Is it okay to make tea by treading it with bare feet? The Tea Research and Extension Station: keeping it clean is enough, but it does not look good
Some tea-making videos have been circulating online, and in one of them, a factory employee paces back and forth among the tea leaves on bare feet. Some people have also seen or heard that treading is part of the tea-making process, but some members of the public worry about hygiene and cannot accept brewing tea from leaves that have been "baptized" by the feet of many people. So why is tea-making connected to feet? Is treading barefoot a standard step in tea production?
When spreading tea leaves out to sun-dry, workers may walk back and forth barefoot
"Ball rolling" may also involve treading with feet, but it is rare today
Another reason for treading tea leaves with both feet, Wu Jiachang believes, may be related to the distinctive tea-making characteristics of different places. For example, tea from the north is mostly strip-shaped and emphasizes a clear fragrance; tea from the central and southern regions is mostly ball-shaped or semi-ball-shaped and emphasizes hou yun, the lingering throat feel.
Ball-shaped tea involves an extra "ball rolling" step compared with strip-shaped tea. "In the past, because ball rolling was labor-intensive, some tea factories in the central and southern regions would tread with their feet," Wu Jiachang said. However, after the 1970s of the Republic of China era, equipment such as cloth-rolling machines and bundle-wrapping machines gradually became widespread and replaced human labor, and today almost no tea factory is seen treading tea with both feet.
Staff at the Fushoushan Farm sales department also said that tea is no longer trodden with feet now. What the public saw may be a video shot long ago, or an activity held by some tea factories to let tourists experience the process.
In fact, the tea-making process was much the same in ancient times and today; the difference is that today there is more emphasis on mechanization and hygiene. In view of this, the Wenshan Branch of the Tea Research and Extension Station continues to promote the concept of "tea factory safety and hygiene," requiring employees to wash their hands after entering the factory, change into work clothes and work shoes, and installing dust-proof flooring. During production, tea leaves must not touch the ground, livestock must not enter, and gas pipelines must be laid out along well-planned routes.
The Agriculture and Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, and the Wenshan Branch of the Tea Research and Extension Station also encourage tea factories to build safe and hygienic production and processing environments. Since 2011, they have provided guidance to many tea factories, evaluating processing environments, machinery cleanliness, public safety, tea processing workflow routes and pollution hazard control, using a 1-to-5 "star" rating. The more stars, the better the hygiene and safety control.