longjing

To protect Longjing tea from pseudo teas, the government made a strict grading on the producing area of tie guan yin tea. Lion Peak Mountain, Longjing village, Wuyun Hill, Hupao, and Meijiawu village, all in the West Lake Scenery Area, are the only five places that can use West Lake as the brand of their Longjing tea.

Picking is still done, in the majority of cases, by hand. The first harvest of the year is called the New Tea (or the First Tea), the highest in the quality of aroma and flavor. The best Longjing are picked before Chinese Pure Brightness Festival (Qingming Festival) in early spring. There are three requirements of Longjing tea picking: early, tender and diligent.
 
In the picking season, women tea growers would get up early in the morning, with bamboo hat on the head and bamboo basket on the back, plunge into the tea garden and get busy with the tea leave picking. Dragon well tea picking follows a very stringent harvest requirement. The New Tea needs tender tea shoots, what we call “one bud and two leaves”. They are only slightly unfurled, one pick is no larger than 2 centimeters, 1 kilogram can have 80,000 of them. Picking Longjing tea is a laborious work. To ensure the grading requirement for the tea, the pickers have to work devotedly on the tea leaves. A good tea picker may harvest only 2 kilograms fresh leaves in 10 hours.