Cha Zhi Ji Wuyi Cliff Tea has always adhered to full manual production. It is only harvested in spring, after Qingming Festival and before Grain Rain, to ensure the best quality. The freshness of the leaves greatly affects the quality of the cliff tea. If picked too young, it cannot meet the requirements of the baking process, resulting in low aroma and a more bitter taste. Conversely, if picked too old, the taste is bland and coarse. Wuyi Cliff Tea is generally picked as one bud and three leaves, emphasizing picking when the bud opens, which is when the top leaf opens to about half of the second leaf. Tea picked at this stage has the best internal quality, producing the most flavorful and rich tea with a strong aroma. The feeling of hand-frying the tea is very lovely, and the tea soup is more lively, with a more long-lasting and delicate fragrance.
Cha Zhi Ji Wuyi Cliff Tea, after being fully dried, undergoes a slow baking process over a gentle flame, known as "simmering fire." This is a unique traditional process of making Wuyi Cliff Tea. The low-fire slow baking promotes further transformation and stabilization of the tea's contents, while also enhancing the aroma and flavor, resulting in a higher level of matured aroma, improved soup color, and increased richness.
Wuyi Cliff Tea is a general term for tea produced in Wuyi Mountain. It is a partially fermented tea. The basic production process of Wuyi Cliff Tea is: picking → withering → spreading and drying → shaking to promote oxidation (making green) → fixing → rolling → drying → rough tea → initial sorting → sieving → re-sorting → winnowing → initial baking → mixing and piling → re-baking → finished tea → packaging or storage. Its high quality and rich taste, with obvious rock charm and floral fragrance, refreshing and sweet with a lingering aftertaste, make it a rare treasure among teas, possessing the qualities of being lively, sweet, clear, and fragrant.