SEASON
Spring 2016 (March 20th)
CULTIVAR
Long Jing 43
ORIGIN
Zhejiang, China
PICKING & PROCESSING
Bud and one or two leaves
ELEVATION
600m

This is China’s most famous Green tea, absolutely revered for its rich yet refreshing flavour and the fragrance of lush spring grass. This tea was picked on March 20th 2016 making it a very early Pre Qing Ming tea.

Authentic Long Jing tea (otherwise known as Dragonwell) must be grown in Zhejiang province. If it is grown anywhere else then it is considered a fake (much like champagne). Every year we taste many samples of Long Jing to find our batch for the year. This year we have selected a tea from outside the West Lake area because we felt that it had a much higher quality compared with the West Lake tea. It is from a less commercial cultivar too (Xiao Ye vs Long Jing 43).

Qing Ming is a traditional day for paying respects to ancestors and clearing their graves. It is a public holiday in China (and Taiwan) and falls on the first day of the fifth solar term which equates to fifteen days after the Spring Equinox which is usually the first week of April. Any tea picked before this date is very early Spring picked and is called Pre Qing Ming.

This is a Pre Qing Ming tea picked on 20th March giving a lightness and delicacy combined with a powerful fragrance and taste. Any Pre Qing Ming tea from Xi Hu (West Lake) is exorbitantly expensive and whilst it is often excellent tea, we felt that this batch won out in terms of flavour and we are not paying the extra price tag for the name of Xi Hu.

We are sure that you will love our 2016 batch of Imperial Green (Long Jing). Please note that you may find white yellow fur on the tea and little balls of fur in the tea. This is NOT mold but is tea fur showing that the tea is a very early spring tea – it demonstrates the quality of this Long Jing.

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