Enshi Yulu: A Chinese Green Tea Fixed by Steam

‘Green tea’ does not mean every leaf meets the same heat source. The national heritage record for Enshi Yulu (恩施玉露) in Hubei describes a steam-fixing stove and a needle-shaped finished leaf. Its account says fresh leaves are briefly exposed to high-temperature steam to halt enzymatic oxidation, then spread and fanned to cool and release moisture.

Steam is an early step, not the whole recipe

1. Spread and sort fresh leaves before steam fixing.
2. Steam the leaves, then fan and cool them so trapped moisture does not dull their colour.
3. Continue with drying, rolling and shaping work until the leaf takes its slender form.

The same heritage record describes heating and hand movements after the steam step, including later work on a drying stove. Thus ‘steamed tea’ does not mean the leaf never meets heat again. By comparison, the West Lake Longjing heritage record describes pan-firing as its characteristic green-tea method. The useful distinction is how each tradition fixes the fresh leaf, not a claim that all Chinese green tea is either Enshi or Longjing.