Lùmíng gòngchá

Lùmíng gòngchá (鹿鸣贡茶) — “tribute tea of the deer’s cry” — is a green tea from the mountainous south of Gong County (珙县), Yibin prefecture-level city, in the south of Sichuan Province, on the border with Yunnan. The name refers to a legend about a tea presented to the Ming court in the 16th century. The old method of making it, according to the provincial government, was lost, and the present tea was developed anew in the 1980s–1990s. The raw material comes from the gardens of the “Luming tea sea” (鹿鸣茶海) at an altitude of 1,100–1,800 m. Lùmíng gòngchá is a geographical indication product.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Green tea (绿茶, lǜchá). A document stating the class was not found in the sources consulted, but all descriptions are of a green tea, and a reference site on local products writes that in Yibin the “鹿鸣” brand has become a synonym for green tea.
Category: A mountain green tea of southern Sichuan; geographical indication product.
Origin: China, Sichuan Province (四川, Sìchuān), Yibin prefecture-level city (宜宾, Yíbīn), Gong County.
Production area: According to the provincial government — the townships of Shibei (石碑乡) and Caoying (曹营乡) and the town of Wangjia (王家镇) in the south of the county. A county local-history text calls the place of production the “Luming tea sea” on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan.
Protection zone: An exact list of units from the protection document was not found in the sources consulted.

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- Antiquity. A county local-history text quotes the Huayang Guo Zhi (《华阳国志》) by Chang Qu (Jin era), where tea is named among the tribute, and relates these lines to Bodao (僰道), the land of the Bo people. But the quotation, according to the text itself, is taken from the chapter on Ba (巴志), so the link with Gong County is an interpretation by local authors.
- 1541. According to the provincial government, by this year the tea was already famous and went to the court as tribute. After the extermination of the Bo people (僰人), the method of making it was lost.
- 1573. A legend that the local-history text itself prefaces with the word “据传” — “according to legend”: in the first year of the Wanli reign the Sichuan governor Zeng Shengwu and the military commander Liu Xian suppressed a Bo uprising, and one of the soldiers extracted from the Bo the method of making tea in the locality of Xiaoluying (小陆营) — today’s Luming Village (鹿鸣村) of Caoying Town. Tea made by this method was presented to Emperor Shenzong, who supposedly gave it the name Lùmíng. The years 1541 and 1573 do not fit well across the different sources: in one, the tea is already famous before the legend about its name.
- 1980s. The Yongxing tea farm (永兴茶场) began restoring the lost tea — according to the provincial government.
- 1990s. Yibin, together with Sichuan Agricultural University, developed the present Lùmíng gòngchá, combining traditional techniques with modern ones.
- 2013–2015. Gold medals of the 2nd and 3rd China (Sichuan) International Tea Expo in 2013 and 2014, an award of the 11th “Zhongcha Bei” competition (中茶杯) in 2015 — according to the county local-history text.
- 2018. According to the Baidu reference, on 14 March the former General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, by announcement No. 33, placed the tea under protection as a geographical indication product; the date and number have not been checked against the primary source.
- 2020. The local standard DB5115/T 59-2020 on production technique was approved; in 2024 it was repealed and replaced by the standard DB5115/T 59—2024 on quality requirements.
- 2024. By announcement No. 597 of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), dated 27 September, the right to the special indication mark was granted to the company 四川省珙县鹿鸣茶业有限公司.
Name: 鹿鸣 (lùmíng) — “the cry of the deer”, the name of Luming Village and, according to legend, of the tea; 贡茶 (gòngchá) — “tea presented as tribute”.
Cultural significance: The tea is associated with the vanished Bo people, whose land the local-history text identifies as the Gong County area.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Varieties / Cultivars: The name of a variety or local population was not found in the sources consulted.
Raw material: According to the county local-history text, one jin (500 g) of dry tea takes 35,000–40,000 selected plump buds.
Product line: According to the Baidu reference, several teas are released under the name — “gòngchá”, “cuiya”, “wuya”, “maofeng” and a green tea from wild-growing bushes; descriptions of the appearance differ between sources.
Harvest standard and timing: No exact data were found in the sources consulted.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Region: The south of Gong County, the junction of Sichuan and Yunnan.
Growing altitude: According to the local-history text, the “Luming tea sea” covers about 11,320 mu, and its core — ten thousand mu of gardens — lies at an altitude of 1,100–1,800 m.
Climate: The county is described as having a humid monsoon climate of the central subtropical zone: mean annual temperature 17.8 °C, precipitation 1,171 mm, sunshine — 961.7 hours a year; the local-history text calls the county a typical low-sunshine area of China. Forest cover — 43.68%.
Soils: Loamy yellow clay soil (壤质黄泥土) — loose, well permeable, with a thick humus layer and a high organic content.
Features: According to the description, mists, humidity and large day-night temperature differences slow the growth of the bush, and the shoots remain tender.

