Green tea · Zhejiang
West Lake Longjing
xīhú lóngjǐng · 西湖龙井
The most famous green tea in China — flat, jade-green spears pan-fired by hand, tasting of toasted chestnut and fresh peas. Longjing means "dragon well", for a spring above the village.
- Region
- West Lake hills, Hangzhou, Zhejiang
- Harvest
- Early spring — the finest before Qingming (early April)
- Oxidation
- Unoxidised
- Cultivar
- Longjing
In the cup
Toasted chestnut, sweet pea and a clean, almost buttery finish — gentle, never grassy-sharp.
What it gives
A bright, smooth lift — modest caffeine softened by L-theanine, with the antioxidant freshness greens are loved for.
Longjing is the green tea by which other greens are measured. It grows in the hills around West Lake in Hangzhou, where the protected core villages — Shifeng, Meijiawu and a handful of others — give the leaf its name and its premium. The very best is plucked in the brief window before Qīngmíng in early April, when the buds are smallest and sweetest.
What makes Longjing unmistakable is the pan-firing. A master presses the leaf flat against the hot iron of the wok with a bare hand, drying and shaping in one continuous motion through ten named hand movements. Done well, the spears come out smooth, flat and the colour of new jade.
In the cup
Brew it cool — water rested off the boil to around 80 °C — and the chestnut sweetness leads. Too hot and the same leaf turns thin and bitter. Drink it young, in the season of its harvest, from a tall glass so you can watch the leaf stand and sink.
How to brew
West Lake Longjing
Water
80 °C — off the boil
Leaf
3 g per 150 ml
Steep
1–2 min, glass or gaiwan
Vessel
Tall glass, leaf in first
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