Chun Mei Green Tea (Zhen Mei)

When you want a really refreshing tea, Chun Mei is a perfect choice - widely drunk in China during and after meals with strongly-flavored foods. With leaves of a consistent size and shape, TeaVivre’s Chun Mei is picked early in the year before the rainy season sets in, to ensure it has the best taste and the smooth, sweet aftertaste that this tea is known for.

	Cup Method		Chinese Gongfu Method
	Teacup: 12oz / 355ml		Gaiwan: 3.8oz / 110ml
	185℉ / 85℃		185℉ / 85℃
	1.5 Teaspoons / 3g Tea		4g Tea
	Brewing time: 2 - 3 mins		7 steeps: rinse, 15s, 25s, 35s, 50s, 80s, 110s, 140s
			Rinse time is around 3 seconds

Baita (which means White Tower) Tea Garden (白塔茶园) is located in Keemun County, the corn-producing area of Keemun black tea, in Huangshan City. There are more than 9,225 acres of ecologically-rated tea gardens here, including almost 3,000 acres of organic-certified gardens.

The source of TeaVivre’s Chun Mei tea today is the same as its original birthplace, high in the mountains of Anhui province. This amazingly beautiful area is a mix of high, rugged mountains and dense, lush forests, with cool temperatures and a perpetual mist that make it ideal for growing delicate tea buds and leaves.

Keemun Zhuye (槠叶 ) has a composition consisting of 31.11% polyphenols, 14.66% catechin, 5.42% amino acids, and 44.72% water extractives. This is a nationally-recognized species and is suitable for making black and green teas. Green tea made from this bush is characteristic in its refreshing, brisk, and mellow taste.

Chun Mei traces its roots back to a traditional type of green tea produced in Anhui during the Ming Dynasty in the 1600s, called Anhui green tea. As the hand-rolling and processing techniques of this tea evolved and improved, the higher quality versions were given a new name, Chun Mei, in order to distinguish them from the earlier and inferior forms. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Chun Mei became hugely popular in China, and to this day is still the most commonly drunk green tea in the country.