Dong Ting Bi Luo Chun

dòngtíng bìluóchūn

洞庭碧螺春

The classic green of Lake Tai — minute spiral leaves coated in white down, fragrant and sweet. Bi Luo Chun means "green snail spring", for the way each tiny leaf curls into a snail-shell whorl.

Region: Dongting hills, Lake Tai, Suzhou, Jiangsu
Harvest: Very early spring — tiny buds before Qingming
Oxidation: Unoxidised
Cultivar: Local Dongting small-leaf bushes

In the cup

Floral and fruity, with a clean sweetness and a soft, downy body — gentle and aromatic, never sharp.

What it gives

A light, fragrant lift — low astringency and the antioxidant freshness of an early-spring green.

Bi Luo Chun is among the most celebrated of China’s green teas, grown on the Dongting hills that rise from Lake Tai near Suzhou, in Jiangsu. The bushes share their slopes with peach, plum and apricot orchards, and the leaf is said to take up the fruit fragrance of the trees it grows among — part of why a good Bi Luo Chun smells of flowers and orchard fruit.

The leaf is plucked tiny and early, before Qīngmíng, then rolled by hand into the characteristic snail-shell spirals while still warm, each one furred with fine white down. It takes a great many buds to make a single portion, which is part of its prestige.

In the cup

Brew it cool — well off the boil, around 75–80 °C — and pour the water first, then drop the curled leaf on top so it sinks slowly as it opens. The cup is pale, floral and sweet, with that soft downy texture and a clean orchard-fruit note. Drink it young, in the season it was picked.

How to brew