Huìdōng Nánshān chá

Huìdōng Nánshān chá (惠东南山茶) is the “Nanshan tea” of the Jiulongfeng (九龙峰) tourist area of Huidong County (惠东县), Huizhou prefecture-level city, Guangdong Province. This is an applied-for name, not a registered one: in March 2025 Huizhou Ribao reported that the China National Intellectual Property Administration had accepted for examination an application for the geographical indication certification mark “惠东南山茶”. There is as yet no mark, no approved zone and no product description. According to Huizhou Ribao (2026), “four major kinds” of Nanshan tea are brewed in the “Nanshan ecological valley”, and the tea workshop runs lines for four tea classes — which is why the article stands among the categories rather than in the folder of a single class.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Not established. According to Huizhou Ribao (2026), tea masters brew “four major kinds” of Nanshan tea (四大品类), and the tea workshop of the Nanshan valley runs lines for four tea classes (四大茶类). Which classes these are and which of them will be included in the mark, the newspaper does not say.
Category: The name of a mountain area of Huidong County; an application for a geographical indication certification mark, accepted for examination.
Origin: China, Guangdong Province (广东, Guǎngdōng), Huizhou prefecture-level city (惠州, Huìzhōu), Huidong County (惠东, Huìdōng), Jiulongfeng tourist area (九龙峰, Jiǔlóngfēng).
Zone: The protected zone has not been published. The name is linked with the Jiulongfeng area by local press publications; I have not seen the declared boundaries.
Status: The application has been accepted; the name is not registered (2026 register).

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- Filing of the application. The filing date and the name of the applicant are not found in the sources consulted.
- 2025 — application accepted. According to Huizhou Ribao (March 2025), the county marks “惠东马铃薯” and “惠东仙人茶” have been registered, while the applications for “惠东南山茶”, “惠州岩茶”, “白盆珠横坑茶” and two more non-tea products have been accepted by the China National Intellectual Property Administration.
- 2026 — harvest opening festival. According to Huizhou Ribao, on 20 March, in the season of the spring equinox, Chunfen (春分, chūnfēn), the “mountain-calling festival” and the opening of the Nanshan tea harvest (春分喊山·南山茶开采活动) took place in the “Nanshan ecological valley” (南山生态谷): a rite of worshipping the mountain with a prayer for tea, a collective call over the slopes and the picking of the season’s first buds.
Name: “Huidong” (惠东) is the name of the county; “Nanshan” (南山) means “Southern Mountain”; “cha” (茶) means tea. In the Jiulongfeng area there is Mount Dananshan (大南山) and the “Nanshan ecological valley” base; the sources give no direct explanation of the name.
Cultural significance: According to Yangcheng Wanbao (January 2024), tea is among the local gifts of the Jiulongfeng area, and the “Haoshu” red tea of Tianxin village (田心好树红茶) and the large-leaf tea of Shangwei village (上围村大叶茶) received the provincial title “one village, one product” (一村一品).

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Varieties: The varieties that will be included in the mark have not been published. A tourist reference page (2023) lists the main varieties of the county as a whole — xianren cha (仙人茶, also known as “shanzi cha”, 山子茶), 金萱 (jīnxuān), 梅占 (méizhàn), shuixian (水仙) and population bushes — and calls xianren cha a variety peculiar to Huidong alone. Which of them grow in the Nanshan valley is not found in the sources consulted; of the village teas of the area, the newspapers mention the large-leaf tea of Shangwei village.
Harvest: According to the newspaper (2026), in the Nanshan valley everything — from tending the bushes to picking the leaf — is done by hand. No harvest standard was found in the sources consulted.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Region: The area is named after Mount Jiulongfeng in the western part of the Lianhuashan range (莲花山), 14 km from the county seat; its main peak is 563 m (Yangcheng Wanbao, 2024). According to a reference from the area administration (2025), it lies in the center of the county and covers 218.05 km², of which about 120 km² is continuous forest; the Xizhi River (西枝江) flows through the area, and the Jiulongfeng provincial forest park and the Nanshan municipal forest park have been set up here.
Area: According to Huizhou Ribao (2026), the Nanshan valley has 2000 mu of ecological gardens, cultivated without disturbing nature and watered with spring water. Garden acreage for the area as a whole is not found in the sources checked.
Altitude and soils: The tourist reference page (2023) gives for the Jiulongfeng gardens an altitude of 200–300 m, terrain sloping from northwest to southeast and mainly acidic red soils with a deep layer. A separate altitude for the gardens of the Nanshan valley is not found in the sources consulted.
Climate: According to the same page — mountains all around, clouds and mist, springs, a mild climate and plenty of water. For the county as a whole it gives a southern subtropical monsoon climate, an average temperature of 22.0 °C, 1720.3 mm of precipitation a year and a relative humidity of 78%.

