---
title: "Mùzǐ āpó chá"
url: https://thetea.app/article/muzi-apo-cha
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-01
source: THE TEA — encyclopedia of Chinese tea (https://thetea.app)
---
# Mùzǐ āpó chá (木梓阿婆茶)

*Mùzǐ āpó chá* (木梓阿婆茶) — “grandma's tea from Muzi” — is a red tea from three towns of Gangnan District (港南区), Guigang prefecture-level city, in the southeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The gardens lie on the spurs of the Liuwandashan mountains, by the Wusijiang River and Reservoir. Since 2019 the name has been protected as an agricultural product geographical indication, and since 2025 as a geographical indication product under an announcement of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). The protection document explicitly labels the product “木梓阿婆茶（红茶）” and gives two red tea technologies — machine and hand. A local cooperative also makes green tea, but the document does not describe it.

**1. Classification and Origin:**

* **Type:** Red tea (红茶, *hóngchá*), fully fermented. The sections of the document on appearance and on physicochemical properties are labeled “木梓阿婆茶（红茶）”, and both technological schemes include fermentation (发酵, *fājiào*).
* **Category:** Guangxi red tea; agricultural product geographical indication (2019) and geographical indication product (CNIPA, announcement No. 640, 2025).
* **Origin:** China, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (广西, *Guǎngxī*), Guigang prefecture-level city (贵港, *Guìgǎng*), Gangnan District (港南, *Gǎngnán*).
* **Protection zone:** The towns of Watang (瓦塘镇), Muge (木格镇) and Muzi (木梓镇) — 3 towns and 63 administrative villages; this is how the zone is described both by the agricultural registration and by the CNIPA announcement. The center of production, according to *Guangxi Ribao* (2019), is Muzi and Muge.
* **Geographic coordinates:** 109°30′–109°47′ E, 22°39′–22°58′ N — according to the protection document.

**2. History and Cultural Significance:**

* **History:**
    * **Qing.** *Guangxi Ribao* (2019) writes that tea was already grown here under the Qing dynasty, but cites no documents. The Guigang municipal commerce bureau (2023) links to this tea a line from *Guiyang Zhuzhici* (《贵阳竹枝词》), which it attributes to Mo Qian (莫潜), instructor of the county school of Guixian (贵县) in the Tongzhi years: “一阵香风吹市过，阿婆新煮雨前茶” — “a fragrant wind swept through the market: grandma has brewed fresh tea picked before the Guyu season”. No independent text of the poem is found in the sources consulted; the link between the line and today's tea is the bureau's interpretation.
    * **1970s.** According to a reference website on local products, the supply and marketing cooperative of Muzi town established a base for this tea here, and its factory produced broken red tea (红碎茶, *hóngsuìchá*) — one of the three famous teas of Guigang, together with Guiping Xishan Cha (桂平[西山茶](https://thetea.app/article/xishan-cha)) and Qintang Maojian ([覃塘毛尖](https://thetea.app/article/tantang-maojian)茶). There is no official confirmation.
    * **2009.** A specialized tea cooperative was set up; by 2019 it had more than 200 members and a base of about 2,000 *mu*.
    * **2017–2018.** A “pollution-free agricultural product” certificate (无公害农产品); the base was recognized as a demonstration park of modern specialty agriculture of Guangxi — in 2018 according to *Guangxi Ribao*, in 2019 according to the commerce bureau. In July 2018 the Guangxi “Green Food” Bureau carried out a quality assessment for the future indication.
    * **2019.** Registration as an agricultural product geographical indication by the Ministry of Agriculture of the PRC, certificate AGI02730; the holder is the agricultural technology extension center of Gangnan District. In July the cooperative took first place in the hand-made green tea group at the first Guigang competition in tea picking and hand processing. According to *Guangxi Ribao* (February 2019), the tea was then produced by three factories — 木梓阿婆茶厂, 木梓长利河婆茶厂 and 木格北一茶厂.
    * **2022.** The cooperative's red tea won silver at the “广西有礼” tourist goods competition.
    * **2023.** The Guigang municipal commerce bureau (May 2023) writes that the cooperative has about 1,500 *mu* of gardens and an annual output of about 32 million yuan, and that its demonstration zone lies in the village of Gaoyang (高仰屯) of the administrative village of Muzi. A report on the Ministry of Agriculture website in the same year gives the total planted area of *Mùzǐ āpó chá* as more than 2,000 *mu*.
    * **2025.** CNIPA announcement No. 640 (signed on 16 July, published on 13 August) recognized the name as a geographical indication product — item 1128 of 1409; the applicant is the same district center.
* **Name:** 木梓 (*Mùzǐ*) is the town of Muzi; 阿婆 (*āpó*) means “grandma”; 茶 means tea. Where “grandma” in the name comes from, the sources consulted do not explain.
* **Cultural significance:** Muzi is the southernmost town of Guigang, the city's “southern gate” in local texts. The Gangnan District agriculture bureau (2022) and the Guigang commerce bureau (2023) write that the tea is reputed to be “a magic herb grown on Liuwandashan” (六万大山结出的仙草).

