Question on Dragonwell

[ryux]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum (or blog) and I've been fascinated by lots of tea experts on this site!

I love green teas (teas in general) and I've tried some of best Japanese greens (like gyokuro) and some of award winning Korean greens. Unfortunately, I was never able to get "great" dragonwell. I have a dozen of dragonwell sitting on my kitchen cabinet since I was trying out all different local sources I can find (ie: TenRen, etc - N.B. I know this is horrible place to get a good dragonwell)

So I was wondering if any tea experts in this forum might know of online seller that has a very good dragonwell...I don't mind about high price (I am willing to pay just for this once...to try out the best one I can find)

I came across these two sites- amazing-green-tea and teaspring. Are their Xi Hu Jin Ping grade ones any good? which one would you recommand? If you can suggest a better place to buy, I'd appreciate it very much too.

Thank you and I hope I get to learn even more about teas on this forum!

Mod edit: Links removed. Please see forum rules. Rule #6. New members with less than 6 posts and less than 30 days membership shall not post links.
Thanks,
Chip

[Jack_teachat]

Hi and welcome!

I've had the Emperor Long Ling from teaspring which I thought was very good!

Jack

[Oni]

Authentic LJ comes from Xi Hu, protected districts. Dragon teahouse`s Nonprail grade LJ is from Xi Hu, beware that Dafo LJ is not the original, it is produced with the same technique, but elsewhere. And Teaspring has Xi Hu LJ from the most famous company Tribute, and Lion, the first is from 1st degree protected farm with authenticity antifake label, so go ahead and buy it, if I have the money I surely will try it too.

[Chip]

I have had almost every Xi Hu Long Jing Teaspring has offered except this last harvest. I have never been disappointed.

Interesting comparison and an even more interesting coincidence. Amazing-Green being linked again when I cannot recall this site ever being linked on TeaChat before this week. I have edited the OP to remove the links per forum rules for a new member.

[ryux]

Thank you for all the replies.

I've read about teaspring on this forum, but I found out about the amazing-green while googling about dragonwell- I just felt that the name wasn't too authentic (with many dashes and all) for amazing-green and wanted to make sure it was reliable before I purchase something. (That being said, it could be a good vendor..I just never tried ordering from them)

I've already spent too much $ trying to find good dragonwell with no success..the teas weren't something spectacular. So all your inputs were very valuable! I drink sencha most of the times and drink gyokuro (and hopefully a nice dragonwell from teaspring when it arrives in about a week or so!) once in a while as a treat kinda thing so I'd like to have a nice one even if it cost me a little more.

Also, sorry about the forum rule thing (I should have read it carefully ) I'll keep that in mind when I post again next time. Thanks again!

[ryux]

pretty funny I found another post mentioning amazing-green on the other post just now. I guess that's what you meant by coincidentally?

[Oni]

Tell me which other teashop gives antifake labels beside Teaspring, Dragon teahouse?

[Intuit]

I think I will try the DragonHouse version first. I've been looking for a reputable source; the dragonwell teas I have tried in the past were not very good when compared against a high quality dragonwell sampled in Seattle a few years ago. I checked preparation issues against the larger question of quality by having a veteran tea drinker whom I respect prepare several of them while on a visit to her store - she agreed the dragonwell teas that I had weren't authentic.

[Beidao]

I've learnt that Long Jing claiming to be from Xi Hu should have a serial code that you can type into a homepage mastered by the chinese government and get an answer if it's authentic or not. I've tried this with a high grade Xi Hu Long Jing but from what I understood (thanx to babelfish) none of the serial numbers I tried from the package was right. Still, it was a very good Long Jing

[Tea Noob]

I've learnt that Long Jing claiming to be from Xi Hu should have a serial code that you can type into a homepage mastered by the chinese government and get an answer if it's authentic or not. I've tried this with a high grade Xi Hu Long Jing but from what I understood (thanx to babelfish) none of the serial numbers I tried from the package was right. Still, it was a very good Long Jing

Isn't there some irony when the country that is the worlds Mecca for counterfitting products has a government run site to authenticate something? I would have a hard time trusting anything from the Chinese government due to their track record.

[Chip]

It is very true that "antifake" labels can also be faked. Find a vendor you trust, but not blindly ... I tend to trust TeaSpring due to my interactions with management.

[gingkoseto]

I've learnt that Long Jing claiming to be from Xi Hu should have a serial code that you can type into a homepage mastered by the chinese government and get an answer if it's authentic or not. I've tried this with a high grade Xi Hu Long Jing but from what I understood (thanx to babelfish) none of the serial numbers I tried from the package was right. Still, it was a very good Long Jing

That may not cover all "authentic" tea, even if the site is authoritative enough. This situation happens in some places that local government or larger companies endorsed by local government monopoly on a product and have their own recognized as "authentic".

Long Jing situation is not bad. Xi Hu Long Jing, Shi Feng (lion) Long Jing and Mei Wu Long Jing are all good, if from right sources. Many people believe Shi Feng Long Jing taste the best. But of course taste judgment is very subjective.

