千年茶香指间留

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4月12日上午，巴南二圣山茶园里，一位老人戴着草帽，俯下身子，仔细观察着茶叶的长势。在他身后，连片的茶山间云雾缭绕，蔚为壮观。

老人名叫陈树福，今年61岁，是市级非物质文化遗产项目“巴南茶叶制作技艺”代表性传承人。

祖辈世代都在二圣茶山上以茶为生，这使得陈树福从小耳濡目染，采茶、制茶的技艺几乎就是他与生俱来的一部分。40多年来，每当新春茶树抽出第一抹嫩芽，陈树福就会守在山上，一直到五月初，春茶采摘季结束。

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.

“茶叶三天内是宝，三天后是草。”陈树福必须随时关注茶叶的长势，以确保每一片叶子都能在最合适的时机被采摘。

"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.

在许多外人看来，手工采茶、炒茶或许是件雅事，但其中的辛苦，只有专业的制茶人最有感触：一捧茶叶虽轻，但经年累月凭一双赤手在炙热的锅中翻炒，绝没有想象中的诗情画意。

“炒茶的第一个步骤叫做杀青，也就是用高温去除鲜叶中的水分和青草味，这样茶叶才能长久保存。”

当铁锅的温度达到300摄氏度左右时，新鲜茶叶被倒入锅中，陈树福手掌朝下，从锅底抓起茶叶，迅速翻转手掌摇晃，让茶叶均匀散开落回锅里……

“新鲜的茶叶非常脆弱，在高温下，几秒钟的差异，就能影响茶叶的品质。炒的时间稍长，茶叶会过热变黄；时间稍短，就不能去除茶叶中剩余的水分……”

炒茶师傅只能依靠经验，用手心感受茶叶微妙的变化，来准确把握温度和时机。这需要长年累月的训练。陈树福摊开手掌，40多年的制茶岁月，就深深烙印在那一手又厚又硬的老茧中。

巴南种茶、制茶历史悠久。据《华阳国志·巴志》载，在周代，巴南就有精茶进贡朝廷。自明朝后，巴南茶叶还一度远涉重洋输出海外。

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.

伴随着年年的茶香，巴南茶叶在一代代制茶人手中慢慢形成了“外形挺直匀整，绿润显毫，香味馥郁持久，汤色黄绿明亮，滋味鲜醇干爽，叶底嫩匀鲜活”等特点，而“巴南茶叶制作”也随之成为一项独特的技艺传承下来。

一朵嫩叶，从二圣的茶树上被采摘下来，到成为一片形味俱佳的茶叶，要经过收鲜、摊晾、杀青、揉捻、理条做形、干燥等8道工序。一斤鲜叶制成二两茶，需要耗时一个多小时，一位熟练的师傅连续工作十个小时，最多也只能生产两斤茶叶。

上世纪八九十年代，每到春茶时节，茶厂车间里几十位制茶师傅，一人架一口锅，一字排开，每天都要加班加点。

在如今的机器制茶时代，很多炒茶工人离开了这个行当。“虽然机器做的茶外观统一，很漂亮，但是要想炒出顶尖的好茶，还得凭手工炒茶师傅几十年的技艺。”

如今，熟练地掌握“巴南茶叶制作技艺”的炒茶师傅，大约有4人，更多的人，正在陈树福这样的师傅带领下，学习这门技艺。

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.