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Have you ever wondered what tea Chairman Mao offered President Nixon during their famous 1972 meeting in China? Or what sort of tea the Emperors of China drank? One of the intriguing aspects of people in power is – what do they eat and drink when they meet?

What it shame it would be to have been sitting with Chairman Mao in Beijing only to be served an ordinary tea! Happily, we can say that Nixon was served Chairman Mao’s own personal favourite, an exquisite green tea known as Dragonwell.

Best known among China’s green teas, Dragonwell was long revered as ‘tribute tea’ to the Emperors, who would have enjoyed the sweet, gentle chestnut flavour and smooth ‘mouth-feel’ offered by this distinctive tea. It gets its evocative name from the Running Tiger Spring, reputed in folklore to house the spirit of a dragon. It was the seemly order of things for the privileged to drink tea made from the year’s first leaves using the spring’s water.

Chairman Mao was quite partial to Dragon Well. During his two well documented visits to the Liu Village Villa by the West Lake in the early 1960s, he picked Dragon Well tea with his own hands. The leaves of this tea would have then been shaped to its distinctively flat and smooth shape and pan fired by an experienced tea craftsman in a wok, with the liquor imbibed shortly after. In Mao’s own words: ‘Few things compare to Dragon Well tea infused with water from Running Tiger Spring’. We can only imagine Nixon that enjoyed the tribute. Happily, one doesn’t need to be elected President and be invited to Beijing to enjoy this privilege, for fine and fresh Dragonwells are available to tea lovers who know where to get them. The good news is you don’t need Running Tiger Spring water for a great cup of Dragonwell.