Emperor’s Choice Gyokuro Tea

Tea in Japan isn’t simply a cuppa. Watch Japanese people sipping tea; the tea has their full attention, as if the whole body is part of the taste and fragrance experience. The finest teas are treated with veneration. Often hand-rolling 300gm of the finest tea takes six hours to complete. We spent a day with one of Japan’s finest artist-craftsmen tea masters, near the ancient capital Kyoto. He hand-rolls Japan’s finest Gyokuro

green teas for the personal use of the Emperor. Last year Dragonfly Teas were honoured to supply the tea to the Emperor of Japan during his stay, with his retinue of 80 courtiers, at London’s famous Claridge’s Hotel.

This Gyokuro is said to be the highest grade of Japanese tea and one of the very finest teas in the world, with leaves that are screen-shaded from the sun, to increase their sweet mellowness and greenness. The leaves are so fine that the infusion is traditionally eaten as a delicacy with the addition of ponzu sauce.

There are said to be only three people left in Japan who still roll tea by hand in the ancient way. It is said to take at least ten years to learn these ancient and traditional skills. The Gyokuro tea is rolled in quantities about the size of a loaf of bread, on a slightly heated paper-covered table.

Bruce Ginsberg reported that the lengthy process was carried out with huge enjoyment and great good humour, producing the most wonderful and extraordinary aromas. After Bruce’s visit to Japan, it was agreed that Dragonfly should be the tea master’s exclusive British Supplier. Emperor’s Pearl Dew Gyokuro has to be really fresh to be enjoyed at its optimum. We have again received a small, limited quantity of this remarkable tea. Try this wonderful and unique infusion.

Chinese National Tea Champions

Tea for us is an enchantment that draws us towards all sorts of tea gardens around the world. In China’s Szechuan province earlier this year an old Chinese Tea-master told us, the week before the earthquake in April, of the concept of ‘tea-friends’, that people who like tea, wherever, instantly have a friendship. Exactly our feelings.

We like to personally spend time with our growers, tea masters and suppliers, find new teafriends and deepen our insight into this long tradition that looks back to a reputed 6000 different teas, all with their own specialist techniques to create a subtle uniqueness.

One of our most entertaining discoveries, of late, came to our attention on a trip to China. Traditional Chinese tea houses are places of music and chatter. They are also invariably very busy places. The combination of these two factors has created a bizarre and wonderful national sport – tea pouring!

Competitors, dressed in 19th century attire and small circular hats, and bright satin scholar gowns or bright brocade trouser suits engage in an elaborate tea pouring ritual whereby hot tea is poured from brass teapots with 2-foot-long spouts over great height into tiny cups, without a drop being spilled. Over the shoulder, across the body, across the table with different acrobatic poses and contortions all incorporated to demonstrate pouring skills.

A national competition, a type of “Strictly Come Pouring” is televised across China, with competitors from well-known teahouses across China. Don’t try it yourselves; this year’s new champions showed us the scars on the backs of their necks from when it all went wrong. See the video