West Lake Longjing is a green tea. It is produced in the mountains around West Lake Longjing Village in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and is named after it. It has a history of more than 1,200 years. When Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty visited West Lake in Hangzhou, he praised West Lake Longjing tea and named the 18 tea trees in front of Hu Gong Temple at the foot of Shifeng Mountain as “Imperial Tea”. West Lake Longjing is divided into 1 to 8 grades according to the appearance and internal quality.
Special West Lake Longjing tea is flat, smooth and straight, with a tender green and bright color, fresh and noble aroma, fresh and sweet taste, and tender leaves. Longjing tea harvested before Qingming Festival is called Mingqian Longjing, and is beautifully called “Daughter Red”. “The wind outside the courtyard is smiling, and the Longjing tea before Mingqian is Daughter Red.” West Lake Longjing tea, like West Lake, is the perfect crystallization of man, nature and culture, and is an important carrier of West Lake regional culture.
There are several famous categories of West Lake Longjing, such as “Shifeng Longjing”, “Meiwu Longjing”, “Yunqi Longjing”, “Hupao Longjing”, etc. “Shifeng Longjing” is produced in Longjing Village, Shizifeng, and Wengjiashan. It is slightly yellow in color and is known as “brown rice color”. “Meiwu Longjing” is produced in Yunqi and Meijiawu. It is straight, flat and smooth in appearance and emerald green in color.
West Lake Longjing tea has a flat and straight appearance, emerald green in color, and a fresh and mellow internal quality. When brewed in a cup, the buds and leaves are green. It is known for its “green color, rich fragrance, sweet taste, and beautiful shape”.
The special West Lake Longjing and Zhejiang Longjing in spring tea have a flat and smooth appearance, with sharp tips, buds longer than leaves, tender green in color, and no hair on the body; the soup color is tender green (yellow) and bright; the fragrance is fresh or tender chestnut, but some teas have a high-fire fragrance; the taste is refreshing or mellow; the bottom of the leaves is tender green and still intact. As the level of Longjing tea decreases, the appearance and color of the other grades change from light green to blue-green to dark green, the tea body changes from small to large, and the tea leaves change from smooth to rough; the fragrance changes from tender and refreshing to strong and rough, and the fourth-grade tea begins to have a rough taste; the leaf bottom changes from tender buds to opposite leaves, and the color changes from light yellow to blue-green to yellow-brown. Summer and autumn Longjing tea has a dark green or dark green color, a larger tea body, no hair on the body surface, a bright yellow soup color, a fresh fragrance but rough, a strong and slightly astringent taste, and a bright yellow leaf bottom. The overall quality is worse than the same grade of spring tea.