Why is West Lake Dragon Well Green Tea More Expensive Than Other Dragon Wells?

Long Jing: The Hidden Factors Behind Tea Pricing

If you’ve ever explored the world of West Lake Dragon Well (Long Jing) green tea, you may have noticed a striking difference in prices—from as little as $10 for 50g to well over $300. What accounts for such a wide price range?

Beyond standard overhead costs, several less obvious yet crucial factors influence pricing. These factors often involve trade-offs between cost and quality, ultimately shaping the authenticity and experience of this prized tea.

For example, when it comes to Long Jing (the Chinese name for “Dragon Well”), people may not realize that there are actually two different varietals (and even differing qualities among those varietals): The generic, modified Longjing #43 and the indigenous varietal Qunti Zhong. Longjing #43 has been widely grown over the past 30 years. Qunti Zhong, or the locals call it Tu Cha, in contrast, is an inherited varietal, dating back more than 1000 years ago. Qunti Zhong produces a much tastier tea than Longjing #43 (which also has some high qualities), but with a very limited quantity available. Unfortunately the Qun Ti Zhong bushes were widely cut down in the 1980-1990s and replaced with Longjing #43. Accordingly, Qunti Zhong sells for a higher price.

Besides that, another thing to consider is that West Lake Dragon Well is traditionally grown in the surrounding mountainous area outside of Huangzhou, Zhejiang Province, an area that goes by the same name. This includes tea production from the five subdivision areas — Shi Feng Mounain, Long Jing Village, Mei Jia Wu, Yun Xi, and Hu Pao. Among these, Shi Feng Dragon Well, (Shi Feng Mountain translates to Lion's Peak in English), is regarded as the cream of the top. Per Chinese government authority regulation, only Dragon Well that is produced in the West Lake area and that is hand-crafted can be labeled “West Lake Dragon Well.” Any Dragon well farmed and sourced away from West Lake (for example, in areas such as the rest of Zhejiang Province) cannot be labeled as such. Of these two growing regions, the Dragon Well sourced outside of Zhejiang province is geared towards mass market production and is significantly less expensive.

The following two pictures contain the Chinese characters for "Shi Feng". The engraved script on the second picture explains the history of Shi Feng Mountain, most notably associated with the emperor Qian Long of Qing dynasty. 

Naturally, sourcing real West Lake Dragon well will prove more expensive, more so if it is a Qun Ti Zhong varietal, but even then, there are additional considerations: Do you want a Shi Feng, the highest quality Dragon Well tea in the world, grown on Lion’s Peak? Furthermore, do you want to purchase a Ming qian ( pre-ming) or a Yu qian (pre-yu), a superior tea harvested before the Qing Ming festival or a less expensive tea harvested after?

Each of these choices will affect not only the price but also the flavor and the quality.

And unfortunately, the reality of the market is that because a Mingqian Shi Feng Long Jing commands one of the highest prices, it also regrettably invites false or misleading advertising, resulting in a wide arrange of pricing. While Dragon well from Sichuan or other provinces can be sold at a much lower price (mostly produced for mass market with inferior quality), we can assure you that authentic West Lake Dragon well (and of the best, Shi Feng Dragon well) is never sold at such prices, instead commanding a premium due to its high demand and quality.

This is one reason why we insist on personally traveling to these sources, tasting through the many teas from the many producers. We’re determined to find, select, and source the best. We’re not going to rely on a distributor or supplier just saying that their green tea is Shi Feng or West Lake; we want to see it for ourselves. Where did it actually come from? What does it look like compared to the rest? What does it taste like? For this reason, we each year source different Dragon well for you to experience and compare, one is Shi Feng Dragon well, another one is Zhejiang Dragon well, (for simplicity, we just labeled Dragon well).

Finally, the other hidden factor in pricing is the experience of the tea master. This can be easily overlooked in an effort to save money, but a tea master’s experience cannot be underestimated. Next to the sourcing area, it might be the most important influencer of quality.

There are many tea drinkers who have become accustomed to associating Dragon well with little more than a nutty taste and aroma, but other than varietal, the tea master also affects these characteristics. It takes a great deal of experience and usually a lengthy family tradition to bring out the nuance that these teas have to offer, to highlight their complexity and tastes. These are aspects of the tea that are difficult to manipulate in the hands of one who is unexperienced.

Because we’re committed to sourcing the highest quality tea available, it doesn’t make sense for us to source such tea and hand it off to an unexperienced tea master. If we’re determined to share with you some of the best teas in the world, why would we want to risk getting less than 100% out of them?

For these reasons, just as we carefully evaluate our tea sources, we also take care to seek out the best tea masters we can find. This is a large part of what it means to find the best within the best.