Yinhao Longzhu (Silver Dragon Jasmine Pearls)
Scented Tea 2022
A beautiful, hand-rolled, pearl-shaped jasmine green tea with a mild, smooth flavor and a sweet finish. Its delicate character and gentle jasmine aroma last through multiple infusions. Ideal for those who want a nutritious high-end jasmine tea.
- 2021 $21.25
- Tea Origin
- Fuding City, Fujian Province, China; Jasmine from Heng County, Guangxi Province
- Tea Bush
- Dabai (Big White), Dahao (Big Hair)
- Tea Maker
- Zhou Qinghe
- Harvest Time
- Late March
- Plucking Standard
- One bud, one leaf
Silver Dragon Jasmine Pearls are made from one bud and one leaf picked in the early spring. The tea is hand-rolled into a pearl shape and dried as a green tea. The pearls appear white in color due to the fuzzy white trichomes of the plump young tea buds. These young sprigs have smaller stems and are rolled more tightly than the slightly more mature leaves of our Jasmine Pearls.
The traditional jasmine scenting process
To make this pearl style of jasmine scented tea from Fujian Province, the fresh spring tea is first harvested and processed as a green tea. Each pearl is hand-rolled into its shape before the tea is dried. The tea is then carefully stored for later use as a green tea base. Fresh jasmine flowers will not be available until a couple of months later, in the summer, when the jasmine plants’ blooming season begins. Scented tea makers will harvest large quantities of jasmine flowers whose petals have just barely begun to open. At this stage of growth, called “tiger’s palm,” the jasmine buds are at their most fragrant.
They mix the dry tea leaves with freshly picked jasmine flowers and let them rest for several hours to absorb the flavor and aroma of the jasmine. For this particular grade of Silver Dragon Jasmine Pearls, the mixture is about 60% tea and 40% jasmine. The tea is then meticulously separated from the flowers and dried once again to remove any moisture picked up from the fresh flowers. For this grade of tea, this process is done a total of five times with fresh batches of flowers each time. Making quality jasmine green tea this way takes around 2-3 weeks for the repeated mixing, separating, and drying. High grade jasmine pearls are identifiable by their clean, well sorted leaves, without any yellow fragments of dried jasmine flowers.
Green tea made from white tea bush cultivars
This particular Yin Hao Longzhu is made with leaves from the Dabai and Dahao tea cultivars that are famous for their smooth, sweet flavor, and large buds. Though they are most commonly made into white tea, their leaves can also be processed into green tea. The type of tea produced depends not only on the bush it comes from but how it is processed after picking. Using these excellent tea bushes to make Silver Dragon Jasmine Pearls results in a particularly smooth green tea.
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.
