For a spring project, I decided to compare three Mingqian teas: Bi Luo Chun, Longjing, and Anji Bai Cha. In total, I bought 340 g of green tea, which in hindsight is a lot of green tea. I seriously overestimated how much green tea I would be able and willing to drink, which is why this little experiment is still ongoing. For Part 2 of this three-part extravaganza, I bought four Longjings from Teavivre, Treasure Green, and Seven Cups.
Tea bush: C. sinensis cv. Jiukeng
Location: Qiandao Lake, Chun’an County, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang
Harvest date: March 30, 2024
Price/g: US$0.56
I included this Longjing, which is affordable for a Ming Qian offering, because I’ve enjoyed it in the past. For the comparison session, I steeped 2.4 g of all four teas in 120 ml of 185F water, starting at 4 minutes. This produced very potent, not to say bitter, steeps! I later did a more typical session, steeping 3 g of leaf in 250 ml of 185F water starting at 4 minutes, refilling the cup as needed.
The dry aroma is of green beans, orchids, spring flowers, chestnuts, roast, and butter. The first few rounds are very floral and vegetal, with Chestnuts, orchid, magnolia, green beans, and asparagus. The tea is predictably bitter, with some mouth-puckering effects around my gums. Subsequent steeps feature green beans, chestnut, kale, orchid, spring florals, and other veggies, with the finish being grassy and vegetal.
The bowl steeped tea is a lot more palatable. The first couple steeps have notes of green beans, spinach, asparagus, chestnut, butter, very mild roast, orchids, and grass. The tea has a pronounced but not unpleasant vegetal character and some bitterness. The middle steeps are a bit more nutty, though with plenty of green beans and other veggies and persistent though subtle florality. The final steeps have notes of lettuce, beans, grass, butter, and faint roast.
This is the least roasted and most beany of the four Longjings. Like the Shifeng Longjing from Seven Cups, it’s also quite floral, with nice orchid and spring flower notes. To me, this is the most springlike of the dragonwells, though it’s perhaps not that representative of what a “benchmark” longjing should be.
Flavors: Asparagus, Bitter, Butter, Chestnut, Floral, Grass, Green, Green Beans, Kale, Lettuce, Magnolia, Nutty, Orchid, Roasted, Spinach, Vegetal
