A man in north Vietnam is able to sift through tea leaves in a hot pan using only his bare hands in this amazing video from September 8, 2018.
The man, from the high mountains province of Son La, is seen processing tea in a hot pan to dry the fresh leaves. He is one of those who still retains this manual method, as currently tea leaves are dried using a dryer to save time.
However, tea leaves are dried by hot pan have a special flavour. The man claims he can sense the temperature through his palm to avoid tea leaves from burning or being too dry, and to adjust the flame at the bottom of the pan.
The temperature in the pan is very high, which took many years to get used to the high temperature in the pan. Now the tea-maker reportedly does not feel hot when touching the pan.
It takes about two hours to dry, during which the man must use his hand to reverse the tea leaves continuously in the pan.
Tea leaves made with this method are very expensive. Currently, the price for one kilogram of dry tea leaves is $80 USD.