Bǎiquán lǜchá (柏泉绿茶) is a flat pan-fired green tea of Baiquan subdistrict (柏泉街道), Dongxihu District (东西湖区), in the northwest of Wuhan, Hubei Province. It is one of the few protected teas within the limits of a city of many millions: the garden by Yupingshan hill (玉屏山), according to the producer, lies seventeen kilometers from the center. The old bushes are a Longjing population brought from Hangzhou in the 1960s, while the 2025 indication requirements name Echa No. 1 as the main variety. The name is protected twice: by an agricultural product geographical indication since 2021 and, since 2025, by the status of a geographical indication product.
1. Classification and Origin
- Type: Green tea (绿茶, lǜchá). The Wuhan agricultural administration classifies it among the flat pan-fired green teas (扁炒青).
- Category: A flat tea that the producer describes as made “by Longjing technology”; an agricultural product geographical indication and a geographical indication product.
- Origin: China, Hubei Province (湖北, Húběi), Wuhan city (武汉, Wǔhàn), Dongxihu District (东西湖, Dōngxīhú), Baiquan subdistrict.
- Protection zone: The annex to the announcement of the China National Intellectual Property Administration names three production brigades of Baiquan subdistrict — Hongxing (红星), Hongguang (红光) and Yuanlin (园林).
- Coordinates in the record: 114°07′27″–114°07′32″ E, 30°43′23″–30°43′30″ N. Why these figures raise doubts is explained in section 4.
- Applicant: The Agricultural Service Center of Baiquan subdistrict, Dongxihu District.
2. History and Cultural Significance
- History:
- Temple legend. The district chronicle of Dongxihu (东西湖区志), as retold in local materials, traces the tea to the monastery tea of the Jintai Temple (金台寺, now Jingde Temple, 景德寺) of the late Tang — early Song. The same materials quote the Southern Song geographical description Yudi Jisheng (舆地纪胜): Mount Baiquan to the northwest of Hanyang County, below it the Jintai Temple, and at the temple a well. This is legend, not a document about the present-day tea.
- 1960s. Here the sources diverge. The brand page in the Ministry of Commerce’s electronic museum of time-honored brands writes of large-scale planting from 1962, of a trial planting of small-leaf tea on Yupingshan in 1964, of 200 mu on Qiwanshan hill (祁湾山) and of the founding of the factory in 1966; later the gardens were extended onto the slopes of the Hongxing and Hongguang brigades. The header of the same page, Wuhan materials and a reference book date the factory to 1964.
- 1977–1999. According to the museum page, in 1977 there were 1,289 mu under gardens; in 1982 the harvest came from 842 mu and 36 t were produced; in 1999 the tea received a “green product” certificate.
- 1970s–1980s. In Dongxihu, Baiquan tea was an “everyday tea” (口粮茶). Then the farm fell into decline and the garden was almost abandoned; the revival began in 2018.
- 2020. On 10 July the tea passed a provincial quality examination, and on 8 December it passed acceptance by an expert group of the Ministry of Agriculture.
- 2021. On 4 June the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs registered the name as an agricultural product geographical indication, number AGI03367. On 9 December the Hubei Department of Commerce recognized the factory’s brand as a “Hubei time-honored brand” (湖北老字号).
- Heritage. The Baiquan tea technology has been entered in the district list of intangible heritage; the year is not given in the sources consulted.
- 2025. By announcement No. 640, the China National Intellectual Property Administration recognized the name as a geographical indication product. The Wuhan market supervision administration explains this by the transfer of the former agricultural indications into a unified system, begun in 2024.
- Name: “Baiquan” (柏泉) means “cypress spring”: Wuhan materials interpret the name as a spring beneath cypresses.
- Cultural significance: According to the producer’s materials, in 2019 it was the only Wuhan tea brand in the athletes’ village of the Military World Games; a publication of the same year also names Chenglouzhai tea among the suppliers of the Games — the accounts diverge. According to a reference book, in 2021 the tea entered the “ten good teas of Hubei” (湖北十大好茶).
3. Botanical Description and Raw Material
- Variety / Cultivar: Here the sources diverge. Wuhan materials of 2023: a population of old Longjing (群体种老龙井) brought from Hangzhou in the 1960s, bushes 40–60 years old; the museum page calls them small-leaf. The 2025 indication requirements: local varieties from renovated old gardens or varieties that have passed state registration, above all Echa No. 1 (鄂茶1号).
- Raw material: One bud with one leaf or one bud with two leaves.
- Harvest time: Before the Qingming festival (明前). The requirements prescribe picking by variety, separately for early-ripening, early and mid-season varieties.
- Yield: According to the producer’s description, about sixty thousand buds go into one jin of dry tea. This is not a norm.
4. Terroir and Cultivation Features
- Region: The edge of the Jianghan Plain: according to the museum page, to the north of Baiquan lie hilly forests, to the south — lakes and the floodplain of the Fuhe River.
- Garden: About 600 mu by Yupingshan hill.
- Climate: According to descriptions, sunny, with sufficient rain; a reference book gives about 1107 mm of precipitation a year.
- Topography: According to the indication requirements — wide and gently sloping, sunny, without pollution from mining.
- Soils: According to the indication requirements — mainly red soils (红壤), pH 5.7–6.5; on average, organic matter 43.48 g/kg, alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen 109.54 mg/kg, available phosphorus 16.32 mg/kg, available potassium 123.88 mg/kg.
