Měnghǎi Hèsōng chá (勐海贺松茶) is a geographical mark for tea from the village of Hesong (贺松) in the Bada area in the west of Menghai County, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Hesong is famous not for its gardens but for its forest: in 1961 a wild tea tree 32.12 m tall was found in the Daheishan (大黑山) massif near the village; it made the whole Bada area famous and died in 2012. The document of the mark does not name the product class, and I have not found descriptions of the tea of Hesong itself.
1. Classification and Origin
- Type: Not established: the list of marks does not name the class. The old gardens of Menghai are a source of large-leaf raw material above all for pu-erh, but red and white tea are also made from the same leaf; which product the mark covers is unknown.
- Category: Village mark of Menghai County. The list does not specify the kind of mark, and the press calls the county’s marks for mountains and villages 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), Bada area (巴达, Bādá), Hesong village. According to an essay in the magazine Pu’er, it is inhabited by the Aini (僾尼, àiní) — a branch of the Hani people.
- Protection zone: The list gives Menghai County as the administrative affiliation of the mark holder; the holder itself is not named, and I have not checked the legal boundary of the zone.
- Geographic coordinates: Exact coordinates are not found in the sources consulted.
2. History and Cultural Significance
- History:
- 1961–1962 — the find. According to an essay in the magazine Pu’er, in October 1961 local Aini found a large tea tree in the mountain forest near Hesong. The Yunnan Tea Research Institute sent researchers to it twice — in October 1961 and in February 1962. According to an essay on a tea portal, they walked from Menghai to Bada for three days, measured the height by triangulation from the ground and, not believing the thirty-odd meters, came back to measure again. The business publication Jiemian dates the find to 1962.
- The tree. Height — 32.12 m, trunk diameter about 1 m, age according to specialists’ estimate — more than 1700 years. In 1967 the wind broke off the top, and 14.7 m remained. The magazine gives the girth at the base as 3.2 m, while the 1978 survey record as retold by the portal gives 2.9 m.
- 1980. According to the magazine, an even larger wild tree was found in the same forest — 34 m tall and 3.8 m in girth. Out of habit, though, it was still the first one that was called the “king”.
- 2004. The prefecture authorities and the tea institute surveyed the wild tea resources and counted more than 6000 mu of old-tree communities. The magazine assigns these 6000 mu to the Xiaoheishan (小黑山) forest, while Jiemian writes of 6000 mu of old trees in the Daheishan forest near Hesong.
- 2012 — death. According to Jiemian, the tree died a natural death in 2012; the magazine Pu’er also writes of death from old age. The remains of the trunk, according to the magazine, are said to have been taken to the city as an exhibit, and a pavilion and a stele stand where the tree grew.
- The marks. The umbrella mark “勐海茶” was filed in 2012 by the county tea center and registered in 2014; according to Yunnan Ribao (2022), the county registered 16 certification marks, among them “勐海班章茶” and “勐海保塘茶”. In the list of Yunnan GI marks as of December 28, 2019, “勐海贺松茶” stands in row 226, among fifteen marks for mountains and villages of Menghai.
- Name: “Menghai” (勐海) is the name of the county, “Hesong” (贺松) is the name of the village, “cha” (茶) means tea. No interpretation of the village name is found in the sources consulted.
- Cultural significance: An essay on the history of the finds on a tea portal places the Bada tree in the line of historic “tea kings”: the cultivated tree of Nannuoshan, the wild one of Bada and the transitional one of Bangwei (邦崴). The magazine Pu’er writes that the find made Bada a place of pilgrimage for tea lovers, and the residents of Hesong lead guests to the wild trees in the Daheishan forest.
3. Botanical Description and Raw Material
- Variety / Cultivar: Not named in the sources consulted for the tea under the mark.
- The patriarch tree. The 1978 survey record as retold by a tea portal: the leaf is elliptical, dark green, glossy, leathery; a mature leaf is on average 14 cm long (12–17) and 6 cm wide (5–7), with 8–11 pairs of veins; the bud is sturdy and long, glabrous, yellow-green, the scales reddish; the buds break in early March. Later the tree was assigned to the species 大理茶 (dàlǐ chá). According to local residents in the same record, there are nine more wild trees of the same type in the forest.
- Wild buds. The magazine Pu’er writes that the wild trees of Daheishan have a bud longer and denser than that of cultivated trees, and not green but purple-brown.
