> I would reserve judgment on this, until someone can find some
> testimony on how the Lingyun tea is actually made. You could tell
> something from visual inspection of the dry leaves, but sometimes a
> real white tea looks a lot like a stale green tea!
>
> /Lew
>

Yo, heard you.

The picking of Lingyun Bai Hao Special Grade consists of 1 shoot and bud, or
1 shoot and 1 young leaf
The picking of Lingyun Bai Hao Grade 1 consists of 1 shoot and 1 leaf
The picking of Lingyun Bai Hao Grade 2 consists of 1 shoot and 2 leaves
The process includes: Airing the leaves after they are picked to remove the
green leafy-ness odour, then fixing the leaves through a high heat medium to
halt the chlorophyll and enzymes from attacking the leaves, then rolling the
leaves, and then panfrying the leaves through 2 -3 steps.
The fixing of High grade Lingyun Bai Hao is panfried by hand, the others
through a drum machine on high heat.
The pan is set on high heat, with a fan blowing to cool the leaves at the
same time. The leaves are tossed about in the pan from a low level at the
start and as the leaves becomes softer, the toss is higher. The fan blowing
nearby helps to cool the tossed leaves in the air before it lands onto the
heat in the pan. Tossing the leaves high up ensures that the leaves are not
smoldered at the bottom as about 1000gm of leaves are thrown to the pan each
time. The fan helps tp cool to leaves so that the leaves will not get burnt
or turn yellow, keeping the fresh greeness.
After the leaves are fixed they are rolled to shape.
Then comes another high tossing in the pan. This time the pan is set at
80-85 degrees celsius, and the leaves are tossed high about the pan till the
moisture level is reduced to about 20%.
Lastly is the low heat panfrying, set at about 60 degrees. The leaves are
stirred around the pan in a leisurely motion and shaped further to ensure a
nice and uniform shapefor each leaf. When the moisture is reduced to about
7%, the work is done.
Tea is set aside to cool and then packed.

Danny