TeaHQ

Longjing Changye

The other selection made from the Longjing seed population, alongside the far better known Longjing 43. Its leaf is longer and narrower, it buds slightly later, and it is planted a good deal less — which makes it a useful illustration of how a breeding programme actually works: several selections are released from the same population, one of them suits the market’s incentives, and the others become footnotes.

龍井長葉Camellia sinensis var. sinensisLongjing ChangyeChinaAlso called Longjing Long Leaf

Where it sits in the botany

Longjing Changye is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, the variety group one level above cultivar. It is associated with China, which is where it was selected or is most widely planted rather than the only place it grows.

Registration code: Longjing Changye. A breeding or registration code identifies the selection in an institutional register and is often the name a grower uses when the trade name is not.

Also transliterated as: longjing changye, long jing chang ye.

Where it came from

Selected from the Longjing group population in Zhejiang and released as a national cultivar alongside Longjing 43.

How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The joint release is consistently reported in Chinese tea literature; the year and the selection process were not verified against a primary registration record.

What the plant is like

Longer leaf and later budding than Longjing 43. The later budding is the commercial problem: in a market that pays most for pre-Qingming tea, a few days of lateness is enough to keep a cultivar marginal.

What it is usually made into

The categories this cultivar is typically processed into. It is a statement about common practice, not a limit — processing decides the category, and a cultivar can be taken down more than one route.

  • Green tea — Tea whose oxidation is halted early by heat, keeping the leaf green and the cup fresh, vegetal or marine in character.

Teas in the catalogue made from Longjing Changye

Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

Sources

  • TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ

This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No breeding register or institutional record stands behind the account above, which is why the origin note carries its confidence in the open rather than reading as a citation.

How TeaHQ handles sources