What is Dragon Well green tea?
Dragon Well green tea is regarded as the National Tea of China – a huge honor, given the Chinese reputation as lovers of tea since the drink was “discovered” there thousands of years ago. Dragon Well is the English translation of the original Chinese word “Longjing”, a village at West Lake in the Zhejiang province. This is where the tea that is widely thought of as the best in the world is grown and processed: it's so special that it is the designated drink for visiting emperors, heads of state, world leaders and royalty!
So what makes Longjing tea so special?
Firstly, there's the matter of growing conditions. These are as near to perfect in Longjing as can be found anywhere in the world. Tea plants thrive in areas where there is plentiful rainfall, air that is humid, a moderate climate and high altitude. All of these are exactly right for tea-growing in West Lake, with the highest quality tea being produced high up on the Lion Peak Mountain, where plantations are shrouded in humid mists and nourished by streams and regular rainfall.
There's also a lot of history and experience to take into account. People in Dragon Well spend their whole lives being trained as tea experts, with growing, harvesting and processing skills being passed down from one generation to the next!
The very best tea from Longjing comes from a plantation which is only harvested one time per year, in the early days of Spring. This is when the highest grade of green tea is produced – and the earlier the harvest, the higher the quality of the tea will be. Everything is done by hand, and the tea is harvested and processed with great thoroughness and attention to detail.
As with most varieties of Chinese green tea, tea leaves from Longjing are pan fired (that's “fired”, not “fried”!), usually in a wok, which stops the process of oxidization – the drying out of the leaves after they're picked. When the leaves are fired (or steamed, as is the more common method in Japan), the oxidization or fermentation process is stopped before they lose many of their nutrients and vitamins. This is why green tea is renowned for being good for the health: while regular (“black”) tea is withered and fermented, losing most of its essential catechins, green tea leaves remain much closer to their original state.
Longjing or Dragon Well tea is of particularly high quality because of how quickly the tea leaves are processed, giving them minimal time to dry out or lose any of their nutrients. After picking, the leaves are roasted on the same day, by workers using their bare hands so that they are constantly aware of the temperature of the wok. Longjing tea roasting is a highly specialized trade, with precise and specific hand movements that a novice roaster takes around three whole years to master! Roasting consists of two stages: Qingguo, which shapes and flattens the leaves into spear shapes; and Huiguo, which dries the leaves further to prevent future oxidization.
When steeped in hot water, Dragon Well tea leaves produce a yellow-green color, and the liquid has a gentle, pure, chestnutty aroma, and a very rich, sweet, and delicate flavor. It has one of the highest concentrations of valuable catechins out of all the teas in the world, and is viewed with high reverence as an excellent medicinal liquid with almost magical qualities.
Useful Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longjing_tea
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/dragon-well-green-tea.html
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