skills are local traditional handicrafts in Xinyang City. Xinyang Maojian hand-fried is divided into raw pot, cooked pot, baking, picking and other processes. 1. Raw pot Both raw and cooked pots use "Niu Si pot" with a diameter of 82.5 cm, which is placed on a pot platform more than 33 cm high at a 30:35 inclination, and the two pots are connected and built. Raw pot is for killing green and initial kneading. Before frying tea, the pot surface should be polished and wiped clean to keep the pot surface clean and smooth. The pot temperature is relatively high, and the requirements for each level of fresh leaves are different. High-grade fresh leaves are 160-180; medium and low-grade fresh leaves are 180-200. The amount of leaves added to each pot is 0.50.75 kg. The time for frying in raw pot is flexibly controlled according to the age of fresh leaves, the fatness of buds and leaves, and the amount of water. Generally, it takes 7-10 minutes to stir-fry and knead. When the pot temperature rises to the required level, start throwing in the leaves. Use a special tea handle (a round broom made of bamboo grass) to turn the leaves rhythmically. Fry the leaves in the pot continuously, making a slight popping sound, and the moisture quickly dissipates. After about 35 minutes, the leaves become soft and curled. Hold them in a ball and use the "wrapped strip" frying method. Use the bamboo tip at the front end of the tea handle to gather the leaves and roll them in an arc in the pot. Use light force first and then heavy force, turn the amplitude first large and then small, move slowly and then fast, and shake the tea leaves with the tea handle from time to time to release moisture. This is done alternately for about 7 minutes. When the leaves are 40% to 50% dry (water content is 55%) and the strips are obvious, and a small amount of tea juice is squeezed out and feels sticky, sweep them into the cooked pot for shaping. 2. Cooked pot Cooking pot is the key link in forming the fine, round, tight and straight hair tips. Through shaping, the water evaporates, the aroma is brought out, and the appearance is fine, round, tight and straight. The pot temperature is 80-90 degrees. The surface of the pot should be clean and smooth. After the raw tea leaves are swept into the cooked pot, they are still "wrapped" and "fanned". Wrapping the tea leaves requires strong force and small circles, mainly to further knead the tea leaves. Fanning the tea leaves requires small force and large circles, which has the function of kneading the tea leaves and dispersing moisture. When the tea leaves are tight and thin, "driving the tea leaves" is carried out. Driving the tea leaves requires holding the tea handle tightly, touching the tea leaves slightly, turning it up and down, straightening the tea leaves, shaking off the clumps, and frying until 60% to 70% dry, and the tea juice on the leaf surface no longer sticks to each other, then use the right hand (according to habit) to "sort the tea leaves". There are two methods of sorting the tea leaves: grabbing the tea leaves and throwing them. When grabbing the tea leaves, hold the palm down, pinch the thumb, and use the wrist strength to quickly and agilely shake the tea leaves from the "tiger's mouth" at a height of 12-15 cm from the center of the pot, so that the tea leaves fall into the center of the pot in sequence from the inner edge of the pot. Do not throw all the tea leaves in your hand at once, and it is better to keep two-fifths. Continue in sequence until the tea strips are formed and 70% to 80% dry (water content 3335%), then you can take it out of the pot. The "strips" should be evenly grasped, shaken open, and placed straight and not messy, so the gestures should be loose, high, light, and slow at the beginning, and gradually tighten, low, heavy, and fast as the water is lost. 3. Baking The main function of baking is to fix the shape, continue to evaporate water, achieve the purpose of drying, prevent quality deterioration, and further develop color, aroma, and taste. Baking is divided into two times of Maohuo and full fire, and it is properly spread in the middle. If you want it to have a chestnut aroma and warm feeling, you can use charcoal fire to bake it, just like baking bread. Baked tea can be baked with charcoal or in an electric oven. In the process of refining Xinyang Maojian, if the roasted tea is damp after aging, it can be used to replenish the fire, which is included in the list of roasting. Initial baking (Maohu): The leaves from the cooked pot are spread on the baking cage for about half an hour. Each baking cage is spread with 45 pots of leaves, and then they can be put on the kang stove for initial baking. The initial baking temperature (at the center of the baking head) is 70-90 degrees Celsius, and the time is 20-25 minutes. Turn it over every 58 minutes. Bake until the moisture content is about 15%, then put it down for baking and spreading. The spreading time is not less than 40 minutes to redistribute the water content in the leaves, which is conducive to full drying. Re-baking (full fire): Use slow baking with a temperature of about 60 degrees Celsius, about 2.5 kilograms of leaves per baking cage, and the time is 30 minutes. Turn it over every 10 minutes to make its moisture content reach 6%. Pinch the tea leaves into powder with hands, the color is green and fragrant, the strips are beautiful, and the white hair is immediately dried when it is exposed. 4. Drying Xinyang Maojian is traditionally dried with charcoal fire, and now it is also dried with hot air, which comes from gas, gasoline or electricity. The process of killing green leaves is just to fry, steam or scald the leaves. The following rolling will also squeeze out a lot of juice from the leaves. After forming, they must be dried. Otherwise, how can they be preserved if they are wet? How can the quality be fixed? Therefore, drying is an important part of how to identify Xinyang Maojian. At the same time, in order to make up for the lack of dryness, we will list it as the range of drying. 5. Picking After the initial processing of Xinyang Maojian, it is manually picked to remove the coarse old leaves and 0, tea stems and fragments. The green and loose flake tea picked out is called "fennel green", and the large 0 and fragments picked out are classified as off-grade tea. Mechanical technology broadcast The traditional Xinyang Maojian tea production process is all manual operation, which has the problems of high labor intensity, low production efficiency and high cost; the labor force is becoming increasingly tight, the expansion of production is restricted, the technical differences of tea makers are large, the processing is not standardized, and the product quality is difficult to standardize. In response to these problems, tea-related enterprises in Xinyang City introduced famous tea processing machinery to study the mechanical processing technology of Xinyang Maojian tea. Through several years of research and practice, we have explored and summarized a relatively mature set of Xinyang Maojian mechanical processing technology with vibration striping technology as the key technology, and achieved good application results. According to the basic principles of green tea primary processing and traditional production technology, the Xinyang Maojian tea mechanical processing process is determined as follows: fresh leaves screening, spreading, withering, rolling, twisting, fast separation, screening, striping, initial baking, cooling, and re-baking.