A common question I get from readers is this:

"Julian, I saw someone selling Longjing tea in Amazon - how is that different from the Longjing tea you are selling?"

And this is how I would reply:

"My friend, a Famous Tea is not just a special tea, it is all about where the tea is grown."

"It is the location the makes a tea great, not so much the tea plant itself."

"There can be many teas with the same name, but the highest quality is still found in the Authentic Source, where the tea was first famous hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago."

Why is location so important?

It is because tea plants thrive only in pristine high mountains. There are only a few handfuls of such places in China, or the world.

Lushan - which means the Lu Mountain - is one of them, and Yunwu means Cloud and Mist.

It symbolizes what rare teas are about: Pristine high mountains shrouded in clouds and mists!

I will explain why shortly.

She has a long history. Already famous in the Han Dynasty (200 B.C.), she became a tribute tea during Song Dynasty (1000 A.D.).

Sometimes regarded as one of China's Ten Famous Teas, she won the gold medal in the Beijing International Tea Exposition in 2006.

This is what a Song Dynasty poem said of her:

Lushan Yunwu tea. Strong taste. Daring fragrance.

Drinking for a long time will beget good health and longevity.

This is what I like most about her, that high and daring orchid fragrance that is so mesmerisingly strong and lasting!

Famous Teas are very picky about where they live.

It cannot be too hot, and it cannot be too cold. They love water, and like places with lots of rainfall and mists. Also, the soil needs to be thick, loose and acidic.

They need enough light, but not too much, otherwise the leaves will grow old, hard and fibrous.

In other words, they love to live in the misty high mountains of Southern China!

Here, the climate is temparate. It is cool during a hot summer day. While temperature is low at night, tea plants respire less, this helps keep them tender and sweet.

The clouds and mists provide rainfall and humidity. They also provide natural shading, which protect the leaves from strong sunlight, and keep them youthful, tender and sweet.

This brings us to Lushan - the Mountain that is most famous for its hanging clouds of various shapes and forms!

With its many lakes, rivers, waterfalls, rocks, peaks, caves and hills, Lushan is breathtakingly beautiful. With its cool climate, it is widely regarded as one of the top four summer hideouts in China.

It is a spiritual paradise. For thousands of years, monks, taoist practioners, Christians and Muslims lived and practiced their faiths in the Mountain.

A Unesco National Park, it houses the first botanic garden of China, which was established by the monks in the 1930s. With its subtropical climate, it hosts a large variety of plants and animals. In particular, it has the largest population of white cranes in China.

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