April 2026 Tea Subscription

Thank you for coming onboard Parchmen & Co and travel with us to savour our world in a cup!

We aim to bring tea drinkers into the world of extremely fine and exclusive teas. These teas used to be inaccessible to commoners in the past but today we are able to bring it to you via our extensive network of sources directly from tea farms owned by our friends in different countries.

In the month of April 2026, we are featuring two pre-Qingming green teas and a black tea:

- 2026 Spring Pre-Qingming Shi Feng Dragon Well 明前西湖狮峰龙井 10g
- 2026 Spring Pre-Qingming Doctor Tea Organic Qiantang Dragon Well 茶博士有机钱塘龙井 10g
- 2021 Guizhou Hand Pressed Brick Black Tea 贵州手筑茯茶 10g


2026 pre-Qingming spring teas are here!

Long Jing green tea, translated into English as Dragon Well, is perhaps the most famous tea within and outside China. Ancient records showed that a monk named Bian Cai (辩才) planted a tea seedling at Shifeng Mountain (狮峰山) near Dragon Well Temple (龙井寺) during the Tang dynasty. The terroir gave birth to a tea of exceptional quality and it was replanted in many temples in the vicinity - it was recorded in Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea (陆羽《茶经》) that neighbouring temples Ling Yin Temple (灵隐寺) and Tian Zhu Temple (天竺寺) produced tea. The tea took the name of a famous well in the area - Dragon Well (龙井) - rumoured to be connected to the Palace of the Dragon. Where the well was located, the Dragon Well Temple has been burned down and destroyed repeatedly in the past dynasties, with the final rebuild in 2005 referring to old records.

During the subsequent Song dynasty, these teas were listed as royal tribute teas. Drawn to the fame and fantasy associated to this tea, Qianlong (乾隆) emperor of the subsequent Qing dynasty built a palace in Hangzhou (杭州) where the tea is. When he arrived in Hangzhou for the first time in 1751 at the end of a journey lasting as long as four months, he was already 40, and it heralded the start of a relationship with the city that would play an important role in the second half of his life. In fact over the next 33 years he would undertake the 1,500 km journey from Beijing six times. Given the logistics and physical rigors of such a journey - he was 73 when he made the last one - it is clear that Hangzhou held a special place for Qianlong, the longest-living - and reigning - emperor of Qing (1644-1911), China's last feudal dynasty. The trips he made in those 36 years are known today as the "journeys to Jiangnan"  (下江南). The term Jiangnan (江南) means south of the Yangtze River (扬子江) and refers to large tracts of land covering what are now Zhejiang (浙江) and Jiangsu (江苏) provinces. Jiangnan was long China's hothouse, culturally and commercially, with its talented people filling the cabinet and taxes the royal coffer.

Hangzhou (also known as Lin'an (临安) when it served as the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty (南宋) between 1129 and 1279), with its superb natural scenery and strong literary tradition, was the best place that Jiangnan had to offer. On his every journey to the south, Emperor Qianlong stopped in Hangzhou. In fact, five times, Hangzhou was the southernmost spot he reached before embarking on the return trip.

In his first trip, he saw tea-picking ladies doing their routine in the tea fields one morning during springtime. Legends says that while imitating their actions, the tea leaves in his hands were quickly forgotten when an eunuch came hurriedly with the news that the Empress Dowager had a severe headache. With the tea leaves still in the pocket of his robes, he headed to the Empress Dowager's palace, where their conversation quickly turned towards the light tea fragrance relieving her headache. Pleasing the lady with the highest rank in the royal clan, the emperor ordered to elevate the tea to the status of royal tribute tea, and the tea garden he was at ringfenced for his own use. This is now the tourist attraction site of 18 tea shrubs (十八棵) at Longjing Village. 

Nested in the cradle of Chinese literary brilliance and culture, there were many more stories about the tea and the area that “Long Jing Records” (龙井见闻录) was compiled. Of course, this tea is famous because it is well made and delicious. Ming dynasty records mentioned about the tea’s “flag and spear” (旗枪) shape. Another late Ming dynasty record mentioned the distinctive soy bean flavour from tea from “Old Long Jing” area which is the area where Emperor Qianlong ringfenced the 18 shrubs. Indeed, the area has a long history and already a tourist site since ancient times. The West Lake (西湖) immediately to the northeast of the tea production area is praised for its scenic beauty. Surely, this was one of the most beautiful places in China when Hangzhou and Suzhou (capital of Jiangsu province) were compared metaphorically to heaven by Song dynasty poet Su Shi ("欲把西湖比西子", 苏轼). It is said that Long Jing is best brewed using water from nearby Hu Pao Spring (虎跑泉). Some research show that Hu Pao Spring has water with low Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and 30 micronutrients.

Today, there are three production areas for Dragon Well - West Lake, Qian Tang (钱塘) and Yue Zhou (越州). Within the key West Lake area, there are 5 core areas, namely Shi Feng (狮峰), Longjing Village (龙井村), Yun Qi (云栖), Hu Pao (虎跑), Mei Jia Wu (梅家坞), of which the prime of the prime is Shi Feng Dragon Well. Our first Dragon Well tea is from Feng Xian Tea Farm (凤仙茶庄), located within the Shi Feng production area. Watched over by the founder - Mdm Feng Xian, and helped by the daughter, the tea factory is their ancestral house at the same address, as common for the tea families in the area. Every family has a plot of tea farm and process their own teas at home. Mdm Feng Xian is a recognisable figure, the photo of her in the tea field is used by the local government to promote West Lake Dragon Well, figuring her in government areas and train stations. Her tea fields are located a short walk from her home, along the slopes of Lion's Peak, at around 400m elevation. The tea was harvested 30th March 2026 before Qingming.

