Green Bamboo Needle Tea

Green Bamboo Needle Tea

　　Green Bamboo Needle Tea

　　Green Bamboo Needle Tea is produced in Ningqiang County, at the source of the Han River. It is made from tender buds picked around the Qingming Festival. The buds and leaves must be tightly wrapped, with consistent lengths, and diseased, insect-damaged, or purple buds are not used. Through processes such as fixation, shaping, styling, drying, and sorting, it is refined into a high-end premium tea. The brewing method for this tea is also quite particular. Take one gram of the tea and place it in a transparent cup. Tilt the cup and pour boiling water (at a temperature above 95°C) along the side of the cup, causing the buds and leaves to tumble in the water. Then lay the cup flat, without covering it or shaking it. Initially, the tea leaves will suspend at the top before gradually unfurling like a green umbrella and slowly descending. Once fully steeped, the fresh buds and leaves stand upright in the cup like jade-like green bamboo shoots. This presents the visual spectacle of “a green umbrella descending, spring bamboo shoots standing tall.”

　　“Green Bamboo Needle” tea is a newly developed needle-shaped premium tea researched and launched by the Ningqiang County Agriculture Bureau in 2000. In the same year, it passed quality evaluations by the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Tea Quality Inspection Center under the Ministry of Agriculture, making it the only needle-shaped premium tea in Shaanxi Province. The renowned national tea expert Cheng Qikun—former director of the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, director of the Tea Quality Inspection Center under the Ministry of Agriculture, and president of the National Tea Science Society—after tasting “Green Bamboo Needle” tea, inscribed the words: “Jade-green broth, green bamboo shoots; tender aroma, needle-shaped tea.”