---
title: "Dāolóuzhài báichá"
url: https://thetea.app/article/daolouzhai-baicha
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-01
source: THE TEA — encyclopedia of Chinese tea (https://thetea.app)
---
# Dāolóuzhài báichá (刀楼寨白茶)

*Dāolóuzhài báichá* (刀楼寨白茶) is a tea of Jiujie Subdistrict (旧街街道), Xinzhou District (新洲区), on the eastern outskirts of Wuhan, Hubei Province. The name is protected by a geographical indication certification mark registered in 2017. Daolouzhai is an old mountain fortress, one of the “forty-eight fortresses of Qi and Huang” in the southern spurs of the Dabieshan. The word *báichá* (白茶, “white tea”) in the name does not prove the class: I have not found a producer's document or a standard stating the class of the tea, and local materials speak of seedlings from Anji County, where a green tea from a light-leaf variety is called “white”. Reference texts and the website of the municipal agriculture bureau point to a green technology on the Anji model, but neither the mark document nor a standard fixes the class, so the article stands among the categories and not in the class folder.

**1. Classification and Origin:**

* **Type:** The class has not been established by a document. A detailed description of the technology was not found in the sources consulted. A reference encyclopedia article assigns *Dāolóuzhài báichá* to the green class, and the city press compares the “white tea” of Jiujie with “other green teas”. The weightiest evidence is the website of the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (2021): in a piece on a local tea enterprise, with which it links the registration of the name “刀楼寨白茶”, it says that the enterprise's first trial tea was made “by the method of making Anji Baicha” (按照[安吉白茶](https://thetea.app/article/anji-baicha)制作方法). Anji Baicha under national standard GB/T 20354—2026 is a green tea from the leaf of the “Baiye No. 1” (白叶1号) variety in its albino period. But this is an account of a producer, not a requirement of the mark: I have not seen a mark document or a standard with the class of *Dāolóuzhài báichá*. The name *báichá* can mean both white tea by class and a tea from a light-leaf variety made by green technology, like Anji Baicha.
* **Category:** Tea with a geographical indication certification mark (证明商标, *zhèngmíng shāngbiāo*).
* **Origin:** China, Hubei Province (湖北, *Húběi*), Wuhan city (武汉, *Wǔhàn*), Xinzhou District (新洲, *Xīnzhōu*), Jiujie Subdistrict (旧街, *Jiùjiē*).
* **Protection zone:** The register gives Xinzhou District as the administrative affiliation of the mark holder; I have not checked the legal boundary of the zone. It cannot be reconstructed from the name of the tea.
* **Mark:** Geographical indication certification mark No. 18880304, class 30, goods — “tea” (茶). Holder — the Daolouzhai Tea Research Society of Xinzhou District (武汉市新洲区刀楼寨茶叶研究会). Validity period according to the 2020 provincial register — from 21 November 2017 to 20 November 2027. The 2026 register lists the mark as valid.

**2. History and Cultural Significance:**

* **Place:** Daolouzhai is one of the “forty-eight fortresses of Qi and Huang” (蕲黄四十八寨) — mountain fortifications in the lands of the old prefectures of Qizhou and Huangzhou. According to a piece in *Zhongguo Zhishi Chanquan Bao* (2019), in the Ming and Qing eras rebel detachments of eastern Hubei fought here, and during the war with Japan local residents kept an observation post on Daolouzhai.
* **Surroundings:** Jiujie lies on the eastern outskirts of Wuhan, in the southern spurs of the Dabieshan (大别山). Legend links these places with Confucius: here he supposedly sent his disciple Zilu to ask the way to the ford, and hence the name of the local Wenjin Academy (问津书院, “asking about the ford”). This is a legend, not a document about tea.
* **Three marks in one quarter:** According to the same 2019 publication, the district intellectual property office over three years nurtured three tea certification marks in a single Jiujie subdistrict: Jiujie Baicha ([旧街白茶](https://thetea.app/article/jiujie-baicha)), *Dāolóuzhài báichá* and Chenglouzhai Cha ([城楼寨茶](https://thetea.app/article/chenglouzhai-cha)). The Daolouzhai mark is the youngest of the three.
* **Production:** The same publication names the company that owns the trademark “刀楼寨”: its white tea has green and organic product certificates and a mark of origin. The Wuhan city press wrote in 2022 that the company began laying out gardens near Mount Dawushan (大雾山) in 2010 on abandoned slopes leased from the surrounding villages, and opened them in 2013. The publications give the number of villages differently: one says three, another five.
* **Cultural significance:** According to district data as retold by the press in 2022, Jiujie has about twenty tea enterprises, and the tea gardens of the quarter cover 13,000 *mu*.

**3. Botanical Description and Raw Material:**

* **Variety / Cultivar:** For the Daolouzhai mark the variety was not named in the sources consulted. The city press writes of the gardens of the company that produces this tea that the “white tea” seedlings for them were ordered from Anji County, Zhejiang Province. The name of the variety is not given.
* **Bush development:** According to the same publications, the seedlings give their first shoots in the third year and reach full yield by about the seventh.
* **Raw material:** Spring shoots. The press describes buds covered with white down at the start of the season.
* **Harvest standard:** Not given in the sources consulted.

**4. Terroir and Cultivation Features:**

* **Region:** The southern spurs of the Dabieshan on the eastern outskirts of Wuhan.
* **Gardens:** The company's main tract is around Mount Dawushan; in 2022 the press gave 2300 *mu*, in 2025 — 2600 *mu*.
* **Soils:** Stony. Local materials quote Lu Yu's *The Classic of Tea*: the best tea grows on scattered rock (上者生烂石). The press also notes the downside: such soil holds water poorly, the gardens have to be saved from drought, and they have been fitted with automatic sprinkler irrigation.
* **Altitude:** No data were found in the sources consulted.