The second Dragon Well is from Qiantang production area, made under the label of Craftsman Doctor Tea (匠心茶博士), owned by Doctor Tea Holdings (茶博士控股). This company is a tea technology group focusing on the research, development, extraction, and application of innovative tea raw materials, was founded by Dr. Mao Limin (毛立民), with Zhejiang University's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Institute (浙江大学创新创业研究院) as a shareholder, and has a registered capital of 50 million yuan. The office is located in Zhejiang University incubation hub in Hangzhou, a city in the spotlight in recent years after its success in producing a spate of tech wonders known as the “Six Little Dragons”: DeepSeek; game developer Game Science known for its hit game Black Myth: Wukong; brain-computer interface company BrainCo; spatial intelligence firm Manycore; and robotics companies Unitree and DEEP Robotics. Doctor Tea brings its R&D expertise to traditional tea, producing decaffeinated teas with Yunnan Jing Dong county (景东县) alongside its continuous focus on organic farming. The tea was harvested 1st April 2026 before Qingming.

Qingming marks the start of warmer weather and is considered a cutoff time for many high quality Chinese teas. Tea harvested pre-Qingming are before the bug season, so the growers do not need to use any pesticides, adding health value to an already delicate and expensive tea. Pre-Qingming Dragon Well teas are yellowish in colour - the new bud is first yellow and plucked away to make tea before it can turn green under warmer conditions.

We are brewing this tea in our Parchmen Glass Gaiwan. First enjoy the neat flat shapes of the tea leaves, which is slightly yellowish. Both teas are light and floral, with sweet and overwhelming notes of soy bean and cream for West Lake Dragon Well, and more nutty notes for the Qiantang Dragon Well - think hazelnut. Both have little bitterness, with the West Lake tea having minimal astringency. Although they can both be brewed numerous times - we tried rebrewing it over 10 times - the best flavours are within the first three brews.
 

The third tea this month is a black tea. The Chinese black tea refers to a fermented tea. It is not the highly oxidised tea in the Western vocabulary, to which the Chinese refer to as a red tea. This classification method was proposed by the late Professor Chen Chuan of Anhui Agricultural University and has been widely accepted in the tea industry. Founder of the Tea Processing Discipline in China, he began his career in tea education with the compilation of Tea Cultivation Lecture Notes, the first university-level tea science textbook in China. He led the revision of the Tea Processing Science textbook, proposed the Tea Discoloration Theory, and established the Six Major Tea Categories Classification Method (Green Tea, yellow tea, Dark tea, White tea, Oolong Tea, Black tea). In 1979, he completed A Comprehensive History of the Tea Industry, the first international monograph to systematically discuss the development of the tea industry. Having been engaged in tea science education and research for 60 years, he was hailed as the "Patriarch of Tea" and "Titan of Tea Science". 

Our black tea was made in Zun Yi, a historical tea area since the Tang dynasty introduced as one of six key tea production areas for royal tribute teas in the Classic of Tea, then called Bozhou (播州). Till the last Qing dynasty, Zunyi teas have maintained its status as a royal tribute tea. In 1920s, the first government level tea research centre was built at Zunyi Mei Tan (湄潭) county by the then-minguo (民国) government, setting a strong foundation for the tea development in the city, especially at the county. 

This tea is harvested from fields located in Mei Tan located 27°N of the equator. The mysterious golden belt from 27° to 30°N is special in China and in the world - it is home to Mount Everest and the deepest point in the western Pacific Ocean, the Mariana Trench, ancient Egyptian pyramids, the Sphinx, the "Fire God's Seed" murals in the Sahara Desert of North Africa, the Bermuda Triangle in the Caribbean Sea, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It is also home to a number of famous Chinese teas, e.g. West Lake Dragon Well, Bi Luo Chun, Wuyi Rock Teas and Anxi Tieguanyin; the Yangtze River, the Mississippi River, the Nile River, and the Euphrates River all flow into the sea from here. In Mei Tan, the tea fields are at 800-1200m, a high altitude in the tea world, with tea fields constantly shrouded in fog and mist, creating ideal tea growing conditions of slow growth, umami taste and bright flavours. This tea is picked from tender buds and stalks, and made under traditional processing involving more than 10 steps. The result is a highly fermented tea that is high in body and thick in flavour. 

This tea is made using hands to press into bricks, known as Shou Zhu (手筑). An ungraded common tea, it has small twigs and coarse leaves, delivering a bold profile without the usual elegance of a fine tea like Dragon Well. It is harvested in 2021 and has been aged for five years. 

We are brewing this tea in a Parchmen Glass Gaiwan, at 5g to 120ml of 100°C water for 30 sec continuously for 5 brews. Ignoring its untidy look, it delivers a strong intensity in umami, reflecting the natural sun-shading at such high elevations of its growing environment. It has a sweet mushroom earthiness, but yet comes with a bright acidity that informs its slow growth and large diurnal range. The aroma is vanilla at times, and without any muddiness or dampness that mark a common grade black tea. After more brewing, the tea reveals some greenness, again revealing its high growing environment even fter 5 years of aging. 


Enjoy your teas of April 2025!

Thank you for coming onboard Parchmen & Co and travel with us to savour our world in a cup!