Bi Luo Chun is amazing. I wont find a better Chinese green tea this year.

The main aroma of this tea is centered around apples, especially honey crisp or gala varieties. It’s as if you’re eating an apple inside of a greenhouse. It’s warm, calming, fresh and very green. Behind the apple, supporting aromas are similar to orange bell peppers and marigold flowers. I haven’t dialed into its ‘perfect brewing parameters’ yet but had very good success with using 5g with 330mL, allowing boiling water to sit and cool down for 2 minutes and 30 seconds before adding it to the tea leaves, and then steeping for 2 minutes.

This tea in Chinese would be simply known as Bi Luo Chun, though in the old days, it was called ‘Scary Fragrance’

“Once upon a time, a woman was out in the forest for a stroll. She came across a particularly fragrant tea bush and loaded up her basket with as much as it could contain. As she was about to leave, she lamented the fact that her basket was so small and the trek to return inconvenient. She stuffed tea between her breasts and walked home in the sun. Her body heat and perspiration caused the tea to give off an incredibly potent smell, which she became used to and thought nothing of it. When she entered her house and put her basket on the table, her husband was staring at her like a monster about to devour her. The fragrance, like an aphrodisiac, put him into a lustful frenzy. Startled by the look in his eyes, the tea became known locally in her circle of friends as ‘the bush with the scary fragrance.'”

This was eventually renamed to: Bi Luo Chun (Green Snail Spring). It is one of the famous Chinese green teas, some might say the MOST famous, but it fights for that title alongside Long Jing. Almost all the biluochun I have tried in life were not made in the classic production area, my mentors have taught me that biluochun from the classic area is overpriced and overhyped — and that other areas/provinces produce an equal or better tea for far less money. I don’t know — there seems to be something to this area since this is the first classic area biluochun I’ve tried, and it’s the first time I thought it was something I wanted to sell. I also… don’t think this tea is very expensive… it absolutely over delivers for the price. I don’t want to say it outperforms the Long Jing I’ve stocked, but I don’t feel like its inferior in any way, and the long jing is much more costly too. Different beasts.

Biluochun hails from Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu province sandwiched between Shanghai (East) and Wuxi (West). Wuxi is where Yixing tea pots are made, that’s the only reason why I bring it up. In the Qing dynasty, the 3rd emperor visited this tea area and was told about this ‘scary fragrance tea’ — he liked the tea, didn’t like the name, and instead gave it something more poetic — ‘green snail spring’.

This tea was harvested March 15th and produced by tea master Zhou Yongming of Suzhou Xishan Biluochun Tea Factory, an absolute living legend. You can pull this from his wikipedia article.

Wiki:
Representative inheritor of national intangible heritage biluochun production. Skill in Suzhou, tea culture lecturer in Jiangsu province, vice president of Dong Ting Mountain Biluochun Tea Industry Association, Vice president of Jinting town chamber of commerce, artisan Wu Zhong, general manager of Suzhou Xishan Biluochun Tea Factory, Master of Dongting Mountain Biluochun Stir-Fried Tea. He has been engaged in Biluochun roasting and processing for 45 years, and lead 2 sessions of Bioluochun inheritance skill and activities. The Biluochun tea produced by him has participated in national tea competitions, achievement exhibitions, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian Intangible Cultural Heritage Products Exhibition, and the “Chinese tea story” exhibition in the Beijing China Cultural Center in Japan. Handmade Dongting Mountain Biluochun tea has won the first prize of two Chinese Tea Cups in a row. It has been collected by the Chinese tea museum and used for teaching in the Chinese tea society for more than 10 consecutive years.