During last tea making trip to Boseong, Korea, I made 3 different types of teas. I made "Korean coin tea"(떡차: Ttuk cha), "Honeyed tea flower tea", and "Pan-fired tea"(덖음차: Deok eum cha).
Especially "Pan-fired tea" is one of the most popular type of tea in Korea. When you compare each countries' teas, you will realize that many Korean teas have "Gou-sou-han"(adj-구수한, verb-구수하다: Gou sou ha da) taste. There is no English word for this exact taste. I could probably describe it as deep roasted sweet nuttiness. Koreans are addicted to this deep taste. Other than spiciness, this taste probably is the best word to describes Korean foods. Therefor, even Korean tea plants already has some this nuttiness, people like to emphasize it more by pan-fired tea leaves.
For pan-fired tea, tea leaves need to be roasted all by hands in dry iron pan. It is needed certain skills to roast the leaves without crush and burn, and also emphasize the aroma and flavor. Honestly, when I went to this organic tea farm, it was end of fall which is end of tea farming season as well. It depends on teas, but for Korean teas, younger, soft and earlier spring leaves make better teas. I told them that I just want to try even though it's not the season to know about tea.
So here's tea leaves that me and my mom gathered in the morning. We steamed half for coin tea and left half for pan-fired.
Heat up special iron pan.
Check the temperature.
The owner of the farm is showing a demo.
You can only do with your hands, so we wore three pairs of gloves. For me, it was still hot.
My mom was actually good at it. (professional looking :P)
Once tea leaves loses crispness, put in on a thick wide cloth.
While the leaves are cooling down, we grabbed bunch and rolled them gently.
It was a very interesting process, because while we are rolling them, the moist inside the leaves came out and made the leaves soft.
During this process, we also got rid of some bad parts or thick stems.
And then, pan-firing again.
Normally they are doing this whole process for seven times to make tea.
We did only two times, because I got so hungry. :P
Finally I tried the tea that I made.
Leaves are quite big, since I was not a early leaf picking.
Very dark green leaves, but tea color is bright green.
The tea is very mild and smooth.
It has "Gou-sou-han"taste as Korean tea with refreshing green tea flavor.
It is not a fine tea, but it was better than I thought.
I can't wait to try making tea again. :)
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