Guǎngdé huángjīnyá

Guǎngdé huángjīnyá (广德黄金芽) is a green tea from yellow-leaf cultivars of Guangde county-level city (广德市), Xuancheng prefecture-level city, in the southeast of Anhui Province. The name means “the golden buds of Guangde”: the shoots of these cultivars come out yellow, and in the cup the dry leaf, the liquor and the spent leaves stay yellow. The protection document sums up the appearance in the formula 三黄隐绿 — “three yellows in which green is hidden”. The tea does not belong to the yellow class: the technology recorded in the document is that of green tea, without sealed yellowing. Since 2025 the name has been a geographical indication product.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Green tea (绿茶, lǜchá). The class is established from the protection document of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA): spreading, fixation, shaping, drying and aroma enhancement (摊放→杀青→做形→干燥→提香); there is no sealed yellowing (闷黄, mènhuáng). The Xuancheng Administration for Market Regulation explicitly calls the product a green tea. The “gold” in the name is the color of the living shoot, not the class; a 2024 city publication at one point speaks of the “yellow tea industry” (黄茶产业), meaning the same golden buds; sealed yellowing is not mentioned there.
Category: Tea from yellow-leaf (黄化, huánghuà) cultivars; geographical indication product.
Origin: China, Anhui Province (安徽, Ānhuī), Xuancheng prefecture-level city (宣城, Xuānchéng), Guangde county-level city (广德, Guǎngdé).
Protection zone: Nine townships and towns of Guangde — Taozhou, Baidian, Xinhang, Qiucun, Shijie, Yangtan, Dongting, Sihe and Lucun, 120 administrative villages in all.
Geographic coordinates: 119°02′03″–119°40′08″ E, 30°37′03″–31°12′07″ N — according to the CNIPA announcement.

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- Guangde tea in general. The Xuancheng Administration for Market Regulation writes that tea was grown at the temples of Guangde as early as the Western Jin (西晋), gives figures for the official tea procurement of 1142 and the tea tax of 1398, and quotes a recollection of the gold medal that Guangde tea received at the Panama exposition of 1915. This information does not refer to the golden buds.
- Lu Tong’s line. The administration opens its description of the product with a line from a tea poem by Lu Tong (卢仝), “先春抽出黄金芽” — “before spring the golden buds broke through” — and calls it the first record of 黄金芽. The line speaks of spring buds; the link to the light-leaf cultivars is the city page’s interpretation.
- 1982. According to the same page, in this year Guangde began to grow “广德黄金芽”. How this date fits with the cultivars in the protection document cannot be established from the sources consulted.
- 2018. The geographical indication certification mark “广德黄金芽” was registered.
- 2020. The product was entered in the national list “名特优新” and received a five-star gold award at the first famous tea competition of the Yangtze River Delta.
- 2021. A certificate of agricultural product geographical indication was issued, number AGI03341.
- 2025. CNIPA, by announcement No. 625, recognized the name as a geographical indication product — according to the city’s report, the first in Guangde. The first valuation of the brand in the same year gave, according to the administration, 1.001 billion yuan.
Name: 广德 is the name of the city; 黄金 means “gold”, 芽 means “bud”. 黄金芽 is also known as the name of a light-leaf cultivar, but it is not on the list of cultivars in the protection document. The product name describes the appearance, not a single cultivar.
Cultural significance: The city builds on this tea the brand of “the first county of golden buds in China” (中国黄金芽第一县). According to a 2024 publication, Guangde has three lines of famous teas — 广德云雾茶, 广德白茶 and the golden buds — and every year it holds a festival for the start of the harvest.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Varieties: According to the protection document — 中黄一号 (Zhōnghuáng yīhào), 中黄二号 (Zhōnghuáng èrhào), 中黄三号 (Zhōnghuáng sānhào) and 黄金叶 (huángjīnyè). The Administration for Market Regulation classes the golden buds among the yellow-leaf (黄化) mutant cultivars.
Varieties in the area: According to a 2024 city publication, the share of bred cultivars in the gardens is 78 %; the south, the mountainous part, is left to local population teas, while the yellow-leaf clones are concentrated in the hills of the center and north.
Harvest standard: One bud with one leaf — one bud with two leaves.
Harvest time: The document does not name the timing.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Climate: According to the Administration for Market Regulation — northern subtropical humid monsoon: mean annual temperature 15.4 °C, frost-free period 218 days, 2162 hours of sunshine a year, relative humidity 80 %, precipitation about 1379 mm. Forest cover is more than 70 %, the difference between day and night temperatures is large, and there is much diffused light.
Growing altitude: 200–800 m, hilly slopes no steeper than 25° (protection document).
Soils: Yellow-red (黄红壤), at least 50 cm deep, organic matter at least 3.5 %, pH 4.5–6.5.
Care according to the document: Single-row planting with two plants per hole, 1.2–1.5 m between rows; as base fertilizer — 3000–3750 kg of rapeseed cake or organic matter per hectare; soil moisture — 70–90 % of field capacity.
Scale: The city’s figures differ from year to year: 55,000 mu in 2024, “almost 50,000 mu” in spring 2025, 58,000 mu in summer 2026.

