Tea harvest time

"Tea for two, and Two for Tea" goes the old song, but right now in Hangzhou, that could mean two thousand rmb per kilogram, if it's the finest Long Jin tea. There's a special fragrance in the air and hustle and bustle in the tea shops as the world's finest Dragon Well (Long Jin) tea is picked, with the best of the harvest a week either side of April 5th.

Tea harvest time

Long Jin, counted one of the top ten teas in China, grows on high peaks around the village of Long Jin above Nine Creeks and Rosy Cloud Cave.
Tea harvet time
It has made Hangzhou a mecca for tea lovers who visit from around the world paying thousands of dollars for its unique flavour, green colour and smoky perfume. Locals will tell you that no amateur Chinese or foreign ever gets to taste the very finest Long Jin tea. That's reserved for connoisseurs who treasure it the way the finest wine is collected, with huge prices at auction and the best "vintages" remembered for centuries.

We left the car and climbed the steep hills from the Nine Creeks through ancient forest past mossy streams, past Rosy Cloud Cave to Long Jin village which has a panoramic view out over mountains and valleys to West Lake. The road winds steeply up past traditional mud and stone farm houses that could be in Switzerland In wooden tea barns and outside mountain tea shops newly-picked leaves were curing in heated woks. The roads are crowded with seasonal workers who pick the crop. Tea belongs to the same botanical family as Camellia and the perfume is almost as sweet.. The farmers of Long Jin are wealthy from tea, with high four and five storey houses that also serve as occasional restaurants. Most were too busy harvesting to cook for us but we found a place at the top of the highest hill to have lunch looking out over green valleys to the city and Lake in the far distance. Wine experts say wine always tastes best in the region where it is grown. We drank new tea at Long Jin and I can confirm that tea too tastes more delicious above the hillsides where it is grown.

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