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What is green tea?
Green tea is unoxidized tea: the fresh leaf is fixed with heat within hours of picking — a step the Chinese call shaqing — so oxidation never starts and the leaf keeps the character of the living plant. In China, where green tea (lü cha, 绿茶) is the oldest and largest of all tea categories, fixing is mostly done in a hot pan: the leaf goes in at around 250°C, then finishes at gentler heat while the master shapes it by hand. In Japan the leaf is steamed instead — and that single difference splits the green tea world in two.
What does green tea taste like?
Pan-firing gives Chinese greens a nutty, fruity, floral register: Longjing (Dragon Well) tastes herbal and nutty with a hint of roasted sunflower seeds, Bi Luo Chun of orchard fruit, Mao Feng of spring greens and flowers. Steaming gives Japanese sencha its grassy umami and marine note, while shade-grown gyokuro concentrates that umami into something close to broth. The lift is gentle too: green tea pairs moderate caffeine with the amino acid L-theanine, so alertness arrives smoothly, without coffee's jolt.
Famous green teas at a glance
| Tea | Region | Signature taste | Water |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longjing (Dragon Well) | West Lake, Hangzhou, Zhejiang | Herbal, nutty, roasted sunflower seeds | 75–80°C |
| Bi Luo Chun | Dongting hills, Lake Taihu, Jiangsu | Orchard fruit, delicate sweetness | 70–75°C |
| Huangshan Mao Feng | Huangshan, Anhui | Spring greens, flowers | 75–80°C |
| Sencha | Japan | Grassy umami, marine note | 70–80°C |
| Gyokuro | Japan, shade-grown | Broth-like umami, deep sweetness | 50–60°C |
Two Chinese classics, two landscapes
Authentic Xihu Longjing grows on just 168 square kilometres of hills around West Lake in Hangzhou — plots like Shifeng (Lion's Peak) and the tea village of Longjing itself. It takes some 26,000 hand-picked buds to make 500 g, and first-grade leaf is still shaped in the hot pan with the "ten hand manipulations" — shaking, throwing, pressing, polishing. Bi Luo Chun comes from the Dongting hills on Lake Taihu in Jiangsu, where tea bushes have always shared the slopes with apricot, peach and plum orchards — one reason for its fruity aroma; a kilogram of finished tea takes over 140,000 buds.
When is green tea harvested?
The best green tea is picked in early spring, when the plant wakes up with a winter's worth of stored sweetness. The Chinese calendar is strict about it: leaf picked before the Qingming festival in early April is considered the finest, and the harvest of famous greens runs through the Grain Rains season into early May. Green tea is at its peak young — drink it within a year of harvest for full aroma.
How to brew green tea
The one rule: do not boil it. Use fresh filtered water at 70–80°C, 3–4 g of leaf per 150–200 ml, and steep 1–2 minutes — or brew Chinese greens grandpa-style, leaves loose in a tall glass, topped up as you drink. Good leaf takes several short steeps. Too cool and the flavour never opens; too hot or too long and bitterness takes over — that balance is the whole craft of the cup.
We buy our greens directly at origin every spring, so the collection refreshes with each year's harvest. Orders ship from our Amsterdam warehouse across the Netherlands and Europe, and you can always taste before you buy at the Moychay tea club — Rozengracht 92H, Amsterdam.
Facts and figures in this guide are based on “Geography of Chinese Tea” by Sergey Shevelev, founder of Moychay — written after visiting every tea-producing province of China.
