Guǎng'ān sōngzhēn

Guǎng’ān sōngzhēn (广安松针) is a needle-shaped green tea from Qianfeng District (前锋区) of Guang’an prefecture-level city in the east of Sichuan Province. The name means “Guang’an pine needle”: according to reference descriptions, the down on the buds resembles frost on pine needles, and the leaf is rolled into a thin straight needle. The gardens lie in the Huaying Mountains (华蓥山), some of them under pine trees. The brand collected its awards in the 1990s, then fell into decline and is now being revived; since 2016 the name has been protected by a certification mark.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Green tea (绿茶, lǜchá) of needle shape. I have not seen a protection document stating the class; a district government document (June 2024) explicitly calls the product “广安松针绿茶”, and reference descriptions call it a famous green tea (名优绿茶).
Name: “松针” (sōngzhēn) — “pine needle”, the shape of the leaf, not the bush cultivar and not the class.
Category: Regional public brand of Guang’an tea; geographical indication certification mark.
Origin: China, Sichuan Province (四川, Sìchuān), Guang’an prefecture-level city (广安, Guǎng’ān), Qianfeng District (前锋, Qiánfēng).
Mark zone: The Sichuan list of registered marks as of March 2018 names a holder from Qianfeng District — this is the holder’s affiliation, not a verified boundary of the zone.
Main gardens: Longtan Town (龙滩镇) and Guixing Town (桂兴镇) in the Huaying Mountains.

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- 1970s. According to a text on the district website (April 2024), old gardens stretched for kilometers in the Huaying Mountains — an “ecological garden of ten thousand mu” — but no industry grew out of them.
- Late 1980s. According to the same text, the company “广安松针实业有限公司”, together with Southwest Agricultural University (西南农业大学), created the brand; later the tea fell into decline.
- Discrepancy. The newspaper Zhonghua Hezuo Shibao (中华合作时报, 2018) gives a different account: a company with this name was founded in 2000 and closed in 2006 because of debts, and the brand’s heyday came in the 1990s. The sources do not explain the difference in dates.
- 2003. The 2024 text writes that an entrepreneur who had returned home began reviving the industry; the 2018 newspaper also names other attempts — in 2010 and 2017.
- 2016. According to a district report, Qianfeng registered “广安松针” as a national certification mark; companies use it only with permission.
- 2018. The mark appears in Sichuan’s list of registered marks as of March 2018.
- 2021. The district government’s work report (March 2022) writes that “广安松针茶叶” was entered into the national registration list of agricultural product geographical indications. I have not seen the register entry itself.
- 2026. In an April 2026 article, a district agronomist calls “广安松针” a product under state geographical indication protection; which regime is meant cannot be determined from the text.
Awards: According to the 2018 newspaper and reference descriptions: 1994 — the provincial “Ganlu Bei” (甘露杯) award, 1995 — gold at the 2nd China Agricultural Expo, 1997 — the “Zhongcha Bei” (中茶杯) award of the China Tea Science Society, 2000 — gold at the China International Tea Expo.
Cultural significance: According to the 2026 text, the tea-picking festival is being held for the sixth year; in 2026 a tea picking and tea making competition was added to it.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Varieties / Cultivars: Not named in the sources consulted.
Raw material: Reference descriptions speak of early spring buds and leaves with prominent white down (白毫显露); an exact harvest standard was not found in the sources consulted.
Harvest time: Early spring, according to a reference description; the 2018 newspaper writes that the picking season in the district begins in March.
Bush records: According to the 2026 text, the tea bushes in the district have been assigned numbers — a kind of “identity card” (身份证编号).

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Region: Eastern Sichuan (川东), the western slope of the Huaying Mountains.
Conditions: According to the district agriculture bureau (2021): a large difference between day and night temperatures, high humidity, fogs, soils rich in organic matter.
Pine forest: According to the 2026 article, the tea grows under pine trees; one of the bases is in fact named the “organic tea garden in the pine forest of Mount Huaying”.
Altitude, soil type, climate figures: No data found in the sources consulted.
Areas: The figures differ because different things are being counted:
- according to a reply from the district agriculture bureau (2021) — 12,750 mu, 60 t of tea a year;
- according to a text on the district website (September 2023), the base in Longtan and Guixing — 5,000 mu, all the district’s tea — 12,000 mu;
- a district government document (June 2024) — 18,000 mu of “广安松针” bases and of the “安吉白茶” cultivar together;
- according to the 2026 article, more than 1,600 mu of old gardens have been renovated.