5. Production Technology

No technology declared for the mark was found in the sources consulted. According to Huizhou Ribao (2026), the workshop of the Nanshan valley runs lines for four tea classes, but which classes these are and how they are made is not said.

Since the class has not been established, I do not give the general scheme of a class: it differs across the four classes.

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

There is no description of the applied-for product. The newspaper (2026) speaks of Nanshan tea in general terms — “beautiful form, pure aroma, mellow taste” (形美、香纯、味醇), and the tourist reference page speaks of Jiulongfeng tea as rich and fragrant, with a long aftertaste. Which class these words refer to is not said.

Dry leaf appearance: No data found in the sources consulted.
Dry leaf aroma: No data found in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: No data found in the sources consulted.
Taste: No data found in the sources consulted.
Liquor color: No data found in the sources consulted.
Spent leaves (wet leaves): No data found in the sources consulted.

7. Chemical Composition

No physicochemical data found in the sources consulted.

8. Brewing

Class practice — the parameters depend on which tea from Jiulongfeng is in hand.

Green: 80–85 °C, 3 g per 150 ml, first infusion 40–60 seconds, a glass tumbler or a gaiwan, two or three repeat infusions.
Red: 90–95 °C, 3 g per 150 ml, first infusion about a minute, a gaiwan or a porcelain teapot, several infusions with lengthening steeps.

9. Storage

Class practice. Green tea — in airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture and odors; drink within a year. Red — in a dry dark place at room temperature, in tight packaging, away from odors.

10. Price and Counterfeits

No price data were found in the sources consulted.

How to avoid counterfeits:
- Remember that there is no “惠东南山茶” mark yet: the inscription on the packaging is a trade name, not a protected name.
- The county’s registered tea mark is “惠东仙人茶”; it should not be confused with Nanshan tea.
- Check that the producer is from Huidong County, and ask which class the tea belongs to.

11. Interesting Facts

The harvest in the Nanshan valley in 2026 was opened on the day of the spring equinox — with a rite of worshipping the mountain and a collective call over the slopes.
Within the Jiulongfeng area alone, two villages received the provincial title “one village, one product” for tea — a red one and a large-leaf one.
According to a 2025 report, Huidong County was awaiting decisions on five mark applications at once — three tea and two non-tea.
The main peak of Mount Jiulongfeng is 563 m, while the gardens of the area, according to the tourist page, lie at only 200–300 m.

12. Comparison with Other Teas

Huidong Xianren Cha (惠东仙人茶): A registered mark of the same county for tea from the local xianren cha population.
Huizhou Yancha (惠州岩茶): A Wuyishan-type oolong from the danxia hills near the Baipenzhu reservoir; the application for its mark was accepted together with the Nanshan one.
Baipenzhu Hengkeng Cha (白盆珠横坑茶): A green tea of Hengkeng village in the same county; also an application, not a mark.
Huidong Lü Cha (惠东绿茶): The corpus article on the green teas of the county as a whole — a collective name without protection.

In Conclusion:

Huìdōng Nánshān chá is so far a name without a mark: the application has been accepted, but the zone, class and appearance of the product have not been published. Behind it stands the Jiulongfeng area in the west of the Lianhuashan range — gardens at 200–300 m among forests, the “Nanshan ecological valley” with 2000 mu of gardens, hand tending and picking, lines for four tea classes and a harvest opening festival on the day of the spring equinox. What exactly the mark will protect will become clear only after registration.