origin Pan’an County, Zhejiang

craft pan roasted

flavor notes green bean, butter, crisp

origin Pan’an County, Zhejiang

craft pan roasted

flavor notes green bean, butter, crisp

This is Our Finest Dragonwell. Each leaf was hand-gathered daily in small quantities beginning on March 16th, 2025 from the first leaf buds of the year. Cultivated 4000 feet (1200m) above sea level at a remote tea garden in Zhejiang Province’s Pan’an County,Our Finest Dragonwell is the purest expression of green tea that we offer.

Harvested prior toChina’shistoricalShe Ri festival around March 20th, Our Finest Dragonwell is technically considered a sheqian or xueqian (“pre-snow”) tea. Xueqian harvests like this are the rarest of all green teas, superior even tohighly-revered (and more widely known)mingqiancrops.

The family that crafted this tea has been working the land for three generations, using only organic farming methods. Pan-roasting is done in ultra-smallbatches, witheach batch requiringnearly forty-five minutes to complete. Once roasted, the tea is meticulously re-sorted so that only the smallest leaf buds remain. Young leaf buds like this brew a smoother, rounder tea with more aromatics than mature leaves. Ultimately, it takes nearly five pounds of fresh tea buds to produce a single pound of finished tea; each pound contains nearly 30,000 individually hand picked buds. This extreme effort pays off in taste: Our Finest Dragonwell is viscous and supremely buttery, with a gorgeously crisp, sweet, and refined finish.

Heavy frost conditions extending into mid-March impacted this year’s harvest yield, making supply our 2025 crop extremely limited. Enjoy this tea today, while supplies last.

Premium green tea is intentionally crafted with the youngest possible tea buds to capture the sweet, crisp taste of spring. As such, your brewing method should be gentle enough to preserve these delicate notes. The brewing suggestion above will help you brew a cup with brightness and a smooth finish, while limiting bitter or vegetal notes.

Learn the fundamentals of tea brewing and master your technique here.