I picked up a couple ounces of this Long Jing while at The Steeping Room today. What is The Steeping Room? A local tea shop that sells high quality teas and tea ware. (Ive talked about them before) I was there replenishing my Houjicha supply and I always get something I wasn't planning on buying when I go there. The price? Very reasonable at $5.00 an oz. Ive been craving a good cup of Long Jing lately but wanted to wait until this years teas were on the market but I scored a couple oz. of this anyways. The dry leaf looks good and smells really fresh despite the tea being a year old now. I always look for the little brown spots on the leaf which to me is an indication of pan roasting (the traditional method) The leaf is very thin, flat and light weight. While this isnt the best Long Jing Ive ever had it,s still very good and worth the money. Ive always heard that even though you can find tea labeled as Dragon Well just about anywhere, few people in the west have actually had the real thing. Seven Cups is the company I go to for "the real thing" But it costs ya dearly. The Long Jing they have is about $420.00 a lb. And that's the sale price. So, back to what I bought. I used 5 gms of leaf, 180 degree water and a 2 minute infusion time for the first pot and Ive got myself a good cup of Long Jing at a pretty good price. I only re steep the leaves one time, a third pot is kinda boring. For some teas like Long Jing I sorta feel like I have an obligation to use traditional brewing equipment, hence the Gaiwan. I,m not that into em, I make a mess every time I do. The market is flooded with imitation Dragon Well Tea but I have to admit some of these wannabe,s really are pretty good. The real thing is very rich tasting, nutty, veggie and sublime. The tea I,m blogging about here I wouldn't consider the real thing but something that,s pretty close and a good quality imitation.
Just wanted to add a comment about the spots that you are looking for. In the old traditional way of making green tea, the spots, which will appear black, are from singed leaves caused by a wok that is too hot. The cause of that spot, which the Chinese call a blister, is because the tea maker is using a pan that is heated by a wood fire. It is a two person process where the tea maker give instructions to the person controlling the fire, to raise or lower the heat. Even with a great fire tender the pan getting to hot is inevitable. There are very few green tea, lonjing being one, that is completely made in the pan, rather that some final baking or roasting, and it is a very skilled process involving ten different hand movements. The electrically heated pan has minimized this blistering issue since the heat can be controlled by a switch. There are no Shifeng Longjing tea makers now using the old pan, but rather the electric instead, and they would argue that it gives then more control.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of longjing that is great tea that is authentic. Authentic longjing can never be organic because it is grown to close to Hangzhou to get certified. Still the authentic will fetch the highest price just because it is what it is.
On the other side of the coin, really good tea never comes cheap because it can never be commercially produced. There is some really horrific longjing that I have tasted, called longjing, that didn't even resemble the real thing, just I have had some horrific Parmesan cheese that resembled saw dust much more than cheese. Most often I'm buying the cheese that comes from Argentina and can barely afford that, still the I have to taste the real thing sometimes just to remember why it is so great.
Austin
Howdy Austin, Thanks for the education. Yes I do realize when paying $5.00 an oz. your not getting "the real thing" but with this tea the flavor profile is similar to the authentic tea and sometime thats O.K. with me. But for the real Long Jing I rely on Seven Cups, the Big Buddah Dragon Well is sublime.
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