"Mengku Tea Area·Iceland Old Village"

Everyone has heard of Icelandic tea. Whether you know Pu'er tea or not, you should be able to see the name of Icelandic tea on the Internet or offline on the street. So, what exactly is Icelandic tea? Or where is Icelandic tea produced? Let’s talk about it in detail in this article.

I once talked about my confusion about Icelandic tea when I first came into contact with Pu'er tea in my previous "Pu'er Tea". At that time, I didn't know where Iceland was. When I searched for Iceland on the Internet, I would jump out of Iceland. Japan and China, but Icelandic tea is obviously not produced in that place. Later I learned that Iceland is in Shuangjiang County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province, but I still wonder whether Icelandic tea is produced on the island. Tea? It wasn't until I went there in person that I realized that I had made a big joke. Many of my guesses were wrong, because Iceland used to be a Dai village. In Dai language, this place is called "Bian Island" or "Bing Island", which means It was a place where a bamboo fence was used as the gate of the village. Later, it was translated into Chinese as Iceland for some unknown reason. The official also recognized this name, and even renamed the Nanjing Reservoir at the foot of the mountain where the Iceland Village is located to Iceland Lake. However, the villagers in Iceland Village are still accustomed to calling their village by its old name.

Before talking about Icelandic tea, let me tell you some stories that were once circulated in the tea circle: In the old tea circles, there was a saying that Ban Zhang was the king and Yi Wu was the queen. But with the As time went by, this sentence gradually became Banzhang is the king and Jingmai is the queen. Later, when Icelandic tea began to appear in the market, this sentence became Banzhang is the king and Iceland is the queen. Today, this statement has never changed. Two points can be explained here: first, the quality of Icelandic tea is on the same level as that of Banzhang tea, and secondly, the styles of the two are different. If Banzhang has the domineering style of a king, then Iceland can She is said to be as soft and gentle as a queen. Okay, let me start talking about Icelandic tea.

In Mengku Town, there is the famous Bangma Snow Mountain. The altitude here is 3,200 meters. The top of the mountain is covered with snow all year round. The mountain is shrouded in clouds and mist. It is densely covered with primeval forests and ancient tea trees with large leaves are scattered throughout. , and on the mountainside of the northern section of the Bangma Mountains, there is an ancient village. This village is the Icelandic Old Village. This is the northernmost part of Mengku Town. It is 33 kilometers away from Mengku Town and borders Nanmei Township of Lincang City. You can take a bus from Mengku Town and go up the Nanmeng River to reach Iceland Laozhai in less than an hour. As the reputation of Icelandic tea has become popular over the years, some tea merchants now divide the Mengku tea area into the so-called Icelandic core area and the Icelandic second ring with the Icelandic old village as the center. However, the specific distance is how far they are divided. There is no unified standard for the number of rings, so it is best for tea lovers to stay on the sidelines and not to believe it easily. If we look at it according to the official division method over the years, Iceland has now become synonymous with an administrative village. It is also centered on Iceland Lao Village and several villages next to Iceland Lao Village are divided together. The specific names are Iceland Laozhai, Nanpao, Dijie, Nuowu and Bawai are referred to as the "Five Icelandic Villages". Therefore, if we talked about Icelandic tea in the past, it only refers to the tea produced in Laozhai, Iceland. Now we only talk about Icelandic tea. It does not specifically refer to the tea from the old village in Iceland, but may refer to the tea from several other villages. Therefore, tea lovers should pay attention to the name when buying tea to avoid buying the wrong tea.

In addition, if you talk about the large-leaf tea in Mengku, Shuangjiang, you have to talk about Lao Zhai in Iceland anyway, because you can check the historical records about Shuangjiang and various tea books in Yunnan. When introducing the cultivation of tea in Menku, Shuangjiang, it will be mentioned that in the 21st year of Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty (1485), the Mengku chieftain of Shuangjiang sent people to introduce more than 200 teas from Xishuangbanna, and successfully cultivated more than 150 teas in the old village of Iceland. tea trees were later introduced to various tea areas in Mengku, thus forming the Mengku large-leaf tea group variety. After that, in the 26th year of Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1761), the eleventh generation chieftain of the Shuangjiang Dai ethnic group Rare Muzhuangfa's daughter married the chieftain of Shunning (today's Fengqing) and brought hundreds of kilograms of tea seeds as a dowry in Shunning. These tea seeds were planted locally and hybridized with local varieties to produce special varieties, which are what we have today. The Fengqing long-leaf tea species not only has the advantages of the Mengku large-leaf species with many ingredients, but also has the aroma of local native varieties. It is the most suitable variety for making black tea among all the varieties we can find now. In this way The tea made from the raw materials has a typical Yunnan red flavor.

Similarly, the Mengku large-leaf tea species was later introduced to Bangdong Township, eventually forming Bangdong’s unique black large-leaf tea species, which is the Xigui tea that is also famous today. It can be seen from this that sometimes what seems to be a small and inconspicuous thing in history can set off a storm in later generations. No one would have thought that some of the most famous teas in Lincang Tea District today would be like this. However, it is also because of such a coincidence that many scholars are still studying and demonstrating the authenticity of the legend of seed collection, and we non-professional researchers can only Just listen to this historical story and make your own judgment in your mind.

