Cui Zhu (Green Bamboo)
Green Tea 2024
Among the first teas to be harvested in all of China, this genuine “solid heart” Cui Zhu offers only the youngest and densest tea buds with refreshing, crisp, and floral tones.
We recommend steeping this one in a tall glass. Your smooth green tea buds will remain closed as they infuse but stand vertically and sway like a bamboo forest.
$29.00
- Tea Origin
- Mengding Mountain, Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Fuding #9
- Tea Maker
- Luo Ping
- Harvest Time
- February 14th, 2024
- Plucking Standard
- One bud
This bright green tea is made entirely of tea buds, gently processed to be the absolute greenest of greens in both flavor and color.
The stiff buds are known as a “solid heart” (实心 shi xin) plucking because they are so tightly packed with leaves that they cannot be kneaded. The shi xin stage is harvested so early that the solid bud does not yet have any air inside it, as it will only after mere one more day’s growth.
The pan frying step is critical to Cui Zhu’s greenness and overall quality. If the temperature of the pan is too low, the tea will have a dull, grassy smell. If the temperature of the pan is too high, the tea will lose its fresh bamboo-leaf color, or worse yet, the buds may blister and burn, masking the gentle flavor of these buds with soot.
Only experienced makers can make this tea by the traditional hand-made process: frying the buds when the wok temperature is just right, gently working the tea to maintain the uniform shape and green color while they develop the fresh, spring vegetable sweetness of the tea buds without burning them. During the frying process, the fuzzy white down of the bud is pressed off of the buds, making each one glossy and green, like a fresh young bamboo shoot, thus giving the tea its name.
Fresh Cui Zhu is a visual experience too. We recommend brewing Green Bamboo in a glass. As your tea buds infuse, they will stand vertically, drifting up and down like the swaying leaves of a bamboo forest.
No chemical fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide was used in the production of this tea. Click here to read more about our promise to fair trade and the environment.