The authenticity issue caused quite some debates on Zhu Ye Qing, another green tea. Zhu Ye Qing is name of a green tea, but a company somewhat obtained government's support to register "zhu ye qing" as its own trade mark. The company sells good zhu ye qing, but the trademark registration forbids all other people call their own product zhu ye qing, and by law, only zhu ye qing sold by this company is considered "authentic". But in reality people don't care. My recent zhu ye qing purchase was from a farmer in Sichuan. Even though by law his tea is not allowed to be sold under the name "zhu ye qing", he still calls it zhu ye qing and other people still call it so.

It would be nice if all the thousands of green teas have clear guidelines for their sources and grades. But in reality it's very hard to be done. And sometimes it's done in a way to benefit companies or a small group instead of most farmers or consumers. So currently probably the ancient rule is the best - just go to a seller you trust, or a seller trusted by people you trust.

[Shelob]

That may not cover all "authentic" tea, even if the site is authoritative enough. This situation happens in some places that local government or larger companies endorsed by local government monopoly on a product and have their own recognized as "authentic".
The authenticity issue caused quite some debates on Zhu Ye Qing, another green tea. Zhu Ye Qing is name of a green tea, but a company somewhat obtained government's support to register "zhu ye qing" as its own trade mark. The company sells good zhu ye qing, but the trademark registration forbids all other people call their own product zhu ye qing, and by law, only zhu ye qing sold by this company is considered "authentic". But in reality people don't care. My recent zhu ye qing purchase was from a farmer in Sichuan. Even though by law his tea is not allowed to be sold under the name "zhu ye qing", he still calls it zhu ye qing and other people still call it so.

It would be nice if all the thousands of green teas have clear guidelines for their sources and grades. But in reality it's very hard to be done. And sometimes it's done in a way to benefit companies or a small group instead of most farmers or consumers.

** So currently probably the ancient rule is the best - just go to a seller you trust, or a seller trusted by people you trust.

Gingko, Thanks you for this post, it is chock full of information.
** Great Advice, have heard it in this forum many, many, times

[taitea]

Xi Hu Long Jing, Shi Feng (lion) Long Jing and Mei Wu Long Jing are all good, if from right sources.

What are the differences between all of these? I've also seen the terms "Zhejiang" and "pre-qingming" thrown around in the context of longjings. I tend to ignore all these complications and just go with whatever is in my price range, but it would be nice to understand what's going on.

Has anyone tried any of the longjings from Goldenteahouse?

[gingkoseto]

Xi Hu Long Jing, Shi Feng (lion) Long Jing and Mei Wu Long Jing are all good, if from right sources.

What are the differences between all of these? I've also seen the terms "Zhejiang" and "pre-qingming" thrown around in the context of longjings. I tend to ignore all these complications and just go with whatever is in my price range, but it would be nice to understand what's going on.

Has anyone tried any of the longjings from Goldenteahouse?

The 3 kinds (Xi Hu, Shi Feng and Mei Wu) are the 3 small production districts in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, which is the hometown of Long Jing. The 3 districts are based on modern geographic classification, which is similar but slightly different from the classification of Long Jing districts in history.

Long Jing is under production region patent protection. Only above 3 kinds are qualified for Hangzhou Long Jing (historically called Xi Hu Long Jing, but this kind of overlaps the name of one of above 3 kinds). Long Jing produced within Zhejiang province but out of Hangzhou can be called Zhejiang Long Jing, but not Hangzhou Longjing or Xi Hu Long Jing. For example, the Da Fo Long Jing mentioned by oni, is a kind of Zhejiang Long Jing, but not the same as Hangzhou Long Jing. Only Hangzhou Long Jing is THE historically and globally famous Long Jing.

Zhejiang is a small province, so Zhejiang Long Jing's quality is relatively close to Hangzhou Long Jing, but not as good. There are other provinces that produce so called "long jing", with long jing techniques, but not really the same tea.

So if a vendor sells Long Jing without a pre-fix in the product's name, you may want to ask what long jing it is.

In my opinion, the real one, Hangzhou Long Jing, is good, but way overpriced, compared with many other good green teas. It's overpriced because everyone wants it, so the overpricing is forgivable. But other Long Jings shouldn't be that much overpriced and wouldn't worth too high a price.

Overall sources and grading of green tea is very confusing. This is just some surface info. about one green tea

Pre-qingming is the first flush of Long Jing. Pre-qingming Long Jing is supposed to be composed of mainly tea buds instead of widely opened leaves. That's the tea in which 80k buds would eventually make 1kg (roughly 2 lb.) final tea product.

And about grading, there are 11 or 13 grades for Hangzhou Long Jing (11 because the lowest 2 grades are no longer produced since all the raw tea is used to make upscale products). During the old time when the state owned everything, there were strict grading criteria and they were strictly followed. Now the criteria are still there, but since it's not law and most operators are private sectors, they don't see any benefit following it so they label the tea whatever grades as they wish