Shi Feng Long Jing “Lion’s Peak Dragon Well”

Long Jing also known as ‘Dragon Well’ and sometimes as ‘Imperial Green’ is one of China’s classic green tea varieties. In the many lists of China’s famous teas, Long Jing is always present and has been famous since at least the year 1132 when the capital city of the Song Dynasty was moved to Hangzhou due to war. The West lake (which will be from this point on referred to as ‘Xi Hu’) area of the city of Hangzhou in North Eastern Zhejiang province is the ancestral home of this tea. To drink quality teas from Xi Hu outside of China is already quite a rare privilege because the domestic demand for them is so high.

Please take a moment to absorb the following 2 paragraphs. It will help you immensely to understand not only Long Jing, but the concept of modern Chinese green tea in general.

Long Jing is one of China’s specific styles of green tea made with particular methods. Classically it consisted of tea bushes that were brought from Sichuan to Zhejiang. As those bushes grew and dropped seeds, those seeds mutated to adapt themselves to their new environment, after several cycles of mutation these new bushes became the standard of the area. The original production area of Long Jing is in the hills just South West of the Xi Hu and is quite large in size. These days ‘Long Jing’ is made all over China, picked in all sorts of seasons, and distributed in all sorts of quality levels. Long Jing at one point was an imperial tribute tea, how far it has fallen to see a box of Long Jing tea bags in a supermarket across the world in Canada!

Stylistically, Long Jing takes on the appearance of the picture above. The picking criteria is a bud and 1 leaf, or a bud and 2 leaves. These leaves are put into a screaming hot wok and pressed down flat to roast (traditionally with bare hands). This gives Long Jing a savory nutty flavor and its iconic shape — the shape is what makes a Long Jing a Long Jing, not necessarily the production area or tea cultivar. ‘Long Jing’ is even made in Nepal these days.

Having spoken to several ‘non Xi Hu’ Long Jing tea producers and suppliers about the current state of authentic Xi Hu Long Jing, I am often told that ‘Xi Hu is not what it used to be” – Zhejiang is a major manufacturing province of China, and a major hub of freight shipping. “There is a lot of pollution, and Xi Hu cannot make quality tea anymore.” If someone from the Xi Hu area said those statements to me, it would be much more believable than a competitor who works to make profit outside of it. Of course a producer from outside of Xi Hu who makes “Long Jing” and wants to sell their tea would say that their tea is better than Xi Hu. This much is common sense, and I take this with a grain of salt.

From my point of view, I can’t speak to the teas of the distant past and the world at large will not soon return to those days of poetry, calligraphy, and incense burning. It’s totally understandable that the air quality is worse than it was 1000 years ago, but what good is it to us to hear that? We live and breath the air today, and we drink the teas made today. Hearing the teas used to be better does me no good — in fact it’s completely irrelevant.

I have had much more success with finding quality teas from within the Xi Hu area as opposed to venturing into its outskirts where the environment is supposedly ‘cleaner’. That being said the original production area of Xi Hu is quite large, and it encompasses several ‘mountains’ where tea is grown.

Shi Feng ‘Lions Peak’ is a hill, or perhaps nicely put: ‘a very small mountain’ with a height of about 300m. It is the highest terrain in the authentic Xi Hu region, and this is one reason why tea from Shi Feng is so sought after. Another reason which may align with the opinion of non-Xi Hu Long Jing producers is that Shi Feng sits at the border of the authentic production area in the direction of rural mountainside — away from the potential factories and heavy polluters.

China has many huge cities that we don’t hear very much of in the western world. Hangzhou (which encompasses Xi Hu) is a huge city-state of historical significance. Hangzhou used to be the capital city of the Southern Song Dynasty and thus has been heavily populated for a long time. In the days of old (before phones and the internet) fame was only spread by word of mouth. A lot of China’s famous teas come from distant mountains; areas often in the middle of nowhere, and in a case like that word of mouth would spread very slowly. In the case of Long Jing, being produced next to a big city helped the word of mouth spread extremely fast, and its fame was incredibly far reaching.