**5. Production Technology:**

The technology of *Dāolóuzhài báichá* is not described in the sources consulted, and the class of the tea is not fixed by a document. The only direct indication of the processing method is a statement by the Wuhan agriculture bureau (2021): the first trial tea of the enterprise associated with this name was made by the Anji Baicha method; the bureau gives no parameters. The city press speaks of the season: the spring leaf of the “white tea” in Jiujie is sensitive to heat, the best picking window lasts about fifteen days, and at temperatures above 25 °C it is no longer worth picking.

Anji Baicha under standard GB/T 20354—2026 is a green tea. For its “phoenix” shape (凤形, *fèngxíng*) in machine processing the standard gives this chain: spreading of the fresh leaf (摊青, *tānqīng*), fixation with straightening (杀青理条, *shāqīng lǐtiáo*), winnowing, first drying, cooling and final drying. This is the Anji Baicha scheme, not a description of the technology of *Dāolóuzhài báichá*.

**6. Organoleptic Characteristics:**

There is no normative description in the sources consulted. Below is what a reference encyclopedia article gives; this is not the text of a standard.

* **Dry leaf appearance:** Straight, slightly flat, “like an orchid leaf”, emerald with a touch of yellow, with an oily sheen (挺直略扁，形如兰蕙，色泽翠绿间黄，光亮油润).
* **Dry leaf aroma:** No descriptions were found in the sources consulted.
* **Liquor aroma:** Fresh, tender, lasting (香气鲜嫩持久).
* **Taste:** Fresh, mellow, with a sweet refreshing aftertaste (滋味鲜醇甘爽). For the neighboring Jiujie Baicha a local saying goes “there is taste in the plain” (淡中有味); it does not apply directly to Daolouzhai.
* **Liquor color:** Tender green, bright (汤色嫩绿明亮).
* **Spent leaves (wet leaves):** Green and glossy, the leaves open into a “flower”, the leaf is white with green veins (叶底绿亮成朵，叶白脉翠). Of the Jiujie tea the press writes that its brewed leaf is jade-white.

**7. Chemical Composition:**

There are no analyses of this particular tea in the sources consulted. The city press claims of the Jiujie “white tea” that it has three to four times more amino acids than ordinary green tea, and fewer polyphenols. This is a press claim without analysis figures, and it refers to the tea of the quarter as a whole; the reference article repeats it for Daolouzhai.

**8. Health Properties:**

There are no verified data on the effects of this particular tea.

**9. Brewing:**

Class practice. The class of the tea has not been established, so what follows is a gentle regime, the usual one for tender spring tea from light-leaf varieties.

* **Water temperature:** 80–85 °C.
* **Tea amount:** 3 g per 150 ml.
* **Teaware:** A glass tumbler or a white gaiwan.
* **Process:**
    1. Warm the teaware.
    2. Add the tea and pour the water down the side.
    3. First infusion — after 40–60 seconds.
    4. Drink, leaving part of the liquor.
    5. Top up with water.
    6. Two or three further infusions.

**10. Storage:**

Class practice for tender spring tea. In airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture and odors. Best drunk within a year.

**11. Price and Counterfeits:**

According to the 2019 publication, the tea of the company that owns the mark “刀楼寨” sold on average for about 1200 yuan per *jin* (500 g). In 2022 the city press gave about 1500 yuan per *jin* for the white tea from its gardens. These are producer prices as retold by the press, not a market summary.

* **How to avoid counterfeits:**
    * Look for geographical indication certification mark No. 18880304.
    * Check that the producer is from Xinzhou District.
    * Do not confuse it with Fujian white tea: the class of *Dāolóuzhài báichá* has not been established by a document.

**12. Interesting Facts:**

* Three tea certification marks are registered in a single Jiujie subdistrict.
* The tea was named after a mountain fortress where an observation post stood during the war with Japan.
* The seedlings for the gardens, according to the newspaper, were ordered from Anji — the home of the best-known “white” green tea.
* The stony soil that Lu Yu praises is the very thing that made it necessary to install sprinkler irrigation in the gardens here.

**13. Comparison with Neighboring and Related Teas:**

* **Jiujie Baicha (旧街白茶):** The neighboring mark of the same subdistrict, registered in 2015; the holder is the Jiujie white tea association. The reference article assigns it to the green class; I have not seen a document with the class.
* **Chenglouzhai Cha (城楼寨茶):** The oldest of the three Jiujie marks, since 2013; according to the description — a flat tea with a chestnut aroma, greenish with a touch of yellow.
* **Anji Baicha (安吉白茶):** A green tea from a white-leaf variety of Anji County — where, according to the newspaper, the seedlings came from. The prime example showing that *báichá* in the name does not mean the white class.
* **Baihao Yinzhen ([白毫银针](https://thetea.app/article/baihao-yinzhen)):** A true white tea of Fujian, without fixation or rolling — for contrast.

**In Conclusion:**

*Dāolóuzhài báichá* is a tea with a documented name and an unclear class. Little is reliably known: certification mark No. 18880304 since 2017, a holder in Xinzhou District, a mountain fortress in the spurs of the Dabieshan, stony gardens and seedlings, according to the press, from Anji. Reference texts describe it as a green tea with a white leaf and green veins, and the Wuhan agriculture bureau speaks of the Anji method, that is, of green technology. A class should be attached to the name by the mark document or a standard, not by a retelling and not by the characters of the name.