The leaves come in tight, snail-shell spirals, downy and green, from Dongting Mountain in China's Jiangsu Province. Pickers take only the earliest spring growth, then pan-fire it gently to lock in flavour and aroma. It grows near Lake Tai, and the lake's mist is often credited with shaping its particular character. People have picked tea this way here for over a thousand years, tracing back to the Tang Dynasty, when it was already a favourite at court. The name it carries now was given later, during the Qing Dynasty, by the Kangxi Emperor, and points to both the tea's spiral shape and its spring harvest. It's counted among China's Ten Famous Teas.
Brewed, the liquor runs a soft golden-green, with a delicate floral aroma. The taste is light and buttery with a crisp edge: gentle sweetness alongside notes of chestnut, orchard fruit, and a bright lemon-like lift, with umami undertones underneath. The finish is clean, a little sweet, and it lingers. Steep it more than once — later infusions often show sides of the flavour the first pour doesn't.
It contains caffeine, roughly 25 to 40mg per 8-ounce cup depending on how it's brewed, less than a black tea would give but enough for a mild lift. Green tea's catechins and L-theanine have long been credited with a calm, alert kind of focus, though that owes as much to tradition as to any settled science.
To brew it, use about 3g of leaf for every 150ml of water, heated to roughly 80°C rather than a full boil, which would scorch the delicate leaves. Steep for a minute to ninety seconds, adjusting to taste, in a clear glass pot if you have one so you can watch the spirals unfurl. A slice of lemon suits it; sugar tends to mask more than it adds. Once opened, store it in an airtight container somewhere cool, dark, and free of strong odours to keep the aroma and flavour from fading.