Xi Hu is famous for anyone who has more than a surface level interest in Long Jing. ‘Shi Feng’ and ‘Meijiawu’ are two locations within the ‘Xi Hu Area’ which are renowned for being the best of the best to connoisseurs.

Tea plantations are a farmed endeavor. Around the world there are varieties of the tea bush which have been purposely created produce a more beautiful, productive, resilient, and tasty result. The Hangzhou area (including Xi Hu) is now overrun with a cultivated variety of the tea bush known as “Long Jing 43”.

The result (of course) is generally very good. Long Jing 43 was created to be what a Long Jing consumer would want in the appearance, fragrance, and flavor; while keeping in mind the practicality of what the farmer wants in the field. Although I have had a few clonal teas Long Jing 43 which I thought were nearly as good as Shi Feng Long Jing (for much less cost mind you) the original Long Jing is not supposed to be a clonal tea. The original Long Jing was created from wild bushes all with genetic differences processed together into 1 tea (in wine this is referred to as a field blend). Field blending results in a tea with a lot of sensory complexity and an overall focus on the ‘sense of place’ as opposed to ‘sense of cultivar’.

The season of which Long Jing (and virtually all other high quality Chinese teas) is produced in is of vital importance to its quality, and generally overlooked by an ignorant consumer. Spring Long Jing is the best, everything else is trash. Perhaps that statement is too harsh? I think the vast majority of Chinese tea consumers (experienced or not) would agree with me, perhaps not agreeing to call the tea trash but politely refusing to buy it themselves and prefer to have it shipped to a less discerning part of the world instead. The idea that Spring is king is ingrained into the culture of Chinese tea.

In the early spring time, the plant will use its abundance of stored energy to create delicate young buds and leaves. There is little need for pesticides because bugs are not as active as they will be during the summer after the rainy season of April and May. These delicate teas, depending on how early they are picked will be given the prestigious prefix and price of: ‘Pre-Qingming’, ‘Pre-Rain’, or ‘Gu Yu’. Qingming is a festival and important cut-off date for harvesting the best of the best spring teas, consequently they will be the most expensive and desired. Teas picked after Qingming are designated as ‘Pre-Rain’. Picking the tea 1 day after the Qing Ming festival may not seem like a big deal in terms of quality (and surely it is not), but the price will be considerably less expensive than a Pre-Qingming tea. The window to produce ‘Pre-Rain tea’ runs until the rainy season begins around the end of April. As the rains begin to fall the tea will be called ‘Gu Yu’ and its quality and value will taper off as the season progresses into the summer. If the picking date of the Chinese tea (especially green tea) is not stated, I think its a fair assumption that it is not Qingming, Pre-Rain, or Gu Yu. It would likely have been picked afterwards when the quality becomes astringent and bitter and most importantly to many international tea suppliers — inexpensive.

The Shi Feng Long Jing that I stock is a ‘mixed cultivar’ type. It is picked Pre-Qingming. The tea bushes are nearly 100 years old (which seems to be a long time in this part of China). There is a lot of depth to the flavor, and a great re-steep-ability which Japanese green teas generally lack. It has no astringency; it has no bitterness. It’s a great example of excellent Chinese green tea – fresh and cooling like a warm spring rain. 2020 is not looking like a year I’ll be bringing it in though.

A good friend of mine once described a great wine we mutually enjoy (Leitz Berg Roseneck Spatlese Riesling) as “a wine which you can really get your brain involved, it provides a deep complexity and countless nuances that the interested mind can enjoy, or alternatively – you could pound it back thoughtlessly, and both ways are amazing” – that was liberally paraphrased but the point was made. I feel this tea is like that.

Lastly the way I like to brew Long Jing and the way it is traditionally brewed are different. Here’s a video of how it’s traditionally done. There is some beauty to the process of watching the leaves fall (but I’ve found the flavor of cup to cup to be inconsistent, and it is a hassle to get a mouthful of tea leaves when I don’t want them). In this video it doesn’t specify it, but you would pick up the glass and drink the without a filter.