Long Jing (How to choose?)

There are several types of green tea in the market... But our posting today will be about "Long Jing" “龍井“ , one of the special type of green tea...

"Xi Hu" "西湖" in China is famous for two things, their spring water and Long Jing... And the Long Jing from Xi Hu is the considered to be the best of all Long Jings... On top of that, Long Jing harvested before "Qing Ming" "清明" is considered the best of the whole year... Because it is harvested before Qing Ming, it is called "Ming Qian Cha" "明前茶" or tea before Qing Ming...

How do we choose high quality Long Jing?
1) Area and season:
Long Jing from Xi Hu and just before Qing Ming is the best.

2) Tea Leaves
High quality Long Jing can be selected by looking at the tea leaves.... What do we look for? Well, one of them is colour. A good quality and fresh Long Jing should look green with a yellowish tinge... Long Jing before Qing Ming has a very special yellow tinge because top quality Long Jing it is harvested from the first bud of spring... So it has less chlorophyll but more carotene.. Which gives it the yellowish tinge... The leaves should be flat, smooth and look like the swallow's tongue. One very important feature of the top quality is that it should consists of branches of 3 leaves...

When you smell the leaves and the tea, it should have the smell of fresh beans... Something like sun flower seeds...

3) Tea
When savouring the tea, you can also tell the quality of the tea from certain aspects... But in order to get the best out of the tea, proper utensils and techniques of brewing and storing the tea should be practised... This will be discussed in more detail in future postings...

When savouring the tea, first try to enjoy the smell of the tea... It should have a nice bean smell. Then, look at the colour of the tea, it should have a mild light green colour... The tea should be clean and clear.. It should never be murky.... Next comes the taste... Good quality Long Jing has a very nice bean or sun flower seed taste and a very mild bitter taste, but normally at the second to third brew...

Take note: this is just a very basic method used... The techniques of choosing will be improved with experience...