Geography
Hangzhou's Longjing Tea Is Not Scalding
- Woody
- Aquatic
Longjing tea is not scalding.
The truly particular way: water temperature eighty degrees, no boiling water. Let the tea leaves slowly sink in water. First infusion, tea leaves stand in water like needles, vertical, called flag spears. Then the leaves slowly open, become one bud one leaf, floating in water. The leaves that sink to the bottom are tender, the ones floating on top are old. The tender ones are better.
This is Longjing’s logic: what sinks down is good.
Hangzhou’s spring begins with Longjing. Late March, tea pickers enter the mountains, tea picking begins. Around the entire West Lake, only this season, only this batch. After this season, the leaves are old and cannot make Longjing. Tea’s logic has a temporal quality; it is valid only during a certain period.
The perfumer drank tea at a tea farmer’s home in Meijiawu. The host used a coarse clay pot, not a covered bowl. Pot-brewed Longjing is thicker, more astringent, more “present.” He said that astringency is what he wanted — astringency is not bad, astringency is tannin. Tannin is the tea plant’s defense system. Leaves bitten by insects have higher tannin content because the tea plant is resisting. Tea pickers do not want insect-bitten leaves, but the perfumer does. Because insect-bitten leaves have more character.
Character is the trace of resistance.
Hangzhou, the fragrance. Top note uses Longjing tea extract — not tea leaf infusion, but an essential oil obtained by supercritical extraction, at extremely low concentration, only taking its lightest layer. That layer is the tea’s “greenness,” the state before the tea has been fermented. Green tea’s logic: no fermentation, therefore there is green flavor. Green flavor is not a defect, green flavor is evidence of time stopping at the moment of picking.
Heart note is bamboo. Bamboo is not there, bamboo is present — it has always been there, but you do not notice it. Only in foggy weather do you discover bamboo is abundant. Hangzhou’s spring has much fog. Fog makes bamboo conspicuous, makes bamboo part of the air.
Base note is extremely light musk. Musk here is not the main character, it is just an ending. An ending of “the tea has cooled.”
After true Longjing tea cools, there is a slightly bitter huigan. This huigan is not the lingering taste of sweetness, it is what remains after sweetness ends — astringency after sweetness, bitterness after sweetness.
Hangzhou this fragrance is searching for that “after.”
Associated Notes: [Woody] [Aquatic]