Master the art down to a tea

"Authentic West Lake Longjing tea consists of two essential elements: the Longjing tea cultivar and the traditional manual stir-frying techniques. If the leaves are machine-processed, they cannot be called West Lake Longjing tea," he emphasizes.

Hand-roasted tea has a richer, more lasting aroma and a more mellow taste compared to machine-roasted tea, he says.

"It's because tea is 'alive'. Roasters can use different hand movements and temperature to stir-fry tea leaves in different states, which is what unified machine modes cannot achieve," he says.

In March 2020, when Fan was roasting tea at a booth in Xixi Wetland, he had an encounter with President Xi Jinping, who was visiting there on an inspection tour.

"The president scooped up a handful of tea and took a sniff. He humorously remarked that tea fried with just two palms was a feat that modern technology cannot achieve," he recalls.

Encouraged by Xi's words, Fan decided to promote the picking and processing techniques of West Lake Longjing tea via social media. He organized a team to make short videos to showcase how to pick tea leaves and stir-fry them with hands.

In his livestreaming channel, people from around the country watch the process and comment that they want to learn the techniques.