Měnghǎi Bǎotáng chá

Měnghǎi Bǎotáng chá (勐海保塘茶) is a geographical mark for the tea of Baotang (保塘), an old tea village of the Mengsong (勐宋) mountain massif in Menghai County (勐海县), Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Baotang is two settlements: an old Lahu one and a new Han one; they are about a kilometer apart, and their old gardens merge into a single tract of more than a thousand mu. Popular descriptions call the old garden of Baotang the most representative in Mengsong in the size and age of its trees; they estimate the age of the trees at 200–700 years. The mark belongs to a series of sixteen marks that the county received for individual mountains and villages alongside the umbrella mark “勐海茶”. The product class is not fixed by the mark.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Not fixed by the mark’s document. The raw material is the leaf of large-leaf tea trees of old gardens. In Menghai such leaf is made above all into raw material for pu-erh, but also into red and white tea; the register does not say which product the mark covers.
Category: Village tea of old gardens; a geographical mark in the provincial list of Yunnan as of December 28, 2019. The press calls the marks of this series certification marks.
Origin: China, Yunnan Province (云南, Yúnnán), Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture (西双版纳傣族自治州, Xīshuāngbǎnnà Dǎizú Zìzhìzhōu), Menghai County (勐海县, Měnghǎi Xiàn), Mengsong Township (勐宋乡, Měngsòng Xiāng), village of Baotang (保塘, Bǎotáng).
Protection zone: The provincial list gives Menghai County as the administrative affiliation of the mark holder. I have not checked whether the zone of the mark coincides with the lands of the village.
Geographic coordinates: Mengsong Township — about 22.06° N and 100.56° E.

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- Old gardens. Popular descriptions give differing estimates of the age of the Baotang trees: 200–700 years, for the largest — 500–700 years or “no less than 700”. According to one of the essays, there are more than a dozen trees here with a trunk diameter of over 150 cm. The authors of these descriptions consider the old gardens of Baotang and of neighboring Nannuo Mountain (南糯山) to be gardens of roughly the same age; this is their estimate, not the result of dating.
- The new settlement. According to local descriptions, new Baotang was founded by Han people who came here in the Guangxu years (光绪, 1875–1908) of the Qing dynasty; the village is more than a hundred years old.
- 2012–2014. The county tea technology center applied for the umbrella mark “勐海茶” in 2012; the mark was registered in 2014.
- Sixteen marks. Press coverage from 2022 says that alongside the umbrella mark the county registered sixteen marks for mountains and villages, and names “勐海班章茶” and “勐海保塘茶” first among them.
- 2019. “勐海保塘茶” appears in the provincial list of geographical marks of Yunnan as of December 28, 2019.
- The number, the holder, the year of registration and the rules of the mark are not found in the sources consulted; I have not checked whether the mark is still in force.
Name:
- “Menghai” (勐海) is the name of the county.
- “Baotang” (保塘) is the name of the village. An interpretation of the name is not found in the sources consulted.
Cultural significance: Baotang is one of the “seven villages of Mengsong” (勐宋七寨): old and new Baotang, Naka (那卡), Da’an (大安), Nanben (南本), Damanlü (大曼吕) and Bameng (坝檬). Essays call old Baotang a purely Lahu village, and the new one a Han village.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Variety / Cultivar: Large-leaf tea of old gardens. No specific variety or local population is named in the sources consulted.
Raw material: The leaf of old trees (古树, gǔshù); according to descriptions, the age of the trees is from 200 to 700 years; trees that take two people to encircle are, as sources write, not rare here.
Harvest: Timing is not found in the sources consulted.
Harvest standard: Not given in the sources consulted.
Raw material requirements: I have not seen the rules of the mark; requirements for the raw material are not found in the sources consulted.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Region: The Mengsong mountain massif in the northeast of Menghai County. Baotang, according to various descriptions, lies 7–10 km from the township center.
Growing altitude: Descriptions diverge. One gives the altitude of the tea area of old Baotang as about 1760 m, another — 1700–1800 m, a third writes that the old gardens lie mostly above 1800 m.
Area: The old gardens of new and old Baotang are a single tract of about 1050 mu (about 70 ha), according to descriptions. In all, Mengsong has about 3800 mu of old gardens, according to essays.
Climate: Data specifically for Baotang are not found in the sources consulted.
Soils: No data in the sources consulted.

