Xihu Longjing Tea

Longjing, the 'dragon well', is the pan-fired green tea of the hills west of Hangzhou, made from the leaves of the tea plant Camellia sinensis around the West Lake, the Dragon Well village and the neighbouring slopes. Tea has been grown in these hills for many centuries, and the flat, pressed style of leaf that defines Longjing today is the product of a long local craft of hand firing in the wok. Xihu Longjing is a registered geographical indication, and the name properly belongs to tea from the designated West Lake area. In the Jiangnan table that Fuchsia Dunlop describes in Land of Fish and Rice, the tea is also a cook's ingredient, most famously with freshwater shrimp, so it belongs to the kitchen as much as to the cup.

Longjing is a green tea, meaning the leaf is fired early to halt oxidation and keep it green. It is made from young spring shoots, a bud with one or two leaves, which are fired by hand in a smooth wok and pressed flat against its surface so that each leaf dries into a narrow, flat blade, pale jade to yellow-green in colour. The dry leaf smells of toasted chestnut and fresh grass, and the liquor is pale gold-green, clear, soft and sweet with little bitterness. The earliest spring picking, made before the Qingming festival in early April, is the most prized and the most expensive. In the kitchen, fresh leaves are briefly steeped and the infusion, with some leaves, is used to dress quickly cooked river shrimp (Macrobrachium nipponense).

Longjing is drunk plain, without milk or sugar, between meals and after them, and its light sweetness suits delicate Jiangnan food: steamed fish, river shrimp, bamboo shoots and lightly cooked greens. The structural reason is restraint, for a tea this fragrant and low in bitterness is overwhelmed by chilli or heavy oil but clears the palate after fat in the way a cleansing infusion should. In longjing xiaren, the leaf and its infusion perfume freshly cooked shrimp so that the tea's fragrance sits beside the sweetness of the shellfish without covering it.