It's amazing the work that would've been done to deforest the mountainsides and plant these crops. The air pressure, humidity, light and soil all play such a vital part in the development of the plant itself. This specialized tea can only be grown here with the same significant results. The properties of the Longjing Dragon Well tea is well-known, famous actually. Promoting longevity, good health, internal cleansing...to name a few. The actual reported properties of thsi amazing plant go beyond the scope of this blog but the links below may provide additional insight.
Enjoying Tea (.com) or Wikipedia's take on the subject here.
(Below) the Chiu Lau students gather at the small building complex where the tea is dried, packaged and sold. All sorts of goodies awaited us inside... Candies made with tea, exceptionally-crafted tea-pots and accessories, and of course, the Dragon Well green tea itself.
(Below) Smaller hills and mountains were just as susceptible to cultivation as the flat fields of other crops seen elsewhere. A much different landscape than the flat and monochromatic scenes of Alberta and Saskatchewan farms that I have grown accustomed to.
(Below) Tea trees, all lush and green. The real good tea (First Flush, A-Grade) comes from the top 6-inches of the branches where the new leaves form. The rest are separated into B-Grade, and so on representative of the effort of retrieval and rarity of the leaves in question.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the plantation does not export A-Grade First-flush Dragon Well Green Tea (only for the Emperor or now, just to politcal dignitaries, Prime Minister and the like), but there are some excellent and high-quality alternatives, such as:
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