Shíqiān táichá

Shíqiān táichá (石阡苔茶) is a green tea of Shiqian County (石阡县), Tongren prefecture-level city, in the northeast of Guizhou Province. “Táichá” is also the name of the local tea bush: for its thick long shoots (苔, tái) farmers nicknamed it “taizi cha”. Under the 2025 requirements, the protected product is a flat green tea; red tea, oolong and white tea from the same variety do not fall under this definition. The name has been protected since 2009.

1. Classification and Origin

Type: Green tea (绿茶, lǜchá). The 2025 requirements define the product as a “flat green tea” (扁形绿茶, biǎnxíng lǜchá).
Name trap: “Táichá” is both a variety and a tea. According to Renmin Ribao, green, red, oolong and white teas are made from the variety; the class has to be checked on the label, not guessed from the name.
Category: A flat green tea of Guizhou named after a local variety; a geographical indication product.
Origin: China, Guizhou Province (贵州, Guìzhōu), Tongren prefecture-level city (铜仁, Tóngrén), Shiqian County (石阡, Shíqiān).
Protection zone: 18 towns and townships of the county: Longtang, Longjing, Baisha, Jufeng, Benzhuang, Heba, Dashaba, Pingdichang, Huaqiao, Shigu, Qingyang, Wude, Fengxiang, Pingshan, Zhongba, Ganxi, Guorong and Tangshan. The applicant is the Shiqian County Tea Industry Association (石阡县茶业协会).
Geographic coordinates: 27°17′05″–27°42′50″ N and 107°44′55″–108°33′47″ E.

2. History and Cultural Significance

History:
- Antiquity. Local publications attribute to Shiqian tea the line from Lu Yu’s The Classic of Tea “往往得之，其味极佳” — “it is often found, and its taste is excellent” — and write that under the Song, Ming and Qing the tea was supplied to the court. The primary sources have not been checked.
- 2009. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), by announcement No. 88, placed Shíqiān táichá under protection as a geographical indication product.
- 2015. The province approved the product standard DB52/T 532-2015 and the processing rules DB52/T 1014-2015. In the same year the Ministry of Agriculture issued an agricultural product geographical indication (AGI) certificate, and the handmade táichá technique was entered on the provincial list of intangible heritage.
- 2023–2024. Tongren prefecture issued its own processing rules DB5206/T 168-2023 (20 December 2023); the provincial rules of 2015, according to the standards platform, were repealed on 2 January 2024.
- 2025. By announcement No. 646 (of 23 September), the China National Intellectual Property Administration approved the requirements for Shíqiān táichá, which replaced the section on it and the appendix with quality requirements from the 2009 announcement.
Scale: According to Xinhua (June 2024), the county has 436,000 mu of gardens, of which 337,000 are bearing.
Name: 石阡 (Shíqiān) is the name of the county; 苔 (tái) is a thick shoot. The county website also gives another folk name — 苔紫茶 (táizǐchá), “purple táichá”.
Cultural significance: The county is called the “home of China’s táichá” (中国苔茶之乡), and the tea itself one of the “three famous teas of Guizhou”. A local publication describes the custom of “pot tea” (罐罐茶): coarse leaf with spring water is simmered in a clay pot over embers, the foam is skimmed off, and in cold weather ginger is added.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

Variety: The local variety 石阡苔茶. According to Renmin Ribao, the bush has a coarse leaf, sturdy buds and long stems; as the weather warms, the buds and leaves turn light red, then purplish red. An encyclopedic description calls it an old local variety that spread through the east, north and southeast of Guizhou.
Permitted varieties: The 2025 requirements name as the main varieties táichá itself, as well as Fuding, Mingshan and the Longjing series (福鼎、名山、龙井系列). The name “táichá” does not require raw material from the local bush only.
Raw material and harvest: Hand or machine picking — so the 2025 requirements state. For handmade máofēng, according to the county website, a bud with one leaf is best.
Planting conditions: Elevated, well-drained plots, acidic soil, more than 1 % organic matter in the topsoil, soil depth from 80 cm.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

Region: According to a local publication, the county lies on the stepped slope where the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau passes into the hills of western Hunan, at the southwestern edge of the Wuling Mountains. The southeast is higher than the northwest; the terrain is karst.
Climate: Subtropical humid monsoon; local texts repeat the formula “low latitude, high altitude, little sunshine” (低纬度、高海拔、寡日照). A reference website gives a mean annual temperature of 16.8 °C, 1233 hours of sunshine, about 1121 mm of precipitation and 303 frost-free days; no official source for these figures has been found.
Soils: Yellow soils and mountain yellow-brown soils.
Altitude: No data found in the sources consulted.

