Mo Li Long Zhu

mòlì lóngzhū

茉莉龙珠

Jasmine dragon pearls — tender green tea hand-rolled into small spheres, then scented over many nights with fresh jasmine blossom. Each pearl unfurls into a fragrant, sweet cup.

Region: Fujian — green base scented with Guangxi jasmine
Harvest: Spring green base; scented in late summer at jasmine bloom
Oxidation: Unoxidised green, jasmine-scented
Cultivar: Bud-and-leaf green tea, hand-rolled to pearls

In the cup

Fresh jasmine over a soft green base — floral and sweet, with a clean rock-sugar finish and no soapiness when well made.

What it gives

A calming, fragrant cup — the gentle lift of a green tea carried on the soothing scent of jasmine.

Mo Li Long Zhu — jasmine dragon pearls — is the most elegant form of China’s jasmine-scented green. A tender green base of buds and young leaves is hand-rolled into small pearls, then scented in the traditional way: layered with freshly picked jasmine over a series of nights so the leaf drinks in the living fragrance, the spent flowers removed and replaced again and again.

Good scenting uses real blossom, not oil, and the leaf and the flower never meet in the finished tea — only the perfume remains. The base is usually a Fujian green, and the jasmine the famous summer-blooming flowers of Guangxi.

In the cup

Brew around 80–85 °C and watch a pearl slowly unfurl as it releases its scent. The cup is floral and sweet, the jasmine bright over a soft green base, finishing clean with a rock-sugar sweetness. A well-made dragon pearl gives several fragrant steeps before the perfume fades.

How to brew