Oolong tea drying
On my recent Pinglin Road Trip, I was lucky enough to drive by some locals drying some fresh-picked oolong leaves in front of their home. I stopped and chatted with them a little, and they agreed to let me take some pictures of their tea.
This is the step in making oolong that separates it from green teas -
withering the leaves (or oxidizing; ‘fermenting‘ is sometimes used, but is a misleading term when applied to tea). They will leave the leaves out in the sun for several hours, depending on what type of oolong they are making and the weather conditions (it
was hot and very sunny, so they probably won’t leave them out too long).
They didn’t have a very large batch - about 14 of these bamboo drying trays total - and they told me they picked it themselves from the fields directly across the street (which were on a pretty steep hill). I’m not completely sure (they mixed some Taiwanese in with their Mandarin), but it 
seems they are mostly processing this tea for friends and family.
They were a fairly old couple, but I can imagine they keep very fit from all the physical labor involved with tea. I didn’t get to go inside their work area, but I could see a roaster and a pressing machine from the doorway, and am pretty sure the two of them do all the work on their own.
