Secrets of Longjing Dragonwell Tea – China’s Most Famous Green Tea

This is one of the most famous teas in the world and it’s also one of the most counterfeit. It goes by many names. Dragonwell. Long Jing, and Longing, and the real stuff can cost as much as two dollars per gram. But what separates the real stuff from the counterfeits? For that? You’ll have to tune in, we’ll be uncovering some of the myths and legends surrounding this tea where it comes from and how it’s made. In the end, we’ll show you how to brew Long Jing tea like a pro and the flavor and health benefits you’ll get from drinking this tea. So all the famous Chinese teas come with their own origin story and of course. Long Jing is no different. Long Jing is often said to be named after a mystical well near Long Jing village, where villagers believed a dragon lived beneath the water and controlled the rainfall. During heavy rain, the water would twist and roll, resembling a twisting dragon. Around the year 1 thousand, a monk named Biankai planted a tea seedling at Shi Feg Mountain near Longangjing Temple. Which is now Longangjing Village. That tea tree became the ancestor of Long Jing T. The fame of this tea peak during the Qing Dynasty, when the Qinian Long Emperor visited the West Lake region in 1700 and 51 and personally picked tea leaves near a temple and rushed them back to Beijing when his mother fell ill. According to the story, the tea helped restore her health, which led the emperor to declare longing and imperial tea and designate a small number of bushes as official imperial plants. But do these leaves actually contain the potential to heal? We’ll cover the health benefits of Long Jing later on in the blog, but first we need to talk about this extraordinary region, so whether or not the legends surrounding Long Jing are true. This TE is still inextricably tied to Long Jing Village and Westlake in Ziyang Province. The Westlake Long Jing or Shih Long Jing is still the most celebrated thanks to its unique terroir and the history of this region, and it commands the highest price within Westla itself. Longing is sometimes broken down into smaller production zones like Line Peak. Dragonwell. Cloud Dwelling and Tiger Run and each is said to produce slightly different expressions of the tea. This is thanks to the unique terroir of the region with low rolling hills rather than towering mountains. This creates a humid, misty microclimate with low temperature swings moderating the speed of the tea plant’s growth. Slower growing leaves have more time to develop flavor, leading to better quality. The lake itself can also moderate the temperature, keeping the area cooler in summer and warmer in the cold months. Dragon Well or Dragonwell style tea can be made elsewhere, but the price will be significantly lower. Because Westlake or Shu Long is so expensive, it’s often counterfeit. Many teas labeled Long Jing are Long Jing style teas from outside the West Lake region. True Westlake teas come with an enormous markup, although the difference in flavor may not necessarily be worth the premium. The Long Jing brand has been built up over many years and the premium comes from the fame and the history of the region. So here we have an important distinction. There is the legend of Dragon Well, and then there’s the T itself. Let’s put the legend aside for now and focus on how the tea is actually made. So just like wine is broken up into varietals, tea is broken down into cultivars or tea plant varieties. These tea planta varieties are each best suited to produce different types of teas. The original tea variety of this region is the Chunti Jong. These are the ancient tea bushes that have been growing in this area of Westlake since the inception of this tea. They produce the lowest yield, but deeper, more complex flavors. Long Jing 43 is another cultivar that was selected recently, and although its leaves don’t command as high a price, it still offers some advantages. This cultivar buds earlier and it offers leaves that are more consistent in color and shape. But why is early budding so important well when it comes to Chinese Green tea, you’ll see the wording Ming keep popping up. The Qingminging Festival, which usually falls in early April, is a celebration to mark the beginning of the warmer weather. In the tea industry this is the cutoff for the finest Chinese green tease. Chinese green teas, especially famous ones like Long Jing, command a higher price if they were picked prechingminging. These spring leaves are considered to be the freshest and most nutrient dents. They were also harvested before the bug season, so the growers likely didn’t use any pesticides within Long Jing. Harvest timing matters as much as origin. Ming Long Jing is picked before Ching Ming, and this is the most delicate and expensive. Yuchan Longing is picked between Qingninging and Gu Y and offers a bit more body at a lower price. Later harvests are stronger and more bitter, but more affordable. Although there is no Qingminging festival in Japan, the same principle applies to Japanese teas, that’s why we only look for century that spring harvested at note. These spring pick teas are higher in nutrients and sweeter in flavor because the plant has had all winter long to build up nutrients from the soil and release them into the leaves. Tea plants can also be harvested in the summertime, but the tea plant won’t have as much time to replenish its nutrients and the flavor will be dull and more bitter. But how is the plant actually harvested. Premium longing is made from either a bud and one leaf or a bud in two leaves. These top leaves in the tea plant are the youngest and most nutrient dense. The more picky you are with the least selection, the lower your yield. This is why these carefully selected tees are the ones that command the highest price. But these freshly picked leaves look very different from these flat spear-s shapeped leaves we see in long jing, so where does this shape come from? We’re gona get to that in a second, but before we do, if you’re enjoying this blog so far, it would really mean a lot to us if you could like the blog and subscribe to see more tea blogs in the future. So that unique shape all has to do with the processing of the tea leaves the shainging or wok shaping. The leaves are pressed up against the pan by