Měnghǎi Bādá Mànmài chá

Měnghǎi Bādá Mànmài chá (勐海巴达曼迈茶) is a geographical mark for tea whose name joins the Bada area (巴达) and Manmai (曼迈) of Menghai County, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Bada is a mountain area in the west of the county, known for the old gardens of Bulang villages and for the wild patriarch tree that fell in 2012. The document does not say which place the mark refers to: in the Bada area, descriptions name both the village of Manmai and the Bulang village of Manmaidui (曼迈兑). The link to them is probable but not confirmed by the document. The mark does not name the class of the product.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Not established: the mark’s document does not name the class. Menghai’s large-leaf raw material is made above all into sheng pu-erh (生普, shēngpǔ), but also into red and white tea. Tea publications describe the tea of the Bada area as pu-erh.
Category: Tea of the old gardens of Menghai; geographical mark. The list does not specify what kind of mark it is, and the press calls the county’s marks certification marks (证明商标).
Origin: China, Yunnan Province (云南, Yúnnán), Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture (西双版纳, Xīshuāngbǎnnà), Menghai County (勐海县, Měnghǎi Xiàn). The Bada area belongs to Xiding Township (西定哈尼族布朗族乡, Xīdìng): in 2005 Bada Township merged with it, and Manmai, which formerly belonged to Bada, is now counted under Xiding.
Protection zone: The list gives Menghai County as the administrative affiliation of the mark holder. I have not checked the legal boundary of the zone; the link of the name to Manmai or to the village of Manmaidui is probable but not confirmed by the document.
Geographic coordinates: For the village of Manmai one description gives 21°49′ N and 100°02′ E. Coordinates of Manmaidui are not found in the sources consulted. Menghai County lies between 21°28′ and 22°28′ N and between 99°56′ and 100°41′ E; Bada is its western part.

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- Manmaidui. According to the description, this is a large Bulang village of 114 households, twenty-odd kilometers from Zhanglang. Residents said that some forty years before the account was recorded there had been more than a thousand mu of old gardens around the village, and that about half remained.
- The Bada patriarch tree. Near the village of Hesong (贺松), in October 1961 (in some descriptions — in 1962), a wild tea tree 32.12 m tall was found; a storm in 1967 left 14.7 m of it. Its age was estimated at more than 1700 years. In 2012 the tree died of old age. It grew in Hesong, not in Manmai, but it was this tree that made Bada famous.
- The Menghai marks. The umbrella mark “勐海茶” was filed in 2012 by the county tea center, registered in 2014 and put into use in 2016. In the list of Yunnan GI marks as of the end of 2019 it is followed by fifteen marks for mountains and villages; from the Bada area — “勐海章朗茶”, “勐海贺松茶” and “勐海巴达曼迈茶”. The press in 2022 speaks of sixteen marks of the county — the same number of tea marks Menghai has in the list if the umbrella mark is counted too.
Name:
- “Bada” (巴达) is the name of the mountain area and of the former township; according to one description, in the Bulang language it means “the place where an immortal left a trace”.
- “Manmai” (曼迈) — the meaning of the name is not explained in the sources consulted. In local names from the Dai language, “man” (曼) means “village”.
Cultural significance: Manmai and Manmaidui are Bulang villages; Manmai, according to the description, has more than a hundred households. Descriptions link the old cultivated gardens of Bada above all with Bulang villages.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Variety / Cultivar: Local large-leaf tea of old gardens; the variety is not named in the sources consulted.
Old trees: According to the description, near Manmai the old trees grow mostly in the forest behind the village, where the undergrowth has hardly been cleared; the trees are of the arbor type, more often over two meters tall, large-leaf tea predominates, and there is a little small-leaf tea. The gardens of Manmaidui come right up to the village and stretch from the road to the top of the slope.
Harvest: Timing is not given in the sources consulted.
Harvest standard: Not given in the sources consulted.
Raw material requirements: Descriptions name the old gardens of Bada around the Bulang villages of Zhanglang, Manmaidui and Manpale (曼帕勒) — about 3451 mu. I have not seen the requirements of the mark.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Region: The western part of Menghai County; to the west and south the county borders Myanmar.
Growing altitude: The village of Manmai, according to one description, stands at 1560 m; the altitudes of the gardens are not given separately.
Soils: Yellow-brown and yellow (黄棕壤、黄壤) — this is how tea publications describe the soils both of Bada as a whole and of the surroundings of Manmai. Another description calls the soil near Manmai purple-red and stony (紫红羊矸石土); I have not resolved the discrepancy.
Climate: Warm and humid. According to descriptions, near Manmai fog lasts up to 126 days a year; descriptions put the average annual temperature of the Bada area at about 20 °C.
Forest: Near Hesong, according to a 2004 provincial and prefectural survey as retold by tea publications, there are more than 6000 mu of wild tea plant communities.

