---
title: "Ményú fóyá · Yùluó gāngjí"
url: https://thetea.app/article/menyu-foya-yuluo-gangji
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-01
source: THE TEA — encyclopedia of Chinese tea (https://thetea.app)
---
# Ményú fóyá · Yùluó gāngjí (门隅佛芽·玉罗冈吉)

*Ményú fóyá · Yùluó gāngjí* (门隅佛芽·玉罗冈吉) is a tea of Mama and Le townships in the south of the Tibet Autonomous Region, on the southern slope of the Himalayas. In the registration documents this is Cuona County (错那县), Shannan prefecture-level city; in 2023 the county was converted into the county-level city of Cuona (错那市). The name is double: the first part is Chinese — “the Buddhist bud of Menyu”, the second is a Tibetan name in Chinese transcription. The protection zone is three villages at a mean altitude of about 2600 m, among dense forest. Since 2014 the name has been registered as an agricultural product geographical indication. The class of the tea is not named in words in the registration documents, although a reference reprint of the indication description gives a technology following the green tea scheme.

**1. Classification and Origin:**

* **Type:** The class is not named in words in the documents found. A reference reprint of the agricultural indication description gives the technology — fixation, three rollings and three pan-firings, drying, without withering and oxidation — that is, the green tea scheme (绿茶, *lǜchá*). The website of the Shannan city government (2019) calls the local tea of the Lebu valley “mainly green” (以绿茶为主): the highest grade, according to its description, is made by fixation, rolling and sun-drying, and its dry leaf, liquor and spent leaves are in green tones (section 5). Both schemes begin with fixation, and neither has withering, so they do not diverge in class: both are green by construction and differ in drying and harvest time. But neither ties the technology to the name: the prefecture describes local production as a whole, and I have seen the specification of the indication only in a reprint, not in the primary source. Therefore the class is left unestablished here.
* **Category:** A high-mountain tea of Tibet; an agricultural product geographical indication (2014).
* **Origin:** China, Tibet Autonomous Region (西藏, *Xīzàng*), Cuona (错那, *Cuònà*), Mama and Le townships.
* **Protection zone:** Mama, Le and Xian villages of Mama and Le townships.
* **Geographic coordinates:** 91°44′53″–91°48′36″ E and 27°48′22″–27°52′25″ N — an area of about 6 by 7.5 km.
* **Holder:** The Cuona County Comprehensive Agricultural Service Station (西藏错那县农业综合服务站); the category in the register is “tea” (茶叶).

**2. History and Cultural Significance:**

* **History:**
    * **The epic.** According to the description by the Department of Agriculture of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the epic of Gesar mentions “the Mon tea *Yùluó gāngjí*” (门茶玉罗冈吉) among the three famous teas of Tibet. This is literary evidence, not a document about the present gardens.
    * **1972.** According to a reference description, in Lebu Township (勒布) the “Gaofeng” tea factory (高峰茶厂) was built with state funds and 42.9 mu of tea were planted — this marked the start of tea growing here on a noticeable scale.
    * **2013.** At the end of April the county began preparing the application; the ecology, quality and history of the product were checked first at the regional department, then by experts of the Ministry of Agriculture.
    * **2014.** On 22 May the Ministry of Agriculture, by Announcement No. 2105, registered the name as an agricultural product geographical indication (number AGI01440) and issued the county a certificate. In September 2026 the register of agricultural indications maintained by the China Green Food Development Center (中国绿色食品发展中心) still returns this entry: AGI01440, 2014, holder — the Cuona County Comprehensive Agricultural Service Station, category “tea” (茶叶).
* **Name:**
    * “Menyu” (门隅, *Ményú*) — according to the source's explanation, in Tibetan “the place where the Monpa live”.
    * “Foya” (佛芽, *fóyá*) — “Buddha's bud”, “the Buddhist bud”.
    * “Yuluo Gangji” (玉罗冈吉, *Yùluó gāngjí*) — a Tibetan name in Chinese transcription; its meaning was not found in the sources consulted.
* **Cultural significance:** For Cuona this is its own tea with a name from the epic. No information on the market or the everyday role of the tea was found in the sources consulted.

