Before coming to Hangzhou, I knew very little about Longjing, and I hadn't even drunk it once. Guangdong people do not often drink green tea, the general morning tea wine home will not provide green tea options, mostly Pu'er or chrysanthemum tea, and later I learned about it, indeed Guangdong people are the largest consumer group of Pu'er tea.
Speaking of drinking green tea, after coming to Hangzhou, I found that the original drinking of tea and the festival are synchronized, and the beauty of the seasons given by Jiangnan people is closely related to life. Before doing homestays, the landlord is a tea farmer, the family is a big tea garden, push the window to see, every year in March and April, from Anhui invited tea pickers every day in the rural road, the first spring tea can be sold to what price, related to the tea farmers a whole year's income. Although Longjing tea is so tight, it seems to be less popular in ancient times. Lu Yu also wrote in the Tea Classic, "Western Zhejiang, with Huzhou as the upper ... Changzhou times... Xuanzhou, Hangzhou, Muzhou, Shezhou under ..." It can be seen that Longjing tea is the last to come, the ranking in Songluo, Huqiu, Yuecha (mountain tea, too like this lost tea, the next time I want to go back to it) Several famous teas have been difficult to juxtapose for a long time, if I, a layman, judge the delicious green tea drunk in Jiangnan, Longjing is not in my first place.
Many people may think that I, the "new" Hangzhou person, am not authentic enough, but my understanding of Longjing is still stuck between true and false. I have also had the privilege of drinking the first spring tea picked from my doorstep several times, but the taste is just like the "grass lai qi" depicted by Xiong Mingyu in "Luo Yue Tea Shuo" that year, and it has stayed so far. There is no disparagement of Longjing tea, according to the words of tea drinkers. I just haven't tasted the real taste yet, like a child saying that tea is bitter. But later I was not afraid to drink fake Longjing, because I simply drank "Zhejiang tea", such as Jingshan tea, Songyang tea, Xinchang tea, etc., it seems that the taste is sweeter than the MingQian Longjing and with some wild game, the price is moderate, and it will not hurt to drink.
Everyone blindly pursues freshness, non-head spring tea is called first-class, non-Ming pre-picking is valuable, non-Shifeng Mountain head in a certain area, tea drinkers taste tricky, this is the culprit that breeds fake tea. Drinking Longjing, drinking is the faint smell of beans, or it may be the seemingly nothing "grass lai qi", people pursue that feeling of nothingness, just like the tea ceremony that is now divine, in fact, the difference is very small, the price is too expensive, take a little, the tea is light, there is a kind of ethereal pride. So I often tell people that the favorite is still the tea before the rain, eat it has a tea taste, clear and fragrant, in fact, the bottom of my heart is very inferior, after all, I can't afford to buy thousands of pieces of Mingqian tea, I can only say that the grapes are sour.
Among the many tea varieties, green tea is the easiest to brew, and Hangzhou people like to use the simplest glass to brew Longjing, in order to see the tea leaves slowly rising in the water. Later, I also learned that hangzhou's sisters used glass bowls to brew, and then used wooden spoons to divide tea, the original simple process of brewing green tea became complicated, and the impetuousness in my heart was slowly soothed with the process of making tea. Green tea is also to be brewed with heart, must not be like the drivers in Hangzhou, the best Longjing soaked in the thermos cup, and when opened to drink, the color becomes dark yellow, I thought to myself, he must be brewing fake Longjing, strange not to cherish.
I still can't distinguish the authenticity of Longjing tea, and then I think about it, if I drink a cup of fresh green tea in Hangzhou in the spring, even if it comes from Longjing or other mountain streams, I can drink this grassy gas, and I will not waste this year's good season in vain.