A hand shakes a bamboo sieve so the fresh leaves toss and tumble, their edges tinged red, leaves scatter over the table, a purple-clay teapot and three cups of amber tea stand beside it, and terraced cliffs rise behind.
Shaken and rested
Introduction
Oolong tea, made with a shaking and resting step and then fixing, also called qing cha.
Oolong tea is made from fresh leaf that is withered, shaken and rested, fixed, rolled and dried, and it is also called qing cha. In the shaking and resting step the leaf is shaken and rested in turn, and the infused leaf shows red edges. By region and process oolong is divided into the northern Fujian, southern Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan styles. When oolong is pressed into cakes or bricks, its main class changes to compressed tea under Reprocessed Tea and oolong becomes the secondary class.