**3. Botanical Description and Raw Material:**

* **Variety / Cultivar:** No named variety. According to the description of the agricultural indication, the gardens were traditionally a seed-propagated population; in recent years individual bushes have been selected from it and propagated by cuttings, so that most of the gardens have gradually become a clonal population.
* **Harvest:** According to the same description — around the Qingming festival (early April).
* **Harvest standard:** A bud with three leaves (一芽三叶) from young shoots. The word “bud” in the name is part of a figurative name, not a harvest standard.
* **Raw material requirements:** Origin from the three villages of the protection zone. The indication description requires an organic production method: without mineral fertilizers or pesticides, using local manure and forest litter, with biological pest control.

**4. Terroir and Cultivation Features:**

* **Region:** The southern slope of the Himalayas in the south of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
* **Growing altitude:** The mean altitude of the zone is about **2600 m**; the zone itself, according to a reference description, lies at an altitude of 2400–3800 m, and the indication description requires gardens to be laid out on sunny slopes no higher than 2700 m.
* **Climate:** According to a reference description — a transition from a humid subtropical monsoon climate to a semi-humid warm temperate one: a mean annual temperature of about 10 °C, about 1940 hours of sunshine, 186 frost-free days, more than 1000 mm of precipitation. Because of the differences in altitude, the climate changes sharply over a short distance.
* **Soils:** According to a reference description — mountain yellow-brown and brown soils, fine-earth, deep, rich in organic matter; the indication description requires acidic soils with a deep layer.
* **Scale:** According to a reference description, in 2014 Lebu Township had 144 mu of bearing gardens and produced about 340 jin of high-mountain maofeng (高山[毛峰](https://thetea.app/article/maofengcha)) and about 15,312 jin of loose tea a year; by 2015 the plantings had spread to four townships of the Lebu valley and exceeded 1400 mu.
* **Surroundings:** According to the source's description, the zone lies among dense forest.

**5. Production Technology:**

A reference reprint of the agricultural indication description calls the processing “three rollings and three pan-firings” (三揉三炒, *sān róu sān chǎo*) and gives the chain; I have not seen the primary source of the specification, and the reprint gives no parameters (temperatures, time).

1.  **Fixation (杀青, *shāqīng*):** The fresh leaf is fixed and winnowed to shed the heat and small fragments.
2.  **First rolling (一揉, *yī róu*):** Followed by breaking up the clumps.
3.  **Second pan-firing (二炒, *èr chǎo*):** To remove moisture.
4.  **Second rolling (二揉, *èr róu*):** Again with breaking up the clumps.
5.  **Third pan-firing (三炒, *sān chǎo*):** To remove moisture.
6.  **Third rolling (三揉, *sān róu*).**
7.  **Drying (焙干, *bèigān*)** and storage.

There is no withering or oxidation in this chain; by construction it is the green tea scheme, but the class itself is not named in the documents.

The website of the Shannan city government (2019) describes the local tea differently: the tea of the Lebu valley is mainly green and is divided into three grades — “Cuijian”, “Cuilü” and “Cuiyu” (翠尖、翠绿、翠玉); the highest, “Cuiyu”, is made in late May to early June from tender shoot tips by fixation, rolling and sun-drying (杀青、揉捻、太阳自然干燥). This is a description of local production as a whole, not a requirement of the indication. It differs from the scheme in the reprint both in drying — in the sun rather than over fire (焙干) — and in timing: the indication description puts the harvest around the Qingming festival. Sun-drying by itself does not change the class: according to GB/T 14456.1—2017, green tea is made by fixation, rolling and drying, and sun-drying gives one of its four types — sun-dried green tea ([晒青](https://thetea.app/article/shai-qing)绿茶, *shàiqīng lǜchá*).