5. Production Technology

A detailed process and parameters were not found in the sources consulted. It is known that the present tea was created in the 1990s by combining traditional techniques with modern ones, and that in 2020–2024 the production technique was regulated by a local standard whose text could not be opened.

The general scheme for green tea is spreading (摊放, tānfàng), fixation (杀青, shāqīng), shaping (for twisted tea — rolling, 揉捻, róuniǎn) and drying (干燥, gānzào); this is the scheme of the class, not a description of the Lùmíng gòngchá process.

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

The two official descriptions apparently refer to different teas of the line.

Dry leaf appearance: According to the provincial government — a tight, thin and even leaf with visible down, grey-green (紧细匀称、毫锋显露、色泽灰绿). According to the county local-history text — the buds are flat, straight and smooth, emerald green with an oily sheen (扁、平、直、滑，色泽翠绿油润).
Dry leaf aroma: No data were found in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: Refined, high and long-lasting (清雅高长) — according to the province; high and clean — according to the local-history text.
Taste: Fresh, brisk and mellow (鲜爽醇厚); for the bud tea — fresh, with a sweet return.
Liquor color: Emerald green, bright (翠绿明亮) — according to the province; tender green, clear — for the bud tea.
Spent leaves (wet leaves): Plump and even (肥硕匀齐); in the glass the buds rise and sink and each stands on its own.

7. Chemical Composition

No numerical data were found in the sources consulted. The county local-history text explains the taste by the mountain climate: with little sunshine the shoots supposedly contain fewer bitter catechins and more theanine, soluble nitrogen and aromatic substances. Measurements confirming this for Lùmíng gòngchá were not found in the sources consulted.

8. Brewing

Class practice for green tea.

Water temperature: 80–85 °C.
Tea amount: 3 g per 150 ml.
Teaware: A glass tumbler — in it you can see the buds stand upright — 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, and top up with water.
5. Two or three further infusions.

9. Storage

Class practice. In airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture and foreign odors. Storage periods for this particular tea were not found in the sources consulted.

10. Price and Counterfeits

Price data were not found in the sources consulted.

How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the special geographical indication mark and check the producer against the announcements of CNIPA; in announcement No. 597 the mark is authorized for the company 四川省珙县鹿鸣茶业有限公司.
- The tea must be green and come from Gong County, Yibin prefecture.
- The word “鹿鸣” by itself does not prove origin: according to the reference site on local products, in Yibin and neighboring counties this brand has become a synonym for green tea.
- The sources consulted do not describe signs of counterfeiting in the cup.

11. Interesting Facts

The local-history text calls Gong County a typical low-sunshine area of China: fewer than a thousand hours of sunshine a year.
According to the local-history text, in 2019 the production was certified under the HACCP system, and a series of teas passed testing against 580 European Union indicators.

12. Comparison with Other Teas of Yibin

Yibin Zaocha (宜宾早茶): An early green tea of Yibin prefecture; Lùmíng gòngchá is a mountain tea of a southern county with gardens up to 1,800 m.
Junlian Hongcha (筠连红茶): A red tea of Junlian County in the same prefecture — a different class.
Guosheng Cha (国胜茶): A mountain green tea of southern Sichuan on the border with Yunnan, with gardens even higher — 1,600–2,500 m — and an orchid aroma.

In Conclusion:

Lùmíng gòngchá is a mountain green tea of southern Gong County whose history rests on two pillars: the legend of the Bo people’s tribute to the Ming court and the work of the 1980s–1990s, when the tea was restored anew. The documents portray it as a high-mountain tea from the “Luming tea sea” at 1,100–1,800 m, with an emerald liquor and a clean, high aroma, in two forms — twisted and flat bud. Many details — the variety, the process, the exact zone — are not disclosed in the sources consulted.