Theme - Tea production

„tong; 筒 - Literally a barrel or barrel shaped object. A tong in Yunnan tea culture is a bundle of 7 tea cakes wrapped in the outer skin of bamboo which naturally sheds from around the base of the bamboo stem. Each cake weighs 357grams so making a total of 2,499 gm. Said by some to have been calculated in order to remain under a specific legislated weight of 2.5 kg. There were originally said to be 8 cakes in a tong. The 8th being paid as a levy. An earlier unit of weight in China was the liang. A cake of tea weighed 7 liang and 7 cakes in a tong made 49 liang. “

„sha qing; 杀青. Literally to kill. So 杀青 translates as killing green. The process of pan 'frying' fresh tea arrests the action of plant enzymes that will have begun after picking.“

„Green tea is made from the leaves from Camellia sinensis that have undergone minimal oxidation during processing.“