The key to preserving Dragonwell- here is the true, thousand year old secret technique： giant pieces of limestone, or smaller pieces in our case ( since we only get to have 2#s of this Handmade Pre-Rain Longjing) are used in the final process to absorb the remaining 1% moisture from the finished leaves. Our tea is ready to be shipped! We will taste some at the Harvest Party on May 2, but otherwise, order it at the store now. We are likely sold out of it by then.
100% handmade Dragonwell, Pre-Rain, just finished! The tea master sends this photo- it took him 5 hours today. It will go into a stone plaster urn to dry completely before shipping tomorrow. We have 1 lb. for pre-order, so if you want to experience this sublime craft, call in your pre-order to the store:(510)524-2832. Yes, old fashioned. It will be online by this weekend if not already sold out by then!
Not available usually unless you are a Communist government official!
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!
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.
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.
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…