5. Production Technology

The technology of the tea under the mark is not described in the sources consulted. For sheng pu-erh from old trees the usual sequence is as follows:

Plucking (采摘, cǎizhāi).
Cooling the leaf (摊晾, tānliàng).
Fixation in a pan (杀青, shāqīng).
Rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn).
Sun drying (晒干, shàigān): The result is loose maocha (晒青毛茶, shàiqīng máochá).
Pressing (紧压, jǐnyā): Optional.

This is the general scheme of the class, not a description of the technology of Měnghǎi Bādá Mànmài chá.

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

There are no descriptions of the tea under this mark. Below is a general characterization of Bada tea as described by a tea publication; no one has linked it to Manmai or to the product under the mark.

Dry leaf appearance: Tightly twisted, dark and glossy (条索黑亮紧结).
Dry leaf aroma: No descriptions in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: Pure and distinct, with a strong “mountain-forest” note; the aroma lingers at the bottom of the cup (香气纯正明显，山野气强，杯底香强且持久).
Taste: Bitterness and astringency are noticeable, but the liquor has sweetness; the sweet return is fairly quick, the liquor is fairly full and smooth, the “tea energy” is noticeable (苦涩较显，汤中带甜，回甘较快较好，汤较饱满滑顺，茶气较强).
Liquor color: Golden yellow, bright (汤色金黄明亮).
Spent leaves (wet leaves): Yellow-green, even (叶底黄绿匀整).

7. Chemical Composition

Physicochemical data are not found in the sources consulted.

8. Brewing

Class practice. The mark does not name the class; the guidelines below are for sheng pu-erh, which is how tea publications describe the tea of the Bada area.

Water temperature: 95–100 °C.
Tea amount: 5–8 g per 110–150 ml.
Teaware: Gaiwan or a clay teapot.
Process:
1. Warm the teaware.
2. Add the tea; break pressed tea apart carefully, without crumbling the leaf.
3. Briefly rinse the leaf with boiling water and pour it off.
4. First infusions — 10–15 seconds.
5. Pour out the liquor completely.
6. Lengthen the time with each infusion.

9. Storage

Class practice. Sheng pu-erh is stored in a dry, clean, ventilated place away from light and foreign odors, in breathable packaging. Such tea changes over the years, and it is often aged on purpose.

10. Price and Counterfeits

Price data are not found in the sources consulted.

How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the mark “勐海巴达曼迈茶” and check that the producer is from Menghai County.
- Check the place: the mark names neither a village nor a village committee, and “Bada tea” does not by itself mean “Manmai tea” — the area has other marks too, “勐海章朗茶” and “勐海贺松茶”.
- Do not take “tea from the Bada patriarch tree” on faith: the famous Hesong tree fell in 2012.

11. Interesting Facts

The name Bada, according to one description, means in Bulang “the place where an immortal left a trace”.
The road from Manmaidui to the township center of Xiding, twenty-odd kilometers among tea gardens, is called in the description the “tea garden viewing road”: along it lie the raw material bases of the Menghai Tea Factory.
The famous Bada patriarch tree, which grew to 32 m, grew not in Manmai but near the neighboring village of Hesong.

12. Comparison with Neighboring Teas

Menghai Zhanglang Cha (勐海章朗茶): The mark of a neighboring Bulang village of the same Bada area.
Qianjiazhai and Bada (千家寨 · 巴达): Our encyclopedia’s article on wild patriarch trees, the Bada tree among them.
Bulangshan (布朗山): A massif in the southeast of the county; descriptions compare the taste of Bada tea with that of Bulangshan.
Menghai (勐海): The county and the umbrella mark.

In Conclusion:

Měnghǎi Bādá Mànmài chá is a mark whose name points to the mountain area of Bada in the west of the county and to Manmai, but the document does not say which exact place. The probable addresses are the Bulang villages of Manmai, at an altitude of about 1560 m, and Manmaidui, with old gardens right by the houses. Bada tea as a whole is described as having a dark, tight leaf and a golden-yellow liquor with noticeable bitterness and sweetness; there are no verified descriptions of the product under the mark itself.