The special taste profile of a classic Longjing demands not only a fine harvest from a genuine pedigree, but also the mastery of hand-roasting the leaves. To attain such a skill takes the willingness to endure years of hard practice*. On top of that, a fine Longjing is perhaps the most sought after tea in its native market that is China, and there are people there that are willing to pay thousands for half a kilo of this tea. As a result, good roasting masters are in high demand. A good master producing with top quality harvests is even more rare. To secure a genuinely high quality is therefore a very challenging task. More so at the accessible price we are offering at. Tea Hong’s Longjing Traditional Supreme is a proud representation of the best quality of this precious craft, a taste that would have won nobles and mandarins in their tea competition, and when the Qing Emperor Qianlong was still young and flamboyant, and crazy about this tea.

Longjing Traditional Supreme is produced from the first flush of the ancient local cultivar rather than the recently developed ones. It grows slower, yields less, and needs more horticultural attention, but gives you a lot more taste.

The fresh plucks are shade-withered and then roasted briefly at between 85°C to 95°C before resting for about an hour for auto-rehydration. They are then roasted at around 70°C repeatedly, while being pressed against the wok to finally take on the very flat form that this tea is known for.

By hand all the way. Many tea masters prefer actually the bare hand for achieving the desired result.

The flattening of the leaves is intended not for the look, but for the flavour. Gradual squeezing forces the leaf juice out in direct contact with the heat. The 200+ compounds are then roasted to the super rich umami and aromatic taste profile that made this tea famous centuries ago.