The excellent quality of Dragon Well Tea is guaranteed by a super elaborate production process. The picking of the tea leaves emphasizes the importance of timeliness. As a famous among tea growers saying goes, "Tea leaves are a treasure if picked earlier while it is useless as grass if picked too late." Dragon Well Tea leaves are picked during different periods of time. Generally speaking, the best tea is picked before Qingming Festival, which is called Mingqian Tea.

The tea leaves picked before Grain Rain are fairly good and are called Yuqian Tea. The selection process of tea leaves is very strict. Only the delicate and complete tea leaves are to be picked. After the fresh leaves have been picked, tea makers should first grade them, as different qualities of leaves need to be dealt with different temperature and techniques.

Tea masters will bake the tea by hand using specially made iron pans. Traditional method of making Dragon Well Tea has many ways - grasp, toss, shake, pile, throw, buckle, press, and grind. Experienced tea masters know well how and when to use the certain movements according to the temperature, color and moisture content of tea leaves. Usually, Dragon Well Tea is graded using a scale of six levels from superior quality to low quality. Different levels of tea have different methods to bake.