- Raw material, harvest and harvest standard: Requirements of the mark, timing and the harvest standard are not found in the sources consulted. A survey of tea mountains on a tea portal assigns the wild trees of Daheishan to the species 大理茶 and counts another 3451 mu of cultivated old gardens in the Bada mountain area; there are no separate data on the gardens of Hesong.
4. Terroir and Cultivation Features
- Region: The Bada area near the border with Myanmar. Jiemian places it in the west of the county, another essay — in the south.
- Altitude: The data diverge: the 1978 record places the patriarch tree at an altitude of about 1500 m, while the survey of tea mountains places it at 1910 m, and the whole Daheishan massif at 1760–2000 m. The altitudes of the village itself and of its gardens are not found in the sources consulted.
- Climate: The 1978 record calls the climate at the tree tropical. Other climate data on Hesong are not found in the sources consulted.
- Soils: At the patriarch tree — red-brown, with a thick layer and a large store of humus (the 1978 record). For Bada as a whole one essay names yellow soils (黄壤).
- Forest: The Daheishan massif — according to the 1978 record, secondary primeval forest on steep slopes; the tree grew on the southeastern slope of the ridge. The survey of tea mountains calls the forest monsoon evergreen broadleaf, with an area of 5 km²; the massif, according to the same survey, has been declared a nature reserve.
5. Production Technology
The technology of the tea under the mark is not found in the sources consulted, and the class is not named. The main product of the old gardens of Menghai is sheng pu-erh (生普, shēngpǔ); if the mark covers it, the general scheme 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 Hèsōng chá.
6. Organoleptic Characteristics
Descriptions of the tea of Hesong are not found in the sources consulted. For the Bada area as a whole Jiemian writes of a high aroma, a rich taste and a noticeable sweet note (香气高扬，滋味浓厚，甜香明显); this cannot be transferred to Hesong.
- Dry leaf appearance: No data in the sources consulted.
- Dry leaf aroma: No data in the sources consulted.
- Liquor aroma: No data in the sources consulted.
- Taste: No data in the sources consulted.
- Liquor color: No data in the sources consulted.
- Spent leaves (wet leaves): No data in the sources consulted.
7. Chemical Composition
There are no data on the tea under the mark. There is only an analysis of old leaves of the patriarch tree from the 1978 record as retold by the portal: caffeine — 1.14 %, water-soluble substances — 21.27 %, water-soluble polyphenols — 6.07 %. The portal notes that these figures differ greatly from the data on the cultivated tree of Nannuoshan. They have no bearing on the tea under the mark.
8. Brewing
Class practice. The mark does not name the class; the guidelines below are for sheng pu-erh, the main product of the old gardens of Menghai.
- Water temperature: 95–100 °C.
- Tea amount: 5–8 g per 110–150 ml.
- Teaware: Gaiwan or a clay teapot.
- Process:
- Warm the teaware.
- Add the tea; break pressed tea apart carefully, without crumbling the leaf.
- Briefly rinse the leaf with boiling water and pour it off.
- First infusions — 10–15 seconds.
- Pour out the liquor completely.
- 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; it is often aged for years.
10. Price and Counterfeits
Price data are not found in the sources consulted.
- How to avoid counterfeits:
11. Interesting Facts
- In 1961 the height of the tree was measured by triangulation from the ground; thirty-odd meters seemed a mistake, and in February 1962 the tree was measured again — the figure held.
- In 1961 the journey from the county seat to Bada took three days on foot.
- In 1980 a tree taller than the famous one was found nearby — 34 m, but the first one remained the “king”.
- Where the tree stood, there is now a pavilion with a stele.
12. Comparison with Neighboring Teas
- Menghai Zhanglang Cha (勐海章朗茶): The mark of a Bulang village of the same Bada area, where old cultivated gardens stand.
- Menghai Bada Manmai Cha (勐海巴达曼迈茶): The mark of the village of Manmai in the same Bada area.
- Qianjiazhai and Bada (千家寨 · 巴达): An article of our encyclopedia on wild patriarch trees, among them the Bada tree that died.
- Menghai (勐海): The encyclopedia’s overview article on the county.
In Conclusion:
Měnghǎi Hèsōng chá is the mark of a village made famous by a single tree: a wild giant 32 m tall, found in the Daheishan forest in 1961, made Bada a place of pilgrimage and died in 2012. On the tea under the mark itself the documents are silent: no class, no description, no holder. All that is reliably known is a row of the provincial list and the history of the forest around the village.