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

* **Varieties / Cultivars:** The document allows “a suitable local population and suitable small- and medium-leaf varieties” (适制的本地[群体种](https://thetea.app/article/qunti-zhong)及适制的中小叶品种), without naming them. The 2023 report on the Ministry of Agriculture website lists, for the tea bases of the district as a whole, the local population “河婆茶”, Yunnan large-leaf tea, 迎霜 (*Yíngshuāng*) and 白毫早 (*Báiháozǎo*); which of them go into the protected tea is not stated.
* **Bush age:** According to the head of the cooperative in the same report, the bushes in the demonstration zone are more than 50 years old.
* **Planting:** In spring or autumn; in single rows with a 1.5 × 0.3 m layout, or in double rows with 1.5 m between rows.
* **Harvest:** According to the document — by seasons and in batches (“宜清明前谷雨后按需分季、分批采收”), by the “开面采” method, when the top leaf of the shoot has already opened, or according to the characteristics of the variety.
* **Raw material:** The Gangnan District agriculture bureau (2022) writes of raw material of “a bud with two leaves”.

**4. Terroir and Cultivation Features:**

* **Region:** The south of Guigang prefecture, the spurs of the Liuwandashan mountains (六万大山, *Liùwàn dàshān*). According to the commerce bureau, Muzi town has the Wusijiang River (武思江, *Wǔsī jiāng*) and a reservoir of the same name.
* **Climate:** Abundant rain, winters without severe cold, summers without exhausting heat, a long frost-free period. The same report links the early emergence of buds to the low altitude and the mild climate.
* **Growing altitude:** No numerical data in the sources consulted.
* **Soils:** According to the protection document, the top layer is humus loam more than 20 cm thick, and below it is red soil on parent rock of igneous origin. Organic matter 3–4.5%, pH about 5.5, an elevated amount of selenium. The tax service calls Gangnan District a zone of selenium-rich soils and reports (2020) that “阿婆茶” has been recognized in Guangxi as a selenium-rich product.

**5. Production Technology:**

The protection document gives two red tea schemes with their parameters — this is a description of this particular tea, not a general scheme of the class.

**Machine scheme:** 晾青 → 萎凋 → 揉捻 → 解块 → 发酵 → 烘干 → 复烘 → 筛选.

1.  **Cooling of the fresh leaf (晾青, *liàngqīng*):** A layer of 2–3 cm, 20–25 °C, 15–30 minutes — until the moisture has left the leaf surface.
2.  **Withering (萎凋, *wěidiāo*):** About 3–8 hours, until the leaf is soft and has lost 20–25% of its moisture.
3.  **Rolling (揉捻, *róuniǎn*):** 80–100 minutes, until juice is released abundantly.
4.  **Breaking up clumps (解块, *jiěkuài*).**
5.  **Fermentation (发酵, *fājiào*):** A layer of 8–11 cm under damp cotton gauze in a fermentation cabinet; 28–30 °C, humidity 85–90%, 4–6 hours.
6.  **Drying (烘干, *hōnggān*):** A cabinet dryer, the first drying in two stages, initial temperature 110–120 °C, moisture loss 80–90%.
7.  **Final drying (复烘, *fùhōng*):** 110–115 °C, to a moisture content of 5–6%, until the leaf crumbles to powder when rubbed between the fingers.
8.  **Sifting (筛选, *shāixuǎn*):** The fines are sifted out; the product is twisted leaf.

**The hand scheme** differs in two stages:

* **Hand rolling:** Rolling under the palm (弓掌滚球式) for 25–30 minutes, then rolling in a cloth bag, releasing the steam every 15–20 minutes, at least three repetitions, with patting and tossing to press out the juice — about 90–100 minutes in all.
* **Hand fermentation:** Under a damp cloth in a fermentation room at 25–28 °C and 90% humidity, the leaf at 30 °C, turning every 30–40 minutes. After 2–3 hours the grassy smell goes, a rich floral-fruity aroma appears, and the leaf darkens to red.

