Meanwhile, factory employees had taken our baskets and spread the morning's harvest on tarps across a vast, flat outdoor area near the building. The tea was now slowly withering in the cool air, and I couldn't wait to learn how these large leaves were processed. Unfortunately, because the day's pluck would be withering well into the evening, the factory's processing rooms were dormant during the hours of our visit. To my chagrin, the guide seemed to think that this justified rushing us through the tumbling, firing, rolling, and drying rooms, and he brushed aside my questions.
Much more time was devoted to introductions, ceremonial tea preparation, and tasting in the factory's reception room. The teas we sipped were deeply flavorful and intriguing, some with scents of citrus and stone fruit, others surprisingly smoky. But how did these teas relate to bohea? What about the teas we had picked that day? My questions earned me nothing but a derisive glance from the guide, and we were soon escorted back to the inn for yet another carefully organized feast.
I had come a long way to retrace Fortune's footsteps. I believed that the tea that was called bohea 150 years ago must still be made today in the Wuyi hills. I wanted to taste it, to see for myself how it was produced. But apparently I was not going to be allowed to observe the teamaking process unless I somehow struck out on my own. And so my late-night ride back to the factory.
Stepping from the cab into the darkness, I walked directly into the tumbling room. Three of the four tumblers—perforated metal cylinders about ten feet long and three feet in diameter mounted horizontally in frames—were turning noisily. The room was dark, but small charcoal fires in little metal devices similar to the chimney I use to start my patio grill glowed bright and smokeless. The staff jumped up when I entered the room, acting as if they were delighted to see me again.
One of them went to get the boss, who soon appeared wearing a suit jacket over red and yellow silk pajamas, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with one hand and shaking mine with the other. Not sure what to do next, they did what the Chinese always do when they're not sure what to do next: They made tea.
Drawing more on my charades experience than on my language skills, I made it understood that I wanted to see for myself how they processed the tea. I learned that the tea would continue to bruise in the tumblers for four more hours. Until then, there was nothing to see. They led me to an upstairs storeroom and showed me a bed tucked in a corner. An older woman, the one I would later learn was the teamaker, reached as high as she could to gesture knock, knock, knock on my forehead. Three fingers, wristwatch, knock, knock, knock. And so we agreed that someone would rouse me at 3 A.M.
I awoke spontaneously to find that a thermos of hot water and a guywan loaded with tea leaves had been set on a crate beside my bed. It was 2:35. I poured the water and sipped a gorgeous floral oolong with a lingering apricot flavor and very large leaves. The only sound was the muffled rumble of the tumblers, the only light the faint illumination seeping from the factory doors below. I could feel the vibration of the machinery through the concrete beneath my feet.
Shrugging off slumber, I walked down to the factory. With the appearance of my rumpled form, the teamaker jumped up and switched off one of the tumblers. She opened a panel cover on the side of the cylinder, pulled a fistful of leaves to her nose, then another and another, gesturing for me to do likewise. I did, and was rewarded with a rich harmony of leafy garden greens and ripe apples. This fragrant batch, she gestured, was the tea I had helped pick that morning.
She waited a few more minutes before switching off the tumbler and pulling the leaves into six big baskets to carry into the firing room. There, they were placed in devices that resembled front-loading Laundromat dryers warmed by wood fires. The leaves came out of the drums looking like sautéed greens, the apple aroma replaced by a rich muskiness indicating that the fermentation had stopped and the time had come to shape and dry the leaves. A series of intricate steps then ensued—rolling, twisting, squeezing together and breaking apart, the teamaker's judgment determining the timing of each step. Finally, the tea was ready to be dried.
The drying room looked largely as it would have in Fortune's time. A banquette of clay, running the length of the back wall, housed a row of fire pits filled with glowing embers. The tea was placed on flat woven trays, and these in turn were set into hourglass-shaped baskets sized to cover the fires.
From time to time, each basket was removed from the fire, the tea gently turned, and the basket replaced. This task was never performed over the fire pits themselves, lest a scrap of leaf should fall into the embers and create smoke, which would then taint the tea.
The woman who had promised to wake me was clearly in charge. She knocked on everyone's head at least once before the night was over. In the predawn, I watched an older man (he turned out to be her husband) remove each basket in turn, gingerly mull the leaves, and replace each basket over its fire before taking down the next. Small particles of tea collected on the flat tray upon which this procedure was performed. After a dozen baskets had been mulled, he picked up the tray and poured its contents over one of the open baskets. A few minutes later, the woman in charge walked the row, peered at each batch, and when she reached the one where the scraps were disposed, she recoiled, bent low to smell it, and then let out a piercing shriek. She removed the basket and scolded the man severely, alternately knocking on his forehead and pointing to the trickle of smoke now rising from the exposed pit. He looked down at his feet and waited for the torrent of derision to subside.
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