best longjing

[purerealm]

Where can I get the best longjing, and is it worth it? I 've been eyeing this one site amazing green tea they make it sound like their green tea is quintessential, but nobody else from blogs or forums really mention them. Anyone having tried them?
It's mighty expensive.

I think for now I will stick with O-Cha's yutaka midori and perhaps yame gyukuro as my real debut into green tea.

[Oni]

Be sure that every site will brag to have the best teas, even if their tea is far inferior that others (like teavana, they sell mass produced tea), a few thing are for sure, that japanese tea must be bought directly from japan, usually japanese vendors preserve their green tea by adding nitrogen to the package, and cold storing it around a few degrees above 0 C, so i recomende sticking to japan based vendors like> o-cha, horaido, hibiki-an, maiko.nr.jp, ippodo, zencha, marukyu-koyamaen, bassaro, etc.
I have no experience with chinese greens but I would buy Long Jing from those 4 famous brands that are considered authentic Xi Hu LJ, and usually have serial numbers that can be verified like> mei ja wu LJ (dragon teahouse sells it), Lion Shi feng LJ (teaspring, seven cups), Tribute LJ (famous company buy via Teaspring). Generally rea LJ is expencieve usually above 40$/100 gramms.
Best of luck on your tea journey.

[iannon]

I had actually been trying to find info on them too or someone that has bought from them. Supposedly theirs is "Tribute" so it would be expensive..it seems about on Par price wise with the teaspring prices actually a *little* cheaper than teaspring. teaspring has their jingpin grade at 53.90 for 50 grams and amazing has theirs at 43.90 for 50 grams.

both has AAA grade Tribute as well teaspring at 38.30 and amazing at 28.95 for 50g

I've just never heard of anyone on here yet that has got anything from Amazing so the "safer" bet would probably be teaspring

I have also heard good things about "dragon tea House", an ebay store/seller. they sell their highest end which is a mei ja wu from XiHu which is 44.99 for 100 grams

I have been concentrating on shincha here so I hadent gotten around to making a decision on LJ's

[murrius]

This is just my view on things but with Long Jing I would start lower down on the ladder and work your way up. For example, the Long Jing from our host company, Adagio, is perfectly fine ($19 for 5 oz) and is a good introduction to this tea. After that, move to the Long Jing from Teaspring ($25 for 5 oz). Once you have created a base line, then go nuts and get a premium Long Jing.

[DoctorD]

I agree. Unless you're going to be really precious about it, I'd say mid-range LJs probably deliver the best value for the money. There's also more adventure in it. I'm currently drinking the mid-range Teaspring LJ and enjoying it a great deal. But if memory and my tasting records serve me, just about the most satisfying LJ I've ever had was half the price, and another almost as good was even cheaper than that. Of course I've got another one in the cupboard at the moment, from a vendor that shall remain unnamed, also half the price, that tastes like it was put together by a committee that couldn't agree on what they were trying to make; ugh. You never know.

[tenuki]

mid grade longjing is easier to brew and a better value, stick with that for a while first. as in most things getting to 90% perfection is the best value, with the cost after that increasing exponentially vs a very small in increase in quality.

[Proinsias]

Any recommendations for the higher grade stuff this year?

I've got my eye on the Imperial Shi Feng at Jing but that may just be because I didn't order from them last year and have been building up to an order for a while. I'll probably pick up some midrange stuff whatever happens.