Cloudridge Pre-Qingming Maofeng
Picked before the Qingming festival — the earliest, most tender leaf of the Anhui spring, and the reason green tea prices spike every April.
“明前” — ming qian, “before brightness” — refers to the Qingming festival in early April, the traditional cut-off for the most prized spring green tea across China. Leaf picked before that date is smaller, more tender and higher in the amino acid L-theanine relative to catechins, which is most of why pre-Qingming green tea tastes sweeter and less astringent than the exact same bushes picked even two weeks later.
Cloudridge pan-fires within hours of plucking — the kill-green step that defines green tea by stopping oxidation before it starts — so the finished leaf keeps almost all of that early-season sweetness rather than trading it for the deeper, roastier notes a longer processing chain would add.
Pan-fired within hours of plucking to kill the leaf enzyme before any oxidation can begin, then shaped and dried.