West Lake green tea, pan-fired flat by hand. Chestnut-sweet, grassy, the benchmark of Chinese green tea.
From the hills around Longjing village, Hangzhou. Recorded in Lu Yu's Tang-era Classic of Tea; named imperial tribute around 1762, when Qianlong visited Shifeng on his third southern tour and saw eighteen bushes still preserved at Hugong Temple.
Mingqian (pre-Qingming, before April 5) leaves fetch ¥3,000-50,000/jin; the protected West Lake core area covers only 168 hectares. Most Longjing on the market is Zhejiang-grown, not West Lake. Look for the LB designation and the 18-bush mother grove from Shifeng.
Pale jade-yellow liquor, flat sword-shaped leaves. Aroma of toasted soybean and fresh chestnut, taste clean-sweet with no astringency, finish lingering. Brew at 80°C — boiling water bruises it.
Hand pan-firing in a 70-90°C wok with ten distinct grips (抓抖搭甩拓扣抓压磨) over 25 minutes. The shaqing (kill-green) step at first contact deactivates polyphenol oxidase, locking in chlorophyll and amino acids.
Variations
Shifeng (狮峰, the benchmark, chestnut aroma), Meijiawu (梅家坞, deeper green), Longjing village core (龙井村), Yunqi-Hupao (云栖虎跑), and the wider Zhejiang Longjing outside the West Lake protected zone.
On the Palate
Where Longjing Tea sits in the Chinese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 1How it's made
4 steps · 2 min active + 5 min waiting
- 11 min
Warm a glass to remove chill.
- 21 min
Add 3 g loose Longjing leaves to bottom of glass.
- 31 min
Pour 80 °C water — never boiling — to fill glass.
Watch outPour water cooled to 80°C, never boiling — boiling scalds the tender leaf, stewing out bitterness and killing the fresh chestnut-green aroma.
- 44 min
Wait 2 min as leaves descend; sip slowly leaving final 1/3 for refill.
Watch outWatch the leaves sink and unfurl over two minutes; sip while they're standing upright and always leave the last third to top up, or the next pour turns bitter.
