Tōngshān hóngchá (通山红茶) is a red tea from Tongshan County (通山县) of Xianning prefecture-level city in the southeast of Hubei Province. The protection zone is five towns and townships in the middle part of the Mufu range (幕阜山脉) in southern Hubei: Jiugongshan mountain (九宫山) and the mountains surrounding it. The name is protected twice — as an agricultural product geographical indication and as a geographical indication product recognized by the China National Intellectual Property Administration in 2025. The protection requirements attached to this recognition name the varieties, the altitude of the gardens, the soils and the processing sequence, and describe the appearance briefly: the leaf is black with a sheen, the aroma high and pure, the spent leaf slightly dark.
1. Classification and Origin
- Type: Red tea (红茶, hóngchá), fully fermented. The class is named in the protected name and confirmed by the processing sequence in the protection requirements: withering, rolling, fermentation, drying.
- Category: Mountain red tea of southern Hubei; agricultural product geographical indication and geographical indication product (2025).
- Origin: China, Hubei Province (湖北, Húběi), Xianning prefecture-level city (咸宁, Xiánníng), Tongshan County (通山, Tōngshān).
- Protection zone: According to the annex to announcement No. 640 of the China National Intellectual Property Administration — five units of the county: the towns of Xiapu (厦铺镇), Chuangwang (闯王镇), Jiugongshan (九宫山镇), Honggang (洪港镇) and Yangfanglin Township (杨芳林乡). The annex specifies the topography: the middle part of the Mufu range in southern Hubei, Jiugongshan mountain and the mountains surrounding it.
- Geographic coordinates of the zone: 114°15′–114°58′ E, 29°19′–29°33′ N.
2. History and Cultural Significance
- History:
- Agricultural indication. Tōngshān hóngchá is registered as an agricultural product geographical indication of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs under number AGI03366. The documents I found do not give the registration date.
- 2025. By announcement No. 640 of 16 July 2025 (published 13 August), the China National Intellectual Property Administration recognized 1409 names at once as geographical indication products — from “延庆国光苹果” apples to tea; Tōngshān hóngchá is among them. The applicant is the Jiugongshan Tea Association of Tongshan County (通山县九宫山茶叶协会). Information on the products and the requirements for their protection are attached to the announcement.
- Neighboring name. By the same announcement and on the application of the same association, “九宫山茶” was recognized — a green tea with the same zone of five towns and townships.
- Old records. I have not found a written history of the red tea of Tongshan specifically in primary sources.
- Name: 通山 is the name of the county, 红茶 means “red tea”.
- Cultural context of the place: Chuangwang Town, which is part of the zone, is named after the nickname of Li Zicheng (李自成) — “Chuang Wang” (闯王), leader of the peasant uprising that overthrew the Ming dynasty. According to legend, he died near Jiugongshan, and the county has his tomb. The place of his death is disputed: the Chinese Wikipedia notes that there are also tombs of Li Zicheng in Tongcheng County of the same prefecture and in Shimen in Hunan. This is the history of the locality, not a characteristic of the tea. Jiugongshan is also a Taoist mountain and a national nature reserve; a link between the monasteries and tea is not confirmed by documents here.
3. Botanical Description and Raw Material
- Varieties / Cultivars: According to the protection requirements — the local population (当地群体种) and varieties of the Hubei “Echa” series introduced in recent years, for example Echa 8 (鄂茶8, Èchá 8) and Wufeng 212 (五峰212, Wǔfēng 212).
- Harvest: The document sets not a harvest standard but its principles: take shoots from the surface of the canopy and spare its base, take the middle and spare the sides, take the high ones and spare the low, take the dense ones and spare the sparse, take the large ones and spare the small (采面养底、采中养侧、采高养低、采密养稀、采大养小).
- Harvest standard and harvest time: No data in the sources consulted.
4. Terroir and Cultivation Features
- Region: Southeastern Hubei. According to the Chinese Wikipedia, Jiugongshan lies in the middle part of the Mufu range and borders Jiangxi Province; its main peak is 1656 m. The county, according to the same Wikipedia, has eight towns and four townships.
- Location of the zone: Judging by the coordinates, the zone lies south of the county seat Tongyang (通羊镇), which is not part of it.
- Growing altitude: 400–900 m — according to the protection requirements.
- Soils: According to the same source — sandy loams on weathered rock (风化石砂质壤) and yellow-brown soils (黄棕壤) of medium fertility. Organic matter on average 5.31%, total nitrogen 0.12%, available phosphorus 16–21 mg/kg, available potassium 13 mg/kg, pH 4.5–5.5.
