Lung Ching

I found something today that I will buy from China and not feel bad about it. It happened by mistake really, or bad fortune. Or good fortune, or fate, or whatever. True to form this morning, my Colonel headed over to 7-11 for his beloved cheap, crappy coffee, and I headed in the other direction to a plaza cafe for my favorite, yummy, expensive tea. BUT, to my complete and utter spoiled brat horror, when I arrived, there were no silk sachets of Harney's Pomegranate Oolong! None. Zero. Empty. Gone. I restrained myself from screaming and begged the Sunflower Cafe employee to please tell me they were NOT out of the only reason I came in this morning.
"Yes, it appears we are. But we've just placed an order and we should have more soon."
Shut up, I thought. You're wasting words. I don't care when more will be here, I just want THAT tea right NOW! How could you let this happen? How could you be so.... Well, it doesn't matter what I was thinking. What I'm getting to is, like the curious, adventuresome, new experience seeker that I am, I "put on my big girl panties" and said, "What is this tea like?" and pointed to something with a name so disgusting that I had to try it.

Lung Ching. (gesundheit)

"Well, it's a really nice green tea from China. It's pretty rare."
Well I guess so because the 2 dollars I brought with me weren't enough to pay for it. Instead of putting my extra dime in the tip jar, (no wonder they let my favorite run out) I had to go back to my car and get 2 more dimes. $2.20 for a small bag of leaves and a cup of hot water. This better be good.

And it was. It was delightful. It was delicate and sweet, yet strong and nutty. When I got home tonight, I looked it up to see why it's "pretty rare". It isn't really that rare, but I did learn about where it's from, how it's processed, and how it got that deliciously enticing (ehk!) name.

This tea is named after a legend that occured in the town where it is grown. Lung Ching means Dragon Well, and the tale is that in 250 AD, a Taoist monk thought there was a dragon living in a local well. During a really bad drought, the monk begged the dragon to come help the poor farmers out. Instantly, clouds rushed in and it began to rain.

The tea leaves are picked by hand only in March and early April, and dried by hand in a giant wok. Skilled (and probably burnt) hands press the leaves against the side of the wok and turn them repeatedly until they are flat. The first thing I noticed about the tea in my bag was how long and flat the leaves were. In Chinese culture, this tea is an excellent gift to share with friends, as it was once the tea of emperors.

A long time ago, once a year in March and early April, young virgins wearing gloves and using gold scissors, delicately plucked only the bud and the first leaf and put them into a golden basket. This was for the imperial Dragon Well tea.
Can you imagine what asshole emperor made that rule? Young virgins. Geez.