Tucked between the mist-laden peaks of Dongting Mountain in Jiangsu Province, Biluochun—literally “Green Snail Spring”—is one of China’s most celebrated green teas. Its name alone conjures an image: tiny jade spirals resembling the whorls of a snail’s shell, harvested when the spring air is still cool enough to carry the scent of flowering apricot and peach trees. To international drinkers accustomed to the flat blades of Longjing or the needle elegance of Huangshan Maofeng, Biluochun offers a different visual and tactile drama: pellets so tight they bounce on the palm, yet so tender they were plucked before the Qingming festival, when only the single bud and the adjacent half-leaf have awakened from winter dormancy.
Historical records first mention the tea during the late Yuan dynasty, but its mythic origin is pinned to the Kangxi Emperor’s southern tour of 1699. According to local chronicles, the emperor was presented with a small jar of unusually fragrant leaf. Struck by its “scary” aroma—so powerful it seemed to assault the senses—he christened it “Scary Fragrance” (Xia Sha Ren Xiang). Court etiquette soon demanded a more elegant name, and Kangxi, noting the tight spiral shape and early-spring harvest, rechristened it Biluochun. From that moment the tea entered imperial tribute lists, and Suzhou prefecture gained an industry whose prestige still eclipses its silk embroidery.
Strictly speaking, Biluochun is not a single cultivar but a processing style applied to several local clones, the most prized being “Xiao Ye” (small-leaf) and “Dong Ting Qun Ti Zhong,” a population of seed-grown bushes that have adapted to the lake microclimate for over three centuries. The terroir is inseparable from the flavor: Dongting Mountain is actually an island in Taihu Lake, China’s third-largest freshwater body. Morning mist rising off the water filters sunlight, lengthening the bud’s synthesis of amino acids while slowing tannin development. The same humidity nourishes neighboring fruit orchards, whose blossoms the tea bushes absorb, creating the famous “natural fruit fragrance” that no other green tea can fully imitate.
Plucking begins around the twentieth of March and lasts barely three weeks. Pickers work in four-hour shifts to ensure every basket reaches the village workshop before noon. The standard is ruthless: one bud plus one unfolding leaf, 1.5–2.0 cm in length, no purple tips, no insect bites, no surface moisture. Experienced eyes can judge the correct tenderness by the translucency of the stem when held against the sky. Once weighed, the leaves are spread on bamboo trays exactly three centimeters thick and withered for three to five hours, long enough for grassy volatiles to dissipate yet short enough to preserve the bright green hue.
The most critical phase is the hand-firing in a cast-iron wok heated to 180 °C. A master maker, barefoot to feel the vibration of temperature through the floor, tosses 250 g of leaf in a rhythm that resembles a chef flipping wok-fried rice. Within three minutes the leaf temperature drops to 70 °C, enzymes are killed, and moisture plummets from 75 % to 45 %. The same hands then press, rub, and roll the leaf against the wok surface, coaxing the bud to curl into a spiral while rupturing cell walls just enough to release aromatic precursors. The motion must be circular and gentle; too much pressure produces a dull olive color, too little and the pellet will not hold. After ten minutes the pellets are re-heated to 60 °C for a final drying, reducing moisture to 6 %. When finished, a kilogram of Biluochun contains roughly 70,000 buds, each the product of one pluck and thirty minutes of human touch.
Western drinkers often under-appreciate how much the brew method alters the cup. Because the leaf is so compact, it needs space to expand fully; a tall, clear glass or a bulbous gaiwan is ideal. Use 3 g for 150 ml of water at 80 °C—never boiling, which scalds the downy hairs and yields bitterness. First, warm the vessel, then drop the pellets onto the bottom. Pour the water in a slow circle, allowing the leaf to sink naturally. Within thirty seconds the spirals begin to unfurl like miniature ferns, releasing a pale champagne liquor. The initial infusion lasts forty-five seconds; subsequent steeps add ten seconds each. A top-grade Biluochun will deliver five infusions: the first bright and orchid-sweet, the second reminiscent of white peach, the third a whisper of snap pea, the fourth mineral like Taihu lake stones, the fifth a delicate hay note that signals farewell.
Professional tasting follows a three-sip protocol. First, sip while the liquor is around 60 °C; focus on aroma, letting the vapor reach the olfactory bulb through the retronasal passage. Second, allow the liquor to cool to 40 °C; now assess texture, looking for a glyceric “silk” that coats the tongue without astringency. Third, at 25 °C, search for aftertaste; a lingering sweetness in the throat called “hui gan” is the hallmark of spring-picked leaf. If the cup turns cloudy on cooling, the maker likely over-fired the leaf; if the wet leaf smells of spinach, the plucking standard was too coarse. A perfect finish leaves the cup aroma reminiscent of lychee peel and the wet leaf a uniform jade green with a faint red edge on the petiole—evidence of precise enzymatic kill.
Storage is the final chapter in the life of Biluochun. Because the spiral shape traps air pockets, it oxidizes faster than flat-pressed greens. Pack the tea in resealable foil pouches with a one-way degassing valve, squeeze out excess air, and refrigerate at 4 °C. Allow the sealed pouch to warm to room temperature for six hours before opening; this prevents condensation from forming on the leaf. Under these conditions the tea will keep its spring character for twelve months, after which the fruit note fades into a generic nuttiness that, while pleasant, lacks the ethereal lift that once captivated an emperor.
To drink Biluochun is to taste Chinese spring in microcosm: the cool breath of Taihu Lake, the perfume of peach blossoms, the deft warmth of human hands. In a world increasingly driven by machine efficiency, these tiny spirals remain a stubbornly artisanal product—70,000 gestures per kilogram, each one necessary, none repeatable by robot. The next time you uncurl a pellet in your glass, watch how slowly it sinks, spinning like a green galaxy. That quiet choreography is the closest tea comes to poetry, and it is why, three centuries after Kangxi, Biluochun still commands the first flush of eastern China’s morning light.