Lijiang Lü Luo

Lijiang Lü Luo — green snail of the Li river — is a regional green from the Guilin karst country in Guangxi, made along the banks of the river whose limestone peaks are among the most painted landscapes in China. Its name echoes one of the country’s great greens, Biluochun, the “green snail spring” of Jiangsu, and the leaf is worked the same way: tender buds wok-roasted and twisted into tight little spirals.

The Guilin soils run high in selenium, which has given the region a name for “selenium-rich” teas with extra antioxidant character. The cup is clean and floral — spring greens and meadow flowers up top, warm chestnut and a faint cream beneath — soft, silky and faintly sweet, with the returning sweetness greens are loved for and no bitterness when brewed with care.

In the cup

Brew it cool, around 75 °C, in a tall glass. Half the pleasure is visual: the spirals sink and slowly unfurl, drifting in the water in the slow dance the Chinese call chá wǔ. Drink it young, in the season of its harvest.