Long Jing (Dragon Well) Drink Off (Review #5)

I recently compared three long-jing (dragon well) teas.  One is a first flush from Ito-en picked on March 30th of this year and sells for $19 per oz. (Note that this isn't available on their website but they do have a pre-ching-ming long-jing.  It was only available in their NYC store.) The other two are from Upton tea - one is the special grade organic (Upton code ZG61) which is $11.80 for 100g, while the other is Emperor's Tribute (Upton code ZG97) which is $31.30 for 100g. Can you guess which is which in the photo?

The dry leaf of the Ito-en long-jing has a wondefully sweet fragrance.  The brewed tea (175F, 3 min. - for all 3 teas) reflects the aroma with flowery fragrant high notes.  As time goes on the underlying nutty flavor typical of long-jing comes through.  This is one of the best long-jing teas I've experienced, as it should be for the price.

The dry leaf of the special grade organic from Upton has a similar fragrance as the Ito-en leaf but it not nearly as strong or as sweet.  Unfortunately the brewed tea delivers even less than the fragrance would suggest.  The high notes are not nearly as sweet and the nuttiness is weaker.  This is a decent long-jing though, especially for the price and it's great that it's organic. I would consider buying it again if I was looking for an organic long-jing.

Last in the line-up is the Emperor's Tribute long-jing and I have to say right up-front that this was rather disappointing, even more so when price is considered.  The tea had close to no fragrance - maybe just a hint of nuttiness like toasted almonds.  Maybe this tea is too old? Using a similar amount of tea (1.5 or 2 teaspoons?) as when I brewed the other two, the liquor came out rather weak.  It really had no high-notes; that is there was no sweetness.  There was a rather nice nutty flavor of toasted almonds, just like the fragrance.  On subsequent experiments with this tea I tried using more dry leaf and that helped but only marginally.  Upton disappointed me on this one.  This is not a good long-jing in my opinion.

I tried all three of these on several occasions over about 10 days and I found all three teas to be very consistent.  Since I do think long-jing is one of the best, if not the best, Chinese green tea I will continue to search out other sources.  I do have one more long-jing on order from Jing Tea in the UK. 

Now as for the photos, the Ito-en March 30th long-jing is on the left, the Emperor's Tribute is in the middle and the organic long-jing is on the right.