Nanjing Yuhua

Nanjing Yuhua — rain-flower tea — is a celebrated green from Nanjing in Jiangsu, counted among China’s famous teas. It is unmistakable in the hand: straight, dark-green needles, shaped to resemble the pine needles of Zhongshan, the evergreen hill above the city. The form is no accident — the pines stand for the undying memory of the revolutionaries who fell at the nearby Yuhuatai memorial, wàngǔ chángqīng, “evergreen for ten thousand generations”.

That shape is won by a punishing hand technique, cuō tiáo – zhuā tiáo, the rolling and gathering of the leaf, that takes a beginner three years to learn; it is now inscribed on China’s intangible heritage list. The cup is the reward: fresh, mellow and sweet at once, chestnut and nut over an orchid-floral lift, with a clear sweetness that grows on the finish.

In the cup

Brew it cool, around 75 °C. The classic way is to drop the leaf onto already-poured water — shàngtóu fǎ — when a white haze of down rises at once and the needles sink slowly, “dancing” down the glass like a fall of jade. Drink it young, in spring.