Dragonwell Green Tea

One of China’s celebrated heritage green teas, Dragonwell—also known as Longjing or Lung Ching—is a spring-picked, pan-fired tea from the West Lake area of Hangzhou, offering fresh green character, gentle nuttiness, natural sweetness, and a beautifully layered finish.

The Experience

Dragonwell Green Tea is an essential tea for anyone who wants to understand the tradition of Chinese green tea. Also known as Longjing (龍井) or Lung Ching, this Chinese heritage tea comes from the West Lake area of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, China. Tender spring growth is hand-picked and carefully pan-fired using a traditional production process that gives Dragonwell its characteristic appearance and distinctive flavor.

The cup is fresh and full of green-tea character without being one-dimensional. Expect grassy notes layered with gentle nuttiness, the evocative aroma of autumn leaves, natural sweetness, and a light, refreshing astringency. This is a tea that rewards attention—and one worth brewing more than once.

Tasting Notes

Top: Fresh greens • Grassy notes
Mid: Gentle nuttiness • Autumn leaves
Finish: Naturally sweet • Light astringency • Clean
Body: Medium

Why You’ll Love It

• A celebrated Chinese heritage green tea
• Grown in the West Lake area of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province
• Hand-picked from tender spring growth
• Traditionally pan-fired rather than steamed
• Distinctive combination of grassy, nutty, and naturally sweet notes
• Medium-bodied with a clean, lightly astringent finish
• No added flavoring or botanicals
• Excellent for two or three infusions
• An essential tea for exploring the differences between Chinese and Japanese green-tea traditions

Tea, Origin & Grade

Tea Type: Green Tea
Traditional Name: Longjing / Lung Ching
Grade: Lung Ching Grade #2
Origin: Zhejiang Province, China
Growing Area: West Lake area of Hangzhou
Elevation: Approximately 1,000–1,500 m (~3,300–5,000 ft)
Processing: Non-fermented, traditionally processed, small-batch crafted and pan-fired
Ingredients: Green tea
Added Flavoring: None
Caffeine: Caffeinated
Body: Medium
Classification: Purist / Chinese Heritage Tea
Organic: Yes

How to Brew

Use 1 heaping teaspoon with The Perfect Measure Spoon per 8 oz / 237 ml of water at 185°F / 85°C.

Mild: 1–2 minutes
Medium: 2–3 minutes
Strong: 3–5 minutes

For your first cup, we recommend approximately 2 minutes, then adjust subsequent infusions to your preference. Avoid boiling water. Gentler temperatures allow Dragonwell's fresh green character, subtle nuttiness, and natural sweetness to emerge without drawing excessive bitterness from the leaf. And don't discard the leaves after one infusion. Brew them two or three times and notice how the balance of sweetness, vegetation, nuttiness, and astringency changes from cup to cup.

Perfect For

Dragonwell is particularly suited to purist tea drinkers, students of Chinese tea, green-tea enthusiasts, or anyone ready to explore beyond flavored green teas into teas where origin and craftsmanship create the flavor. Pair it with steamed fish, shrimp, dumplings, tofu, rice dishes, lightly seasoned vegetables, mild cheeses, fresh fruit, almond cookies, or subtly sweet pastries. For your first tasting, however, we recommend drinking it by itself and without milk or sweetener.

What Makes Dragonwell Distinctive?

Dragonwell is particularly useful for learning about Chinese green tea because its identity comes from the intersection of place, spring harvest, leaf selection, and pan-firing.

Unlike many Japanese green teas that are associated with steaming, Dragonwell is traditionally heated in a pan to stop oxidation and shape the leaves. That processing helps create the flavor profile for which the style is known: fresh vegetation accompanied by softer roasted or nutty dimensions rather than purely steamed-green character.

Look at the dry leaf as well as the brewed cup. Dragonwell is traditionally recognized by its distinctive flattened leaf appearance, another result of the way the leaves are worked during manufacture. In a purist tea containing nothing but Camellia sinensis, details like these become the recipe.