5. Production Technology

The 2025 requirements do not describe the technology, and the texts of the processing rules have not been found. The county website, citing a master — a bearer of provincial intangible heritage — describes handmade maofeng (毛峰, máofēng), a twisted rather than flat tea:

Withering: About 7–8 hours at a constant temperature.
Fixation (杀青, shāqīng): The pan is greased with tea oil; the leaf is put in when a palm held 20 cm above the bottom feels the heat.
“Three pan-firings — three rollings” (三炒三揉, sān chǎo sān róu): The leaf is rolled right in the pan, with pressure “light — strong — light”, following the rule “the hand does not leave the tea, the tea does not leave the pan” (手不离茶、茶不离锅). Too much pressure breaks the leaf; too little does not give the shape.
Drying: Slowly, with the pan heated so that a palm laid on it is not burned.

According to the same description, the finished máofēng consists of tight thin twists, emerald and downy; the liquor is bright green and clear. For the flat tea, the abstract of an article in an agricultural journal names six operations and eight techniques. Red tea from the same variety, according to the same master in a prefecture publication, is made after the Beginning of Summer (立夏).

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

According to the 2025 requirements for flat green tea:

Dry leaf appearance: Bud-like, slightly flattened, downy (外形自然芽状、稍扁、有毫); green with an oily sheen, even.
Dry leaf aroma: No separate description found in the sources consulted.
Liquor aroma: Clean (清香). Renmin Ribao describes a lasting chestnut aroma in green táichá (栗香持久) — a discrepancy with the requirements.
Taste: Fresh and brisk (鲜爽); in the Renmin Ribao description — full and mellow (醇厚).
Liquor color: Yellow-green, bright (黄绿、明亮).
Spent leaves (wet leaves): Whole, tender and even (完整、嫩匀).

7. Chemical Composition

The 2025 requirements:

Indicator	Requirement
Tea polyphenols	18.63–23.9 %
Amino acids	not less than 3.0 %
Water extract	not less than 40.0 %
Moisture	not more than 6.5 %
Total ash	not more than 7 %
Fines	not more than 5.0 %
Crude fiber	not more than 15.0 %

A reference website gives 20–26 % polyphenols and 4.5–6.0 % caffeine — without a primary source and not in agreement with the requirements.

8. Health Properties

There are no verified data on the effects of this particular tea. The local press calls táichá a “longevity tea” (长寿茶) and links it to the number of long-lived people in the county; this is an advertising link, not a verified conclusion.

9. Brewing

Class practice for green tea.

Water temperature: 80–85 °C.
Tea amount: 3 g per 150 ml.
Teaware: A glass tumbler or a white gaiwan.
Process:
1. Warm the teaware.
2. Put in the tea and pour the water down the side.
3. First infusion — after 40–60 seconds.
4. Drink, leaving part of the liquor, and top up with water.
5. Two or three repeat infusions.

10. Storage

Class practice. In airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture and odors; best drunk within a year.

11. Price and Counterfeits

There are no reliable price data; one online shop names about 300 yuan per jin (500 g) as the average level.

How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the geographical indication mark: it is granted to producers from the protection zone with the approval of the China National Intellectual Property Administration.
- Check the class on the label: red táichá is a legitimate tea from the same variety, but not the protected product.
- The protected appearance is a bud-like, slightly flattened, downy leaf and a bright yellow-green liquor.

12. Interesting Facts

The variety is named after the look of the shoot: the thick “tái” gave its name to both the bush and the tea.
As the weather warms, táichá buds turn red and then purple; one of the folk names of the bush, 苔紫茶, contains the character 紫 — “purple”.
The requirements also allow non-local varieties for the protected tea — Fuding, Mingshan, the Longjing series.

13. Comparison with Other Teas

Beichuan Taizi Cha (北川苔子茶): A green tea of Sichuan, also named after the look of the shoots of the local bush; its standard likewise does not require raw material from that bush only.
Fanjingshan Lücha (梵净山绿茶): An umbrella green tea of Tongren prefecture; Shiqian County is part of its zone.
Meitan Cuiya (湄潭翠芽): A flat green tea of Meitan County, another well-known flat tea of Guizhou.

In Conclusion:

Shíqiān táichá is a flat green tea of northeastern Guizhou, named after the local bush with thick shoots that turn red in spring. The 2025 requirements describe a bud-like downy leaf, a clean aroma, a fresh taste and a yellow-green liquor; in the county the same variety also yields red tea and oolong, so the class has to be read on the label.