Měnghǎi Mànnuò chá

Měnghǎi Mànnuò chá (勐海曼糯茶) is a geographical mark for tea named after the village of Mannuo (曼糯) in Menghai County, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The class of the product is not named in the documents found, and the place is not entirely clear either: there are two villages called Mannuo in Menghai. The better-known one lies in Mengwang Township in the far north of the county; tea publications call its old gardens “little Banzhang”.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Not established: the document of the mark does not name the class. The large-leaf raw material of Menghai is made above all into sheng pu-erh (生普, shēngpǔ), but also into red and white tea. Tea publications describe Mannuo tea as pu-erh.
Category: Tea of the old gardens of Menghai; geographical mark. The list does not specify its kind, 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). There are two candidates:
- Mannuo of Mengwang Township (勐往乡, Měngwǎng xiāng) — according to descriptions, in the Mengwang village committee, near the border with Lancang County and Simao District of the prefecture-level city of Pu’er.
- Mannuo on Bulangshan (布朗山, Bùlǎngshān) — descriptions assign it to a village committee whose name is written in different ways (曼昂, 勐昂, 勐昴), and one description assigns it to the Jiliang (吉良) village committee.
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, and the document does not say which of the two villages the mark refers to.
Geographic coordinates: Mannuo of Mengwang Township, according to descriptions, lies at 22°24′ N and 100°25′ E. Coordinates of the Bulangshan village are not found in the sources consulted. Menghai County itself lies between 21°28′ and 22°28′ N.

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- The tea road. Before the Republican era the tea of the mountains west of the Lancang, according to descriptions, went through Menghai, Meng’a and Mengwang, crossed the river at Nuozha and went on to Simao and Pu’er. Mannuo stood on this road.
- Resettlement. According to the stories of local elders cited by tea publications, the Bulang came to Mannuo from Lancang more than four hundred years ago. Mannuo is called the first Bulang village in Mengwang and the largest.
- Flourishing and decline. According to the same stories, recorded in the early 2010s, seventy to eighty years before that the village had more than two hundred households and two Buddhist temples. After 1949 a road was built from Menghai to Lancang, the caravans left, and no one bought the tea any more; the dilapidated temples, for whose repair there was no money, were dismantled in 1958, tea trees were cut down to make way for grain, and the township bet on rubber. This is the account of tea publications; I have not seen any documents.
- 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, among them “勐海曼糯茶”. 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:
- “Menghai” (勐海) is the name of the county.
- “Mannuo” (曼糯) is the name of the village. In local names from the Dai language, “man” (曼) means “village”; the meaning of the second syllable is not explained in the sources consulted.
- “Cha” (茶) means tea.
Cultural significance: Mannuo of Mengwang Township consists of three settlements: Dazhai is inhabited by the Bulang, Shangzhai by the Han, Zhongzhai by the Han and the Lahu. Legend links the village with a stone bearing a “footprint of an immortal”, to which, according to stories, Bulang people came even from Myanmar.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Variety / Cultivar: Local large-leaf tea of old gardens; the variety is not named in the sources consulted. For the Bulangshan Mannuo, a trade description citing the 2004 survey of old tea trees of the prefecture names 60 mu of gardens of the 苦茶 variety (kǔchá, “bitter tea”): its buds are bitter, but the aftertaste is sweet.
Harvest: Timing is not given in the sources consulted.
Harvest standard: Not given in the sources consulted.
Raw material requirements: Descriptions speak of old gardens with an area of more than 2000 mu near Mannuo of Mengwang Township. I have not seen the requirements of the mark for raw material.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Region: The north of Menghai County, Mengwang Township, at the junction with Lancang County and Simao District. The relief of the township is shaped by Daheishan Mountain (大黑山): the northwest is high, the middle is the Mengwang basin, and along the eastern border flows the Lancang River (澜沧江, Láncāng jiāng).
Gardens: According to descriptions, on the eastern, windward slope of Daheishan, in the basin of the Xiangshuihe stream (响水河), 85 km from the county seat.
Growing altitude: The village — 1266 m; for the Mannuo tea mountain as a whole, one description gives 1200–1300 m.
Soils: No data in the sources consulted.
Climate: One description gives 1300–1400 mm of precipitation a year for Mannuo of Mengwang Township; other climate data are not found in the sources consulted. There are no data on the altitude, soils and climate of the Bulangshan village either.

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 Mànnuò chá.

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

Tea publications give the description below for pu-erh from the old trees of Mannuo of Mengwang Township. No one has officially linked it to the product under the mark.

Dry leaf appearance: Tightly twisted, fairly dark and glossy (条索紧结较黑亮).
Dry leaf aroma: No descriptions in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: Pure (茶香纯正), with a strong “mountain-forest” note (山野气较强); the aroma lingers at the bottom of the cup (杯底留香).
Taste: The bitterness is noticeable, the astringency long, but the liquor has sweetness; the sweet return does not come at once but is good, and the liquor is fairly full (苦显涩长，汤中有甜，回甘稍慢但较好，汤尚饱满).
Liquor color: Golden yellow, bright (汤色金黄明亮).
Spent leaves (wet leaves): Yellow-green, even (叶底黄绿匀齐).

Of the tea of the Bulangshan Mannuo, one description says only that its bitterness and astringency are very strong and that the tea itself is “rich in content” (苦涩味很重，内含物质丰富).

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 Mannuo tea.

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, without leaving the leaf in the water.
6. Lengthen the time with each infusion; with bitter raw material it is better to keep the infusions short.

9. Storage

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

10. Price and Counterfeits

Current prices are not found in the sources consulted. A trade publication writes that from 2010 to 2016 the price of tea from the old trees of Mannuo rose tenfold; I have no way to verify this figure.

How to avoid counterfeits:
- Clarify which Mannuo is meant: two villages of the county bear the name, and their tea is different.
- Look for the mark “勐海曼糯茶” and check that the producer is from Menghai County.
- Keep blending in mind: according to the same publication, dishonest traders blend Mannuo tea with Lao Man’e tea and pass the blend off as Lao Banzhang.
- Compare the appearance with the descriptions: a dark, tight leaf, a golden-yellow liquor.

11. Interesting Facts

There are two villages called Mannuo in Menghai, and the nickname “little Banzhang” (小班章) refers to the one in Mengwang Township.
The gardens of Mannuo of Mengwang Township are the northernmost old gardens of the county: it is a little more than 10 km in a straight line to the Lancang River.
The village is described as a former stop on the tea road from Menghai to the crossing over the Lancang.

12. Comparison with Other Menghai Teas

Lao Banzhang (老班章): The benchmark of powerful Bulangshan pu-erh; the nickname “little Banzhang” comes from it.
Lao Man’e (老曼峨): A bitter Bulangshan tea; according to a trade publication, it is with this tea that Mannuo is blended when Lao Banzhang is counterfeited.
Menghai (勐海): The county and its umbrella mark; “勐海曼糯茶” is one of the county’s separate marks for mountains and villages.

In Conclusion:

Měnghǎi Mànnuò chá is a mark behind which there are more questions than documents: the class is not named, and there are two villages with this name in the county. The better-known one is in Mengwang Township: the northernmost old garden of Menghai, a former stop on the tea road, three peoples in three settlements, and a pu-erh that tea publications describe as dark, bitterish-astringent and sweet in the aftertaste.