Spring in Hangzhou: Why Harvest Timing Matters

This Dragonwell is hand-picked spring growth from the West Lake area of Hangzhou. Traditionally, some of the most prized Dragonwell teas are associated with very early spring picking, including harvests before the Qingming Festival, sometimes translated as the Clear Brightness Festival, and before the heavier spring rains.

Why so much attention to timing? Young spring growth differs from larger, more mature leaves harvested later in the season. The choice of when to pick—and which shoots to select—affects the tea's aroma, texture, flavor, and refinement.

That doesn't mean every later-picked tea is inferior or that an early date alone guarantees quality. But in Dragonwell tradition, spring harvest timing is an important part of understanding both the tea's style and its historical value.

Dragonwell, Longjing or Lung Ching?

You may encounter all three names.

• Dragonwell is the familiar English translation.
• Longjing is the modern Mandarin romanization of 龍井.
• Lung Ching is an older romanization that remains common in the international tea trade—and is reflected in this tea's Lung Ching Grade #2 designation.

They refer to the same tea tradition rather than three different kinds of green tea. The name literally connects the tea with “Dragon Well,” a place surrounded by centuries of local history and legend in Hangzhou.

Traditional stories tell of a dragon associated with a local well and of prayers for rain during drought. Whether encountered as history, folklore, or cultural memory, the Dragon Well story has become inseparable from the identity of the tea that bears its name.

Pan-Fired vs. Steamed: Taste the Difference

One of the most educational comparisons you can make in green tea is Chinese Dragonwell versus Japanese Bancha or Sencha. The ingredient can be exactly the same—green tea—yet the cups are dramatically different.

• Dragonwell — China: Grassy • Nutty • Sweet
  → Traditionally pan-fired, creating fresh green character alongside warmer, gently roasted dimensions
• Bancha — Japan: Grassy • Sweet pea • Smooth
  → Steamed, producing a distinctly fresh and vegetal Japanese expression

Neither technique is inherently better. They represent different tea-making traditions. Tasting them side by side is an excellent demonstration of one of our favorite lessons at Churchill's: processing can be just as important as ingredients in determining what you taste.

Why Does Dragonwell Taste Nutty If There Are No Nuts?

The ingredient list is wonderfully simple: Green tea. There are no nuts, grasses, flowers, sweeteners, or autumn leaves added to Dragonwell. Those are tasting notes—sensory comparisons we use to describe aromas and flavors naturally created by the tea plant, its growing environment, harvest, and processing.

The gently nutty character associated with Dragonwell is particularly useful for understanding the influence of pan-firing. Heating and working green tea differently can create aromatic dimensions that remind the palate of toasted grains, chestnuts, or nuts, even though none are present.

Learning to separate “what does this taste like?” from “what ingredients are in this?” is an important step toward tasting purist tea more deeply.

Packaging: Our loose teas are sold by the ounce and packaged in food-grade resealable bags.

Explore Chinese Green Tea

Dragonwell is an ideal starting point for exploring the diversity of traditional Chinese green tea. Compare its pan-fired, grassy and nutty character with the naturally floral creaminess of Dragon Pearls, the curled leaves and unusual marine-fruit nuances of Bi Luo Chun, or the brisk everyday character of Zhen Mei.

Dragonwell Green Tea (This Tea)
Grassy • Nutty • Naturally Sweet
→ Best for: experiencing one of China's great pan-fired green-tea traditions

Dragon Pearls Green Tea
Floral • Sweet • Creamy
→ Try next if: you want to explore tender spring leaves hand-formed into pearls that dramatically unfurl in the cup

Bi Luo Chun Green Tea
Silky • Marine • Grape
→ Try next if: you'd like a curled Chinese heritage green tea with a softer marine and naturally fruity character

Zhen Mei Green Tea
Vegetal • Brisk • Classic
→ Try next if: you're looking for a more straightforward everyday Chinese green tea for comparison

Together, these teas demonstrate that “Chinese green tea” is not a single flavor profile. Leaf selection, region, harvest, shape, and processing can create remarkably different experiences from the same tea plant. Taste them without added milk or sweetener and pay attention to aroma, body, flavor, finish, and the appearance of the wet leaves. Four teas containing essentially the same ingredient can tell four remarkably different stories.