Zhu Ye Qing (Bamboo Tips)
Zhu Ye Qing means bamboo leaf green, and the tea is shaped to match: slender, flat, pointed buds that look like tiny bamboo leaves, grown on the sacred Buddhist mountain of Emei in Sichuan. It is a tender, bud-driven high-mountain green with a clean, fresh, lightly sweet character. The variable that matters most is grade and pluck timing, since this is an early-spring bud tea where uniformity and tenderness define quality, and the name is also a registered brand, which shapes how it is sold.
Look for flat, slender, uniform pointed buds of a fresh bright green, neat and even, with a clean, gently sweet, lightly vegetal or bean-like aroma. The appeal is precision and tenderness, so broken, coarse, or unevenly sized leaf signals a lower grade. The liquor should be clear and pale green with a smooth, refreshing taste and little astringency. As a high-mountain Sichuan bud green, current-year early-spring (pre-Qingming) material is the quality benchmark. Be aware that Zhu Ye Qing is a registered brand as well as a style, so much of it is sold in graded tins at a premium over generic Emei green.
Zhu Ye Qing comes from Mount Emei (Emeishan), a high, misty, sacred Buddhist mountain in Sichuan whose cool, cloud-covered slopes suit slow-growing tender buds. The tea is made from early-spring buds of local Sichuan small-leaf material, pan-fired and shaped into its flat, slender bamboo-leaf form. The name is also a registered trademark held by a Sichuan tea company, so commercial Zhu Ye Qing is a graded branded product as well as a regional style. High-elevation Emei gardens are the prestige source.
Western: 80°C, 3 g per 200 ml in a glass or porcelain cup, 1.5-2 minutes, 2-3 infusions; a tall glass is part of the experience with these standing buds. Gongfu: 80°C, 4 g per 120 ml in a gaiwan, 20-30 seconds for the first steep, ascending, 3-4 infusions. Keep the water off the boil and the first steep short, as tender bud greens give up their sweetness quickly and turn astringent if overbrewed.
€20-50 (about $22-54) per 100 g for everyday and mid grades; €70-150 (about $76-162) per 100 g for top branded tins and early single-bud spring lots.
Prices reviewed June 2026
The name Zhu Ye Qing is said to have been given in 1964 by Marshal Chen Yi during a visit to Wannian Temple on Mount Emei, who likened the slender buds floating in his glass to bamboo leaves; the name was later registered as a trademark by a Sichuan tea company.
The steps overlap in practice; this is a reading order, not a set of separate stages.
The tea year
Typical windows, not dates. Every one of these moves with the weather, the latitude and the year: the pages say by how much.
Meng Ding Xue Ya (Snow Buds, Sichuan)
The other famous Sichuan bud green, from Mengding Mountain, left as downy snow-buds rather than shaped into flat bamboo-leaf needles.
Longjing (Dragon Well)
The benchmark flat Chinese green; both are pan-fired and flattish, but Longjing is chestnut-sweet and Zhu Ye Qing cleaner and more delicate.
Bi Luo Chun
A fuzzy, spiral-rolled early-spring green from Jiangsu, the curled counterpoint to Zhu Ye Qing's straight flat buds.
Song Zhen (Pine Needle Green)
Another shape-driven green, formed into pine needles rather than bamboo leaves, useful for comparing two needle-style greens.