“Tossing creates Oolong.” This phrase refers to the manual shaking process in Oolong Tea production. Shaking is a repeated manual awakening of fresh Tea leaves, intended to reduce their moisture content and quickly condense fragrances from the polyphenols. Visually, this results in green leaves with red edges; in terms of taste, it leads to a lingering aroma after seven infusions, a unique and magical fragrance of Tie Guan Yin that is neither purely orchid nor osmanthus.

The hand-operated round sieve used for shaking is a tool made by bamboo craftsmen using bamboo strips woven into a circular grid. The first shake directly removes tea down and impurities from the fresh leaves, making them cleaner. Subsequent shakes combine characteristics of green and black teas, giving the shaken tea the flavor of Black Tea and the essence of Green Tea. This transforms and blends the intrinsic qualities of the fresh tea leaves, thus enhancing the quality of the Oolong tea. The hand-operated round sieve allows the tea leaves to move up and down and side to side within the sieve, reviving the wilted tea leaves to a freshly picked state, enabling further fermentation and promoting the formation of desirable qualities such as fragrance in the Oolong tea.

During spring, when rainfall is abundant, fresh tea leaves are slow to lose moisture. Traditionally, shaking the tea leaves requires four to five rounds, with the first two being gentle and the last two being more vigorous based on the degree of fermentation and softness of the leaves. Typically, the leaves must be shaken until the edges have a loach-blood-like appearance to achieve a higher fragrance and a more robust and authentic flavor in the Oolong tea.

The hand-operated round sieve shaking process is physically demanding, and tea farmers working day and night found it exhausting. Gradually, it was replaced by large industrial, mechanized cylindrical tea-shaking drums.

I once wrote several poems online about shaking tea leaves, one of which goes:

Two or three leaves

In the tea cage,

Each jump,

Each roll,

Each shake,

Each sifting,

Removing the fuzzy down,

Impurities adhering,

Each time prompting moisture loss,

Each awakening,

The fragrance imparted by the mountains,

The tea character of mountain spring water.

Shake,

Bringing forth,

Fresh tea brimming with sunshine,

Bringing forth,

Vigor and clarity,

Saturated with nature's air,

The invigorating spirit of tea.

Shake,

Not just once,

Three or four times,

Not just one heartbeat of the tea,

Nearly a thousand jumps of the fresh leaves,

Shaking,

Dancing the green waves of the tea,

Letting the fresh tea leaves perform a romantic dance,

Shaking out the flavor of black tea and the essence of green tea.

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