High-End Black Tea Jin Jun Mei, Golden Eyebrow
Jin Jun Mei, Golden Eyebrow or Golden Beautiful Eyebrow, is one of Lapsang Souchong black tea originally produced in Wuyi, Fujian province, China. Jin Jun Mei is a rare treasure tea made from two small shoots with its small tight shape accompanied by golden yellow tea hair, plucked in early spring from the plant's stem which are subsequently fully oxidized and then smoked to giving a tea that has a sweet, fruity and flowery flavor with a long lasting sweet after-taste.
In China, this high end variety of tea is viewed as one of the most prestigious of all teas. Jin Jun Mei is expensive because the complex process and its limited production but its price varies depending on the quality. Every 500 gram of tea needs tens of thousands of fresh tea buds picking from the alpine ecological tea species in Wuyi Mountain Nature Reserve. And then it is completed after a series of complex processing steps as withering, shaking, fermentation, kneading and others.
Jin Jun Mei is one of the most exquisite examples of Chinese black tea which was created in 2005. In the July of 2005, Mr. Jiang Yuan Xun, the general manager of Wu Yi Zheng Shan Tea Company accompanied guests from Beijing to Wuyi Mountain. During their visit, they found some tender tea buds in Wuyi National Nature Reserve around 1800 meters above sea level. The guest suggested why not to make some black tea with these buds? The buds were then sent to Tongmu Village where the first black tea, lapsang Souchong was created here 300 years ago. The tea master Mr. Liang Jun De conduct the experiment by himself, the process is based upon traditional lapsang Souchong with improved fermentation. The tea is finally finished with a brand new black tea Jin Jun Mei. Jin Jun Mei is made with tea buds only. Every 500 grams of this tea consists of 50,000 sprouts. As a skilled farmer could only pluck 2,000 sprouts each day. It takes 20 farmers a whole day to collect the shoots to make one pound of the tea. Delicately twisted leaves with a high concentration of golden tips distinguish this tea from other black teas. The quality of the tea really shines through in this absolutely gorgeous black tea.
These photos show the superior quality and lower quality tea leaves, can obviously tell the differences between them. The better quality Jin Jun Mei has more golden hair coated on while lower quality has less golden hair mixed with more dark leaves. Some cheaper Jin Jun Mei even look completely dark without any golden hair which costs much much cheaper than these grades.