5. Production Technology

The technology is not described in the sources consulted, and the mark does not fix the product. The appearance described in the essays on the village resembles sun-dried raw material for sheng pu-erh. For such raw material (晒青毛茶, shàiqīng máochá) the usual sequence is as follows:

Light withering (摊晾, tānliàng): The fresh leaf is spread out in a thin layer.
Fixation (杀青, shāqīng): The leaf is heated in a pan to stop oxidation.
Rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn): The leaf is rolled by hand or by machine.
Sun drying (晒干, shàigān): The rolled leaf is dried in the sun.

This is the general scheme of the class, not a description of the technology of Baotang tea.

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

The descriptions below come from popular essays on the tea of the village, not from the document of the mark; the product class is not named in them.

Dry leaf appearance: Tightly twisted, black with an oily sheen, the buds large, the silvery down clearly visible (条索紧结、乌黑油润、芽头肥大，银毫特显).
Dry leaf aroma: A separate description is not found in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: High, with a strong “mountain” character (山野气强). Baotang is known for the formula “high aroma, sweet water” (香高水甜).
Taste: Strength and softness in balance, no bitterness, slight astringency, after swallowing — salivation (柔烈适中，不苦稍涩……过后生津).
Liquor color: Golden, clear and bright (汤色金黄透亮).
Spent leaves (wet leaves): Soft, tender and fleshy (叶底柔嫩肥硕).

7. Chemical Composition

Physicochemical data are not found in the sources consulted.

8. Brewing

Class practice. The product class is not fixed by the mark; below are guidelines for sheng pu-erh, which the described raw material resembles.

Water temperature: 90–100 °C.
Tea amount: 5–7 g per 100–120 ml.
Teaware: Gaiwan or a small clay teapot.
Process:
1. Warm the teaware.
2. Add the tea.
3. Briefly rinse the leaf with hot water and pour it off.
4. First infusions — 10–20 seconds.
5. Pour into a chahai, then into the cups.
6. Repeat infusions, gradually adding time; the leaf of old trees usually withstands many infusions.

9. Storage

Class practice for sheng pu-erh. In a dry, clean place away from light and foreign odors, in tight but not airtight packaging, without sharp swings in humidity. Sheng pu-erh allows aging; if it is a different class, the conditions should be adjusted to it.

10. Price and Counterfeits

Price data are not found in the sources consulted.

How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the mark “勐海保塘茶”.
- The name of a famous village on the packaging does not by itself mean that the leaf was picked in its gardens: neighboring villages of Mengsong produce similar raw material.
- Essays describe a dry leaf with large downy buds; it is worth checking a purchase against this appearance, but the appearance by itself does not prove origin.

11. Interesting Facts

Baotang is two villages under one name: the old Lahu one and the new Han one, a kilometer from each other.
The Han settlement, according to local descriptions, was founded in the Guangxu years (1875–1908).
In the press about the sixteen marks of Menghai, the Baotang mark is named second — right after “勐海班章茶”.
This Mengsong, the one in Menghai, is called “big Mengsong” in Xishuangbanna; “small Mengsong” is a village committee of the same name in Menglong Town of the city of Jinghong.

12. Comparison with Neighboring Teas

Naka (那卡): A Lahu village of the same Mengsong massif and one of the “seven villages”; a neighboring but separate tea.
Huazhuliangzi Shengcha (滑竹梁子生茶): Sheng pu-erh from the high-mountain ridge of Mengsong; the corpus article mentions Baotang among the villages of the area.
Banzhang (班章): The most famous village of Menghai; it has its own mark, “勐海班章茶”, of the same series as the Baotang one.
Menghai (勐海): An overview of the county to which both Baotang and Banzhang belong.

In Conclusion:

Měnghǎi Bǎotáng chá is a mark bearing the name of one village: two settlements a kilometer from each other, whose old gardens have merged into a tract of about a thousand mu at an altitude of 1700–1800 m and above. There are few documents about the mark itself — neither its number, nor its holder, nor its rules are in open sources, and it does not fix the class. The village, on the other hand, is written about readily: trees credited with up to 700 years, a black oily leaf with silvery buds, a golden liquor, a high aroma and sweet water.