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Lingyan Tea
Jin Jun Mei - Special Grade
Jin Jun Mei - Special Grade
Regular price
$21.50
Regular price
Sale price
$21.50
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
50g (approximately 5g per pack, 10 packs per box)
Jin Jun Mei's remarkable achievement lies in its harvest. Only the freshest single buds are hand-picked in the early spring mornings, usually completed within a short ten-day window around Qingming Festival. Each bud is carefully selected to ensure perfection, and producing 500 grams of finished tea requires an astonishing 50,000 to 60,000 of these delicate buds. This meticulous and labor-intensive selection has made Jin Jun Mei a valuable and prestigious tea.
Jin Jun Mei's craftsmanship represents the exquisite evolution of the 400-year-old Lapsang Souchong tradition. Although the traditional Lapsang Souchong was smoked with pinewood, Jin Jun Mei completely deviated from this method. The process follows a refined sequence:
Withering: Fresh leaves gently unfold to release moisture, combining sunlight with controlled indoor conditions to achieve ideal curl and flexibility.
Rolling: To prevent fragile buds from cracking, leaves are often manually rolled onto a glass surface, carefully breaking through cell walls to initiate oxidation.
Fermentation: Temperature and humidity are precisely controlled to develop the tea's unique color and layered aroma.
Charcoal Baking: Fermented leaves are dried over charcoal fire through a slow, low-temperature baking process, rather than with smoking pine wood. This key innovation endows Jin Jun Mei with a fresh and rich quality, without the smoky scent of her ancestors.
The result is a tea that captures the senses. The dry leaves are long and compact, beautifully intertwined in shades of black, gold, and yellow. Golden tips are the fine, soft hairs on the flower buds. During brewing, the wine exhibits a translucent golden hue, adorned with a brilliant gold ring at the top, a hallmark of its exceptional quality and high theophylline content.
Aroma: The fragrance is a delicate floral scent: a harmonious blend of wild orchid, stone fruit, and unique honey sweetness, often accompanied by subtle notes of roasted nuts or cocoa, as well as wild wooden aromas from its native environment. This is the famous "honey, fruit, flower" complex of tea.
Taste and texture: Jin Jun Mei has an exceptionally smooth, rich, and sweet texture, with a fresh and clean finish that leaves a lasting cool sensation on the throat. It is never bitter; its taste is often described as "clear, aromatic, sweet, and refreshing".
Endurance: With quick steeps, this tea can be steeped ten times or longer, with each steeping revealing a new layer of characteristics while maintaining its unique sweetness.
How to brew: Use water from 95°C to 100°C and a shorter steeping time. Start with a quick rinse, followed by 5-10 seconds for the first steeping.
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