Parsing down to exactly how Dragonwell is classified，there are about 3 main regions, of which Westlake Dragonwell region is tops. Within the Westlake region, Lion’s Peak series of hills are the utmost. Of Lion’s Peak, Hu Gong Miao 胡公廟 is supreme because of its elevation and soil made up of white sand clay. This is superior to Niu Huang Shan, which has a mix of white sand and more yellow clay. The price difference? About 1.5 times more expensive just for that slight difference.
Having tasted the 100% handmade Dragonwell, I am completely and irrevocably unhinged and madly obsessed. I asked the tea master to make some handmade lot from Hu Gong Miao, so it’s the supreme of the supreme. In a couple days, the Pre-Rain lot might even be remotely affordable!

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Me and tea on Westlake

‘嘆世界’ Tan Sai Gai in Cantonese means ‘Enjoying life’, roughly. It means sitting right on the lake, watching the boats go by, the fishes hopping out of the water every few minutes, sipping some of that Dragonwell, as the sun sets on the lake. Nothing replaces history, that molding and refining that happens to a place over time. Tea is the cultural beverage of mankind, the oldest and deepest and most refined of them all. Just the fact that I was drinking tea grown on thousand year old plants on the same spot as Emperor Qian Long from the 1700s appreciating a lake in a city considered the most prosperous in the country in the Song Dynasty (1200s AD?) makes one feel, if ever so grandly, timeless. Watching the world go by.

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Tea knowledge is endless. Today I discovered that these original seed grown Dragonwell roots are in fact, a few hundred, maybe even a thousand years old. The roots can live that long even for these bush type ‘Guan Mu’ types, as long as they are pruned to the roots every decade. If left to itself without management, the roots will die in 50 or so years. The old seed grown varietals are fleshier than Longjing #43, the ‘improved’ varietal, that sprouts early but is slightly bitter and much less sophisticated in taste and has none of that orchid fragrance as the seed grown old bushes.
Tea is truly a cultural history that mere machinery and a nice hillside can not replace.

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I just died and went to tea heaven. I am sure there is such a place just for me in the afterlife, where I drink this 100% handmade Dragonwell whenever I want. The luxury of it having taken 4 hours to make not withstanding, it is the sweetest, most infinitely expanding bouquet on the palate. The leaves dance quickly to the bottom, said the tea master, because the fact is hand making makes…

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The Dragonwell on the left and the right have minuscule differences, so I was put to task to judge and discern the difference. The left has better fragrance and sophisticated entry and aftertaste while the right glass has more perfect looking leaves. The right is probably the first picking and the left is maybe a couple ones into it, both being first flushes, Pre-Ming, and from Lion’s Peak. The right is slightly lower elevation than the left, I hazarded…..
Both were probably harvested around end of March within a day or so of each other.

All correct, said tea master. The right is about 100 meters lower than the left, but it is the first picking, while the left sprouted a little earlier and has been picked for 2 days more. Harvest date: March 27 to the right and 29 on the left.

Not being particularly a Dragonwell specialist, I am not sure how I managed to parse through such small differences.
Why purchase so early, he asked, as every early firing goes to high roller corporations to gift to government officials? They want the earliest of the early, and only really sophisticated customer palates can discern the difference anyway? Why compete with the high rollers? April 2 harvest is still Pre-Ming after all, and slightly less expensive!

It matters to my customers, I said, that they get the best, the earliest, even if they are not Communist officials!

Tomorrow: on the ground and ready to report! This year, the temps were really uneven, cold one day and hot another, causing yields to vary a lot day to day.

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