hand in order to get their flat shape, but this walk firing does far more for the tea than just give it its shape. What separates green tea from black tea is that green tea leaves are heated after the harvest. Once a tea leaf is picked, it will begin to oxidize naturally and fade from green to brown. During this process, the polyphenols in the leaf are converted into theo, flavius and theiaubicins, and the flavor shifts from fresh and vegetablegetal to warm caramel and chocolate. In order to lock in the vibrant green color and flavor of these leaves, the farmer will apply heat. This deactivated the enzyme that causes oxidation and prevents the tea from becoming a black tea. In China this heat is applied through pan firing while in Japan the preferred method is steaming. This is why Japanese teas have this strong steam, vegetable or almost seaweed flavor. You can really see this in a tea like Fukumushi Sentcha which has a vibrant green color and a smooth, almost fruity flavor. Sancha like this is packed with flavor and almost tastes like a juice. Compared to the lighter and more nuanced Chinese green tea, the pan firing process imparts a warmer, more nutty characteristic on the Chinese green teas. There is actually a Japanese tea called Kame Yticcha and it’s made using the traditional Chinese panfiring method. It tastes closer to a Chinese green tea like long jing than a traditional Senna with notes of toidammonds cashew and a hint of nori. If you want to try this rare tea from Miyazaki Prefecture, you can find it on our website neos. Dot com. For the pan firing method the tea leaves are often withered or aird dred so that there’s not too much moisture in the walk. The farmer wants a dry heat to produce this warmer and nutter flavor profile. This pan firing is more of an art than a science and the producer really needs to dial in the pressure applied to the leaves, the heat of the pan and the speed of the tossing. Most producers don’t use any sort of measurement tools to gauge this. It’s all done by feel. It really takes a lot of experience to know exactly how to toss and press the leaves when they’re done. Also, the pan is between 100 and 50 and 200 degrees Celsius, so if the leaves aren’t constantly turned, they can burn and ruin the tea. The result is these characteristic flat leaves that Longing has become famous for. It’s a really easy tea to identify both by looking at the leaves and by tasting them. The moisture content of these leaves has been reduced, which means the aromatics have been concentrated and this tea is ready to be infused. What you want to look for is a consistent color across the leaves. Dark green doesn’t necessarily mean better, but it’s more important to look for this uniformity. You want to find shorter leaves, so you know the picking is finer and you should be looking for these buds. But you can’t assess quality based on appearance alone. You actually have to taste the tea. For this you’ll want to use a glass tea vessel, 3.5 grams of leaves and 100 milliters of water. Glass is preferred for long jing because it showcases the leaves, moderates the heat, and allows for a gentle, even extraction, preserving the tea’s natural sweetness. Unlike clay, it’s also neutral, so it won’t impart additional flavors into this subtle tea. You can brew this tea at 80 degrees Celsius, so you extract plenty of flavor without too much bitterness. The reason we brew green teas below boiling is because they’re higher in polyphenols and catkins, which can produce a bitter flavor in the tea. Luckily, these bitter components require hotter water to extract. So by setting the temperature low we can keep them in the leaf and out of your cup. If you’re brewing gong Fu style, you can start with a 25 second infusion and add five seconds for each subsequent infusion. This allows you to see each layer of the T as it develops from light aromatics to rich body. If you get a good quality long jing and brew it well, you should end up with a distinct roasted bean or chestnut flavor. It should be smooth and creamy with delicate floras, a gentle unami, and no bitterness. Instead of getting these grassy or vegetablegetal notes you’d get with a typical green tea. You’ll experience a more mature, nutty flavor profile which is produced by the careful walk firing process. The health benefits of longing are as impressive as its flavor. Because this tea is made from the youngest buds, it’s richer in antioxidants. These antioxidants can help fight oxidative stress and free radical damage. The most abundant antioxidant in green teas are catkins, which have shown a number of positive results with everything from weight loss to cold and flu prevention. Longing is also relatively high in caffeine with as much as 48 mgs of caffeine per serving. Although green tea contains caffeine, the feeling is much different than coffee thanks to the adenine, which is believed to buffer some of the negative side effects of caffeine. Instead of getting a short burst of energy and then a crash. Green Tea Drinkers report having a longerlasting Calm Alert sensation that lasts throughout the day. The. Adenine also stimulates alpha brainwave activity. The same brainwave stimulated during meditation where this calm, alert feeling is most prevalent is in a green tea like Gill, which has the highest caffeine andtheine content in the world of tea, long jing is best consumed fresh. Over time, the nutty sweetness fades and the tea becomes flat or dull, so it’s best enjoyed within a year after it’s harvested and stored away from heat, light, and air. This is typical of a green tea as they are meant to be an expression of these fresh springlike aromas. So while there may not be a dragon lurking underneath Westla, this T is well deserving of its reputation. Hopefully this blog has helped clear up a lot of the myths surrounding this legendary tea. If you want to try any of the Japanese teas mentioned in this blog, you can find them all on our website. Neos. Dot. Com. After traveling around Japan for the past few years, we’ve met with dozens of farmers and sampled 100 of teas. We’ve ultimately selected a list of our favorites and we’d love to share them with you. If you liked this blog, we’d really appreciate it if you could fellow to our website to see more blogs in the future. But until then we’ll see you next time.