- Cultivation practices: Double-row planting, 2500–3000 bushes per mu; light pruning every year, deep pruning once every 3–5 years.
- Altitude: No data found in the sources consulted.
- Coordinates that are hard to believe: The frame in the record covers five arc seconds of longitude and seven of latitude. At the latitude of Wuhan this is roughly 133 by 216 meters — less than three hectares. The factory’s garden alone, 600 mu, is about forty hectares, and the zone is described through three production brigades. There are two possible explanations: either the coordinates of a single point have been formatted as a range in the record, or there is a misprint in the arc minutes. It is impossible to choose between them on the basis of the available sources; when working with this name, the coordinates must be checked against the primary source.
5. Production Technology
The Wuhan agricultural administration describes the basic scheme as follows:
- Withering (摊青, tānqīng): 4–6 hours, until the leaf, squeezed in a handful, holds together in a lump.
- Fixation (杀青, shāqīng): In an iron pan at 160–220 °C, a load of about 200 g, 10–15 minutes, to a moisture content of about 55 %. Leaf picked after rain or dew is pan-fired 10–15 °C hotter.
- Resting (回潮, huícháo): 1–2 hours in a cool place.
- Finishing in the pan (辉锅, huīguō): Over a low fire, the leaf is pressed, pushed, gripped, flattened and rubbed by hand (扣、推、抓、压、磨) until it becomes flat and dry. According to the producer, it is here that the bean and chestnut notes are born.
The museum page lists a more detailed chain of twelve operations — with cooling, evening out and pressing of the leaf, heating for aroma and cold storage — and calls the work mainly manual. Fixation is carried out until the leaf is soft and a bean smell has come through: “the hand does not leave the tea, the tea does not leave the pan”.
6. Organoleptic Characteristics
The description follows the 2025 indication requirements; the tea is predominantly flat.
- Dry leaf appearance: Flat, fine and tight, smooth and straight, emerald green (扁平、细紧、光直，色泽翠绿).
- Dry leaf aroma: No descriptions found in the sources consulted.
- Liquor aroma: Clean, lasting (清香持久). In the 2023 Wuhan description — predominantly chestnut (栗香居多), with a bean note.
- Taste: Fresh, brisk, with a sweet aftertaste (鲜爽回甘); the Wuhan description — rich and mellow, refreshing (浓醇爽口).
- Liquor color: Tender green, bright (嫩绿明亮). The 2023 Wuhan description and a reference book write “yellow-green” (黄绿亮) — the sources diverge.
- Spent leaves (wet leaves): Tender green, bright, even (嫩绿明亮、匀齐); in the Wuhan description — yellow-green (黄绿明亮).
7. Chemical Composition
The 2025 indication requirements: water-soluble extractives not less than 35 %, free amino acids not less than 2.8 %, polyphenols not less than 17 %, moisture not more than 5 %.
8. Brewing
Class practice for flat green tea.
- Water temperature: 80–85 °C.
- Tea amount: 3 g per 150 ml.
- Teaware: A glass tumbler or a white gaiwan.
- Process:
- Warm the teaware.
- Put in the tea and pour the water down the side.
- First infusion — after 40–60 seconds.
- Drink, leaving part of the liquor.
- Top up with water.
- Two or three repeat infusions.
9. Storage
Class practice. In airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture and odors. The producer itself includes cold storage in its chain of operations. Best drunk within a year.
10. Price and Counterfeits
No price data found in the sources consulted.
- How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the agricultural product geographical indication mark AGI03367 or the geographical indication product mark.
- Check that the producer is from Dongxihu District.
- The leaf is flat, fine, straight, emerald; the liquor bright, green with or without a yellowish tinge.
11. Interesting Facts
- In the same 2025 announcement, two more Wuhan teas, both from Jiangxia District, received the status of geographical indication product — Jiangxia Bifang (江夏碧舫) and Jiangxia Guangming Cha (江夏光明茶).
- The Hongxing and Hongguang brigades, through which the protection zone is described, are also mentioned in the history of the laying out of the gardens in the 1960s.
- The tea is pan-fired by hand according to the rule “the hand does not leave the tea, the tea does not leave the pan”, and the manual technology has been entered in the district list of intangible heritage.
12. Comparison with Related Teas
- Xihu Longjing (西湖龙井): The homeland of the old garden’s bushes and the technological model the producer refers to: a flat leaf, a chestnut note. Baiquan is a flat tea on the Hubei plain.
- Sanxia Longjing (三峡龙井): A Hubei tea of the Longjing type from the Three Gorges area; mountain-grown, unlike the plain-grown Baiquan.
- Dengcun Lücha (邓村绿茶): A Hubei green tea with a geographical indication from the highlands of Yichang — for contrast with a tea from the city outskirts.
In Conclusion:
Bǎiquán lǜchá is a flat green tea on the outskirts of Wuhan: a garden by Yupingshan hill since the 1960s, Hangzhou Longjing bushes alongside the Echa No. 1 variety, hand finishing in a red-hot pan, an emerald leaf and a lasting aroma. It has a long history in documents of the 1960s–1980s, a temple legend and two forms of protection — the 2021 agricultural product geographical indication and the 2025 geographical indication product status. It has two weak points: the zone coordinates in the record and the divergence of descriptions — the 2025 requirements call the liquor tender green, local texts yellow-green with a chestnut note.
Sources
Geographical indication
Full list — on the Sources page