Imperial Dragonwell Long Jing

Description

Origin: Da Fo Mountain in Xinchang County
Varietal: Longjing #43
Altitude: 400 Meters
Picking: Pure bud

Know your tea:  This Imperial grade Long Jing is picked in early spring before the Qing Ming holiday and is one of our favorites! Long Jing, a.k.a. Dragonwell is one of China's top 10 teas, and one of the most expensive. This tea is skillful labor of love, as each leaf is pan-fired by hand,  which makes it sticky and it is then folded in half lengthwise. This is all done very quickly and swiftly and the leaves still maintain a vibrant green color!  The overcast, rainy winter climate of Zheijan enhances the sweet & savory subtleties of this tea. The soup produced is exceptionally soft and fragrant, and a very pleasant 'hui gan' lingers in the back of the mouth and throat well after drinking.

Ingredients: 100% pure tea

Tasting Notes: Cooling, refreshing and crisp, with buttery, roasted chickpeas, snow peas, and spinach notes. 

Liqueur Body: refreshing, cooling, smooth, light mouthfeel with a long finish

Preparation 

We encourage you to experiment with the amount of leaves, amount and temperature of water, and infusion times to reach your preferred strength of tea,  but here's a suggestion for this particular tea: 

Pro Tip:

Rinse your tea before the first infusion, to 'awaken' the leaves. You can do this by just submerging the leaves in warm water at the prescribed temperature for each particular tea, and then discarding that water. This will also preheat the vessel and prevent the water temperature from drastically falling during the infusion. 

Most reinfusions require the same or higher temperatures than the first infusion because the leaves will already be moist, but the time for each reinfusion will first reduce till a certain number of reinfusions, and then it will need to be increased till you've maxed out the potential of the leaves.