Tea Name

The name “Spring Green Snail” is “Bi Luo Chun” (碧螺春) in mandarin. The word “bi” 碧 is one of several Chinese words to denote the color green, and refers particularly to light green or light blue. The word “luo” 螺 refers to a snail or its spiral shell, and “chun” 春 is spring. So it is easy to see that the name represents the appearance of the finished tea leaves and the time of year when the tea is produced. The ancients also called Bi Luo Chun “Gong Fu Tea” (功夫茶) and “New Blood Tea” (新血茶). 

Spring Green Snail Production Locations 

Bi Luo Chun’s place of origin is Dongting Mountain (洞庭山) in Suzhou (苏州), Jiangsu Province (江苏省), China. Suzhou is a famous tourist destination in China. It is known for its classical Chinese gardens, and its canals which earned it the title “Venice of the East.” Historically associated with high culture and elegance, Suzhou has long attracted some of China’s most well-known artists and scholars. 

The original Bi Luo Chun that comes from this location is therefore also referred to as Dongting Bi Luo Chun (洞庭碧螺春), or as it was originally called by locals, “Dongting Tea” (洞庭茶). In the Xishan (西山) area there are about a dozen villages that grow Bi Luo Chun including Bingchang (秉场), Shigongtangli (石公堂里), Dongcun (东村), Yaluli (衙甪里), Donghe (东河), Piaomiao Village (缥缈村), as well as other villages in Dongcai (东蔡), Linwu (林屋), Tingshan (庭山), Jiangdong (蒋东), and Yuanshan (元山). In the Dongshan (东山) area the main tea growing villages are Moli (莫厘), Biluo (碧螺), Shuangwan (双湾), Yangwan (杨湾), and Luxiang (陆巷). Some of these villages are known for being particularly well-preserved ancient villages that are rare in China and have many buildings dating back to the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Spring Green Snail History

Bi Luo Chun has a long history and could have been around as long as 1000 years ago based on the fact that there are records listing it as a tribute tea in the late Tang and early Song dynasties. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the tea’s name, as there are various legends associated with its naming that point to different places in history. Bi Luo Chun has become known as one of “China’s Ten Famous Teas” (中国十大名茶). 

One well-known legend has it that Qing Dynasty Emperor Kangxi (康熙皇帝) visited Taihu Lake (太湖) and tasted the tea, afterwards naming it after its appearance. Another record points to the earlier Ming Dynasty where it was listed in the Suijianlu (随见录) as a fragrant tea “from Biluo Peak on Dongting mountain, shaped slightly like a scorpion, and named ‘Bi Luo Chun’.” Given this and a few other records from the Ming Dynasty, it seems that the tea was at least around prior to Emperor Kangxi, despite the legend in which he was said to have named the tea.

Another legend related to Bi Luo Chun tea is associated with another nickname for the tea. It involves a story about a nun who went up Dongting Mountain to pick some tea. After brewing tea from the leaves that she had picked that day, she was startled by how fragrant the tea was. Her immediate reaction was to blurt out “xia sha ren xiang!” (吓煞人香) which basically means “what a frightening fragrance!” This earned the tea the nickname “frightening fragrance.”

Tea and Fruit Plant Intercropping

The Dongting Bi Luo Chun production area is known for its tea gardens in which tea trees are planted alongside fruit trees. The tea plants are planted alternating with other trees such as peach, plum, apricot, persimmon, orange, ginkgo, pomegranate, quancheng, and others. This intermingling of the tea trees with other fruit trees is said to let the tea absorb various flowery and fruity aromas. This type of intercropping with tea plants was discussed in a Ming Dynasty work titled “Tea Explanation” (茶解), which states, “the tea garden should not be mixed with ‘è’ 恶 woods” (è 恶 can mean evil, foul, or bad). It then goes on to list the following as appropriate trees for interplanting with tea trees: “cinnamon, plum, magnolia, rose, pine, and green bamboo,” which are noted to be enough to “cover the frost and snow...” and shade them from the autumn sun. 

Spring Green Snail Processing

Picking: Bi Luo Chun is picked around the spring equinox before the Grain Rain seasonal node. Pickers know to follow the three rules: “pick early, pick when tender, and pick cleanly” (一是摘得早，二是采得嫩，三是拣得净). It usually takes between two and four hours to pick one kilogram of sprouts and leaves. Ideally the leaves are picked early so that they can be withered and fried on the same day.

Fixing: After withering the tea leaves are fried by hand in an iron pan or wok to “kill green” and halt any oxidation in the leaves. The temperature of the pot is 190-200°C.

Kneading: The kneading (or shaping) step is where the leaves are given their characteristic snail-like shape. The temperature of the pot is now 50-60°C, and the leaves are vigorously rubbed, by hand, into small balls. This step lasts about 13-15 minutes and until the leaves are approximately 80% dry. 

Drying: In the final step the tea leaves are spread out on mulberry paper and put again on a pot which is now at about 30-40°C. The leaves are left on for about 6-8 minutes until dried to about 7% moisture content. Altogether, Bi Luo Chun processing takes around 40 minutes.