5. Production Technology

Process parameters were not found in the sources consulted. A reference description names, in the traditional technique, fixation (杀青, shāqīng), cooling (摊凉, tānliáng), a second pan-firing (二炒, èrchǎo) and final drying in the wok (辉锅, huīguō). The 2018 newspaper counted ten primary processing operations at one company, among them rolling in cloth (包揉, bāoróu), and nine finishing operations. According to the district text (2024), one of the companies has a factory for 120-odd tonnes of tea a year.

Below is the general scheme for needle-shaped green tea, not a description of the Guǎng’ān sōngzhēn technique:

Spreading of fresh leaf (摊放, tānfàng): The leaf gives up part of its moisture.
Fixation (杀青, shāqīng): Heating stops oxidation.
Rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn).
Shaping into needles (理条, lǐtiáo): The leaf is drawn out into straight thin strips.
Drying (烘干, hōnggān).

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

The description below is taken from reference descriptions; I have not seen a mark document with appearance requirements.

Dry leaf appearance: Thin, tight strips, round and straight like a needle; emerald green in color, the white down visible (条索细紧圆直似针，色泽翠绿，白毫显露).
Dry leaf aroma: No descriptions found in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: High and clean (香气高爽).
Taste: Fresh and mellow (滋味鲜醇).
Liquor color: Clear and bright (汤色清澈明亮).
Spent leaves (wet leaves): Tender, even and bright (叶底嫩匀明亮).

7. Chemical Composition

Physicochemical data according to a standard were not found in the sources consulted. In the 2026 article, the district agronomist says that tea grown under pines is rich in anthocyanins — “50 times more than ordinary tea”. The article names neither the method nor the point of comparison; this is a claim, not a measured value.

8. Brewing

Class practice for green tea.

Water temperature: 80–85 °C.
Tea amount: 3 g per 150 ml.
Teaware: A glass — in it you can see the needles stand upright in the water; a white gaiwan also works.
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.

9. Storage

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

10. Price and Counterfeits

Prices: According to a reply from the district agriculture bureau (2021), the district’s tea — green, red and white — cost from 50 to 15,000 yuan per jin (500 g); this range does not apply to “广安松针” alone. According to the 2018 newspaper, a box of good tea in one company’s shop cost up to 1,800-odd yuan; the weight of the box is not given.
Scale: The district valued all of its tea output in 2023 at 80 million yuan.
How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the “广安松针” geographical indication certification mark: according to the district, it may be used only with permission.
- Check that the producer is from Qianfeng District of Guang’an prefecture-level city.
- The leaf is a thin straight emerald needle with visible down, the liquor is clear and bright.

11. Interesting Facts

According to the district text, the brand was created jointly with a university — Southwest Agricultural University — as far back as the late 1980s.
The name “pine needle” was given for the shape of the leaf, but here it also matches the landscape: some of the gardens lie under pine trees.
According to a district report, the white tea “蓥山皇片” of a local company won gold at the World Green Tea Contest in 2022.
According to the 2026 article, one of the gardens received almost ten thousand tourists in the first quarter.

12. Comparison with Other Needle-Shaped and Sichuan Teas

Anhua Songzhen (安化松针): A needle-shaped green tea from Anhua County in Hunan; the same “pine needle” name, a different province.
Zhejiang Songzhen (浙江松针): A needle-shaped green tea from Chun’an County in Zhejiang.
Dianhong Songzhen (滇红松针): A Yunnan red tea of the same shape: “pine needle” speaks of the shape, not of the class.
Ba Shan Que She (巴山雀舌): A Sichuan green tea, but flat, in the shape of a “sparrow’s tongue”.

In Conclusion:

Guǎng’ān sōngzhēn is a needle-shaped green tea from the Huaying Mountains in eastern Sichuan: an emerald straight needle with white down, a clear liquor, a high clean aroma and a fresh taste. The brand collected awards in the 1990s, survived a decline and is returning together with renovated gardens and the 2016 mark. The sources give the dates of its early history differently, and they contain no process parameters.