The 2023 report on the Ministry of Agriculture website describes the cooperative's spring tea with a different sequence — with fixation and “three pan-firings and three rollings”. This is not the scheme of the protection document.

**6. Organoleptic Characteristics:**

According to the protection document:

* **Dry leaf appearance:** Tightly twisted, black and lustrous, with visible hairs (条索紧结，色泽乌润显毫).
* **Dry leaf aroma:** No separate description in the sources consulted.
* **Liquor aroma:** Floral-fruity, rich and lasting (花果香浓郁持久).
* **Taste:** Sweet and mellow (滋味甜醇).
* **Liquor color:** Red, bright (汤色红亮).
* **Spent leaves (wet leaves):** Red, clear (叶底红明).

Local publications describe the tea differently. The Gangnan District agriculture bureau (2022): “light but fragrant” (味淡而香), with a long sweet aftertaste. The Guigang commerce bureau (2023) calls the color of the red tea “light yellow” (色泽淡黄) — this diverges from the document. The same material speaks of the tea in general — a full taste, a clean flavor and a long-lasting sweet aftertaste (茶味厚实、滋味纯口、回甘持久), and describes green tea picked before Qingming (明前茶) as clean, cool and fresh, with an invigorating aroma. The head of the cooperative, in the 2023 report on the Ministry of Agriculture website, names fullness, sweetness and the property of bringing on salivation (醇厚、甘甜、生津) as the features of this tea.

**7. Chemical Composition:**

Physicochemical requirements of the protection document:

| Indicator | Requirement |
| :--- | :--- |
| Tea polyphenols | not less than 5% |
| Amino acids | more than 2.5% |
| Caffeine | 1.5–3.5% |
| Water-soluble extractives | not less than 35% |

These are the norms of the document, not measurements of specific batches.

**8. Health Properties:**

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

**9. Brewing:**

Class practice for red tea.

* **Water temperature:** 90–95 °C.
* **Tea amount:** 3 g per 150 ml.
* **Teaware:** Gaiwan or porcelain teapot.
* **Process:**
    1. Warm the teaware.
    2. Put in the tea.
    3. First infusion — about a minute.
    4. Pour out completely, without leaving the tea in the water.
    5. Four to five repeated infusions, each longer than the last.

**10. Storage:**

Class practice. In a dry, dark place at room temperature, in tight packaging, away from odors.

**11. Price and Counterfeits:**

No price data in the sources consulted.

* **How to avoid counterfeits:**
    * Look for the special geographical indication mark: a producer from the zone obtains the right to it through the intellectual property office of Gangnan District, the Guangxi administration and CNIPA.
    * Check the origin: only the towns of Watang, Muge and Muzi.
    * Remember that the document describes red tea; green tea under the same local name is not described by the document.

**12. Interesting Facts:**

* The protection document gives two technologies — machine and hand; hand rolling takes about an hour and a half.
* The polyphenol threshold is only 5%, four times lower than that of the green Gupa Cha ([古琶茶](https://thetea.app/article/gupa-cha)) from the same announcement No. 640.
* Among the district's varieties the 2023 report names the local population “河婆茶”, and in 2019 the tea was produced by the 木梓长利河婆茶厂 factory; whether “河婆” is connected with “阿婆”, the sources do not say.

**13. Comparison with Other Guangxi Teas:**

* **Xishan Cha (西山茶):** Green tea of Guiping in the same Guigang prefecture; the reference website places it next to Muzi's broken red tea in the trio of the prefecture's famous teas.
* **Jinxiu Hongcha ([金秀红茶](https://thetea.app/article/jinxiu-hongcha)):** Red tea of the Dayaoshan mountains from the same announcement No. 640.
* **Xingye Cha ([兴业茶](https://thetea.app/article/xingye-cha)):** Red tea of Xingye County, Yulin prefecture, also from announcement No. 640; under its name the county also makes green tea.

**In Conclusion:**

*Mùzǐ āpó chá* is a red tea of three towns of Gangnan District from the spurs of Liuwandashan, on soils with elevated selenium. The 2025 protection document describes it in detail: two technologies with parameters, a tight black leaf with hairs, a bright red liquor, a floral-fruity aroma. The early history rests on local retellings and a line from a Qing poem; the confirmed history rests on the 2009 cooperative, the 2019 registration and the 2025 recognition.