Having said so many stories about the old village in Iceland, let’s focus on the current situation of the old village in Iceland. Today there are about 50 families in the old village, mainly divided into Dai, There are three ethnic groups including Laku and Han, among which most of the Dai villagers have the surname Feng. This is inseparable from the fact that Iceland Lao Village has always been the private tea garden of the Dai chieftain in the past history. Therefore, since ancient times, the products produced in Iceland Lao Village The tea produced in Shuangjiang is the highest quality in the entire Shuangjiang tea area. This can be seen from the ancient tea trees that remain in the old village of Iceland. The fresh leaves they grow are mostly juicy and lush, and they are old and not old. The tea trees in Iceland Laozhai are still very tender when they have one bud and three or four leaves. Moreover, the tea fields in Iceland Laozhai are red soil with lots of rotten rocks and high mineral content in the soil. This provides the opportunity for the growth of tea trees in Iceland Laozhai and the formation of its unique quality. natural material conditions. All tea drinkers who have tasted real Icelandic Lao Zhai tea have surprisingly similar comments about this tea, that is, it tastes sweet and refreshing, with a rock sugar-like aroma and flavor, and a refreshing sweetness in the throat. In fact, there are two reasons that I think are relatively reliable to explain this phenomenon:

First, because tea generally contains hydrolyzable tannins. When hydrolyzable tannins are decomposed in the mouth, on the one hand, Glucose is produced, which makes people feel sweet. On the other hand, hydrolyzable tannins absorb heat during the decomposition process, making people feel cool. Therefore, when the content of hydrolyzable tannins in a certain tea is high enough, the cooling effect will be obvious, and when the flavor of the tea is revealed, it will make people feel like eating rock candy. In fact, in addition to the tea from Iceland Laozhai, this phenomenon will also occur with other good quality teas, but it is not as obvious and strong as the tea from Iceland Laozhai.

The second reason is that for the entire Lincang tea area, Mengku tea area is located in the center of Lincang tea area, Yongde tea area is in the west, and Bangdong tea area is in the east. And with the Nanmeng River as the boundary, the Mengku tea area is divided into two parts: East Mid-Levels and West Mid-Levels. The East Mid-Levels has a high aroma, but the tea flavor is weak, while the West Mid-Levels is just the opposite. The tea flavor is weak but full of tea flavor. Iceland Village The tea leaves are located just beside the Nanmeng River. The tea produced has the characteristics of both the eastern and western mid-levels. It can be said to be the best tea that combines the excellent quality of the Mengku tea area.

It can be seen from here that the reputation of Icelandic tea is not supported by a false name and hype, but by conquering the public tea drinkers by its taste. Otherwise, there would not be waves of tea drinkers today. There is a rush to chase real Icelandic tea, hoping to get a cup to drink it, but this has also caused the price of Icelandic tea to remain high, making it the "white moonlight" in the hearts of many tea lovers. Of course, this is also related to the scarcity of tea production in Laozhai, Iceland. The production of Icelandic tea has always been a mystery in the tea market today, because it seems that Iceland is everywhere, so some people say that the annual output of Icelandic tea is dozens of tons, but it is also because of the fake Icelandic name. The tea shop sold a lot of tea, so some people said it was only a few tons. According to a 2014 survey data from the Lincang Tea Science Institute and Mengku Town, the maximum age of ancient tea trees in Iceland's Laozhai is more than 500 years old, and there are only 4,954 ancient trees over a hundred years old. Ancient tea trees over 300 years old are especially rare. It says there are only 23. According to the Icelandic Laozhai tea farmer friends I know, the spring tea output of Icelandic Laozhai ancient tree tea is generally around 800 kilograms, and autumn tea is generally around this number. Some people either don’t produce summer tea. If you pick it, you will either make white tea or ripe Pu'er tea. The output will be higher, but no one estimates it.

The yield of tea from large trees and small and medium-sized trees is higher, but because the trees are less than a hundred years old, the taste is still different from that of ancient trees. However, the price of tea from these trees is still much higher than that of ancient trees in other mountain villages. Therefore, in recent years, the tea gardens in Laozhai, Iceland, have been over-managed, that is, other miscellaneous trees on the mountains have been cut down and tea trees have been planted. This situation has caused some damage to the original ecological environment. However, with the government's protection Due to the measures taken, the situation of the Icelandic Laozhai Tea Garden has improved in the past two years, but it has also led to the Icelandic Laozhai Tea Garden starting to be relocated this year. It wants to completely return the land to tea and build a characteristic Icelandic tourist town.

Regarding these policies, it is difficult for us to express opinions in the short term. We can only look at the long-term effects. However, it is foreseeable that maybe in two years, the old Icelandic village will become the new Icelandic village. , like other relocated villages, for this, I am very happy that the government can attach importance to protecting the ecological environment of the origin of the tea mountain, but I also sincerely hope that this original intention of protecting the ecology can be followed intact, so that every tea lover can , tea farmers, and tea drinkers can always enjoy the delicious taste of Icelandic tea!