5. Production Technology

The protection document sets five stages and, for each, the moisture of the leaf at the end of the stage.

Spreading (摊放, tānfàng): In a layer of 3–5 cm for 5–8 hours, with one or two turnings, until the leaf becomes soft and the grassy smell weakens. Moisture — 69–71 %.
Fixation (杀青, shāqīng): At 300–350 °C, until the squeezed leaf no longer sticks to the hand, the stalk bends without breaking and a tea aroma comes through. Moisture — 52–55 %.
Shaping (做形, zuòxíng): At a temperature from 130 down to 100 °C, for 10–15 minutes, until the leaf straightens and sets its shape. Moisture — 15–20 %.
Drying (干燥, gānzào): Without sudden strong heat, to a moisture of no more than 7.0 %.
Aroma enhancement (提香, tíxiāng): Brief heating at a low temperature; moisture — no more than 6.0 %.

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

The description follows the protection document.

Dry leaf appearance: The leaves are open and straight, tender yellow with green showing through, even and clean (朵形舒直、色泽嫩黄透绿、匀净).
Dry leaf aroma: No separate description in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: Clean and sweet, with a floral note (香气清甜带花香).
Taste: Fresh, mellow, sweet and brisk (滋味鲜醇甘爽).
Liquor color: Bright yellow with hidden green (汤色亮黄隐绿).
Spent leaves (wet leaves): Tender and even, the shoots open out whole, golden yellow with green (叶底嫩匀成朵、金黄含绿).

The summary formula of the document is 三黄隐绿，香清味醇: three yellows with hidden green, a clean aroma and a mellow taste.

7. Chemical Composition

Physicochemical requirements of the protection document:

Indicator	Requirement
Water extract	not less than 39 %
Tea polyphenols	not less than 12.5 %
Total ash	not more than 7.5 %

The Administration for Market Regulation gives its own figures: amino acids 6–10 %, polyphenols about 18–20 %. It names no method, sample or year, so this is an attributed guide figure, not a requirement.

8. Brewing

Class practice for tender green tea.

Water temperature: 75–80 °C.
Tea amount: 3 g per 150 ml.
Teaware: A glass tumbler, in which the yellow shoots can be seen, 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.

9. Storage

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

10. Price and Counterfeits

Retail price data are not found in the sources consulted.

How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the special geographical indication product logo and the mark “广德黄金芽”.
- Check that the producer is from the nine townships and towns of the zone.
- The dry leaf is straight, tender yellow with green; the liquor is light yellow with hidden green.
- Do not confuse it with the yellow tea class: the golden buds have no sealed yellowing.

11. Interesting Facts

The technology is recorded through the moisture of the leaf: from 69–71 % after spreading to 6 % after aroma enhancement.
Langxi County in the same prefecture-level city has its own geographical indication — “郎溪黄金芽”.
The document checks whether fixation is complete by touch: the leaf should slightly prick the hand (略有刺手感).

12. Comparison with Light-Leaf Teas

Anji Huangjin Ya (安吉黄金芽): A yellow-leaf green tea of Anji County in Zhejiang — the closest neighbor by name.
Jinyun Huangcha (缙云黄茶): A green tea of Zhejiang from the cultivar 中黄2号 — the same one that is named in the Guangde document.
Zhonghuang No. 1 (中黄一号): The corpus article on the cultivar that stands first in the Guangde list.
Huoshan Huangya (霍山黄芽): An Anhui yellow tea by class, with sealed yellowing — for contrast.

In Conclusion:

Guǎngdé huángjīnyá is a green tea named after the color of its leaf: the 中黄 and 黄金叶 cultivars give a yellow dry leaf, a light-yellow liquor and golden spent leaves with hidden green. The 2025 protection document describes it in detail — from the altitude of the gardens to the moisture of the leaf at each stage. The old lines of verse and the tax figures speak of Guangde tea in general; the golden buds themselves are a tea from modern cultivars.

Sources

Geographical indication

Full list — on the Sources page