This is a special tea made from Yunnan Large Leaf varietal tea in Jinggu. The tea is picked in spring season, wilted slightly and then dried with warm wind tunneled through the tea until it is dry. The tea shares a somewhat similar look and taste with white tea when it is young but over time will develop into something closer to red tea (hongcha). The taste is sweet and thick with malty tones and the tea can be brewed 7 or 8 times before losing its flavor. These Dragon Balls were made by my mother- in-law and father-in-law. They make them in their spare time. They use little pieces of cotton to compress them instead of saran wrap. Saran wrap compression is the most common method because it's faster, but it causes off gassing into the tea since the tea must be steamed to soften and is very hot. We use cotton, which is safe. Dragon balls are great because they are perfect single brewing servings, and because the leaves fare much better during transport and storage compared to loose leaf form, which tend to break apart causing the brewed tea to be overly astringent and/or bitter and detracts from overall look of the brewed leaves! 50% of the profits from the sales of these Dragon Balls will go directly to my father/mother-in-law. We will give them the money as a red packet during Chinese New Year, since they won't accept money directly from my wife or I. Most likely they will put most of it in the bank for their retirement! Each Dragon Ball is roughly 8 grams of tea (+/- 0.5 grams)