**6. Organoleptic Characteristics:**

The description below follows the Department of Agriculture of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

* **Dry leaf appearance:** Round, dense curls, heavy and tender, smooth and oily-glossy.
* **Dry leaf aroma:** No descriptions were found in the sources consulted.
* **Liquor aroma:** A mountain, “high-mountain tea” aroma.
* **Taste:** Clean and mellow.
* **Liquor color:** No descriptions were found in the sources consulted.
* **Spent leaves (wet leaves):** No descriptions were found in the sources consulted.

**7. Chemical Composition:**

There are no reliable data. Two publications — a 2014 report in a Tibetan newspaper and a reference reprint of the indication description — give percentages of polyphenols, amino acids and catechins, but their figures differ, and neither set agrees with the make-up of tea: in one, there are more catechins than all the polyphenols of which they are a part; in the other, amino acids make up almost a fifth of the dry mass. I do not give these figures.

**8. Health Properties:**

There are no verified data on the effects of this particular tea.

**9. Brewing:**

Class practice is not available here: the class of the tea is not established. A cautious general scheme for tightly rolled leaf:

* **Water temperature:** Start at 85–90 °C and adjust to taste.
* **Tea amount:** 3 g per 150 ml.
* **Teaware:** A white gaiwan — in it you can see how the curl opens and what color the liquor is.
* **Process:**
    1. Warm the teaware.
    2. Put in the tea.
    3. The first infusion — 30–60 seconds.
    4. Pour off and taste.
    5. If the liquor is harsh, lower the temperature; if it tastes empty, lengthen the steeping.
    6. Repeat as long as the taste holds.

**10. Storage:**

Class practice is not available here. The indication description requires packaged tea to be stored in a clean, dark, dry and ventilated place, protected from damp and pests. The general rule for any leaf tea is an airtight container, without foreign odors; if the seller states that this is a green tea — a refrigerator at 0–5 °C.

**11. Price and Counterfeits:**

There are no price data in the sources consulted.

* **How to avoid counterfeits:**
    * Look for the agricultural product geographical indication mark.
    * Check that the tea comes from Cuona — from the three villages of the protection zone.
    * Compare the appearance: round, dense curls, smooth and glossy.
    * Ask the seller about the class of the tea: the documents do not name it, and an honest seller should know how the tea is made.

**12. Interesting Facts:**

* The name consists of two parts — Chinese and Tibetan — joined by a middle dot.
* The protection zone is very small: three villages in an area of about 6 by 7.5 km.
* The epic of Gesar, according to the source's description, mentions “the Mon tea *Yùluó gāngjí*” among the three famous teas of Tibet.
* The mean altitude of the zone is about 2600 m.

**13. Comparison with Other Teas of Tibet:**

* **Motuo Lü Cha ([墨脱绿茶](https://thetea.app/article/motuo-lucha)):** A green tea of Motuo County in the southeast of Tibet.
* **Yigong Hong Cha ([易贡红茶](https://thetea.app/article/yigong-hongcha)):** A red tea of the Yigong tea farm near Lake Yigong.
* **Chayu Hong Cha ([察隅红茶](https://thetea.app/article/chayu-hongcha)):** A red tea of Chayu County.
* **Linzhi Chun Lü ([林芝春绿](https://thetea.app/article/linzhi-chun-lu)):** A green tea of Linzhi prefecture.

Unlike them, *Ményú fóyá · Yùluó gāngjí* has no established class.

**In Conclusion:**

*Ményú fóyá · Yùluó gāngjí* is a small high-mountain tea of the southern slope of the Himalayas: three villages, a mean altitude of about 2600 m, dense forest, a double Chinese-Tibetan name and a mention in the epic of Gesar. The documents confirm the 2014 registration and describe the appearance — dense, round, glossy curls with a mountain aroma and a clean taste — but do not name the class in words, nor the variety. I have seen the technology — “three rollings and three pan-firings”, without withering and oxidation, following the green tea scheme — only in a reference reprint of the indication description. Shannan prefecture also calls the local tea mainly green and describes its highest grade as a sun-dried green tea, but this is a description of local production, not a requirement for the name. Until the specification has been read in the primary source, the class is not tied to the name.