- Planting and care: Seedlings are transplanted around the Spring Festival, no later than February; they are planted in double rows, one or two plants per hole, 5000–6000 bushes per mu. In winter, 300 kg of rapeseed or peanut cake, or 1000 kg of pig or chicken manure with 50 kg of organic compound fertilizer and 50 kg of phosphate fertilizer, is applied per mu — into a deep furrow under the edge of the canopy.
- Climate: No data in the sources consulted.
5. Production Technology
The protection requirements set the order of operations, but not temperatures or durations.
- Primary processing (初制, chūzhì):
- Withering (萎凋, wěidiāo).
- Rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn).
- Fermentation (发酵, fājiào).
- Drying (干燥, gānzào). The result is rough tea — maocha (毛茶, máochá); it is inspected, weighed, packed and sent to the warehouse.
- Refining (精制, jīngzhì): The maocha is assembled into lots, sieved (筛制, shāizhì), winnowed (风选, fēngxuǎn), cleared of foreign particles (拣剔, jiǎntī), inspected, blended into finished tea, evened out as a lot (匀堆, yúnduī), re-fired (补火, bǔhuǒ), weighed and packed.
The document gives no parameters — temperature, humidity, duration of fermentation.
6. Organoleptic Characteristics
Appearance — according to the protection requirements. The document describes the tea twice — in the organoleptic section and in the section on physicochemical indicators — and the descriptions diverge on the color of the liquor.
- Dry leaf appearance: Beautiful shape, black with a sheen (外形优美，色泽乌润).
- Dry leaf aroma: No separate description.
- Liquor aroma: High and pure (香气高纯); in the second description — natural floral, lasting (天然花香持久).
- Taste: Mellow, full and refreshing (滋味醇厚爽口); the tea withstands many infusions (耐冲泡).
- Liquor color: Light red (汤色浅红) — in the organoleptic section; red and bright (汤色红亮) — in the second description.
- Spent leaves (wet leaves): Slightly dark (叶底稍暗).
7. Chemical Composition
The protection requirements name three indicators:
| Indicator | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Tea polyphenols | no less than 22.2% |
| Free amino acids | no less than 2.7% |
| Water-soluble extractives | no less than 42.4% |
The same three figures appear in the requirements for the green 九宫山茶 from the same announcement. There are no data on caffeine or other substances.
8. Brewing
Class practice for red tea.
- Water temperature: 90–95 °C.
- Tea amount: 3 g per 150 ml.
- Teaware: A gaiwan or a porcelain teapot.
- Process:
- Warm the teaware.
- Pour water over the tea.
- The first infusion — about a minute.
- Pour off the infusion completely.
- Several further infusions, each a little longer than the previous one; the document notes that the tea withstands them.
9. Storage
Class practice. In a dry dark place at room temperature, in tight packaging, away from odors and moisture.
10. Price and Counterfeits
No price data in the sources consulted.
- How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the geographical indication product mark or the agricultural indication mark; the right to the special mark is approved by the China National Intellectual Property Administration.
- Check that the tea was made in one of the five units of the zone — Xiapu, Chuangwang, Jiugongshan, Honggang or Yangfanglin — and not just anywhere in Tongshan County.
- The dry leaf is black with a sheen, the spent leaf slightly dark.
11. Interesting Facts
- The protection zone is not the whole county but five towns and townships around Jiugongshan; the county seat is not part of it.
- The same association, in the same announcement, also obtained protection for the green 九宫山茶 with the same zone, and the physicochemical requirements for the two teas are written identically.
- The main peak of Jiugongshan rises to 1656 m, while the gardens, according to the document, lie no higher than 900 m.
12. Comparison with Other Red Teas
- Ninghong Gong Fu (宁红工夫): A Jiangxi gongfu red tea of Xiushui County; its best gardens, according to the encyclopedia article on it, lie on the slopes of the same Mufu range.
- Tonggu Ninghong (铜鼓宁红): A red tea of Tonggu County in Jiangxi under the historical name “ninghong”.
- Yihong Gong Fu (宜红工夫): A classic Hubei gongfu red tea from the west of the province.
- Hubei Qing Zhuan (湖北青砖): A pressed dark tea of Xianning prefecture; Tongshan is named among the counties where it is made — a different class from the same prefecture.
In Conclusion:
Tōngshān hóngchá is a red tea of southern Hubei from Jiugongshan mountain and the surrounding mountains of the middle part of the Mufu range. The documents name the zone, the varieties, the garden altitude of 400–900 m and the processing sequence, but depict the appearance sparingly: a black glossy leaf, a high pure aroma, a mellow full taste. Harvest timing, fermentation parameters and the history of this red tea specifically have not yet been found in the sources consulted.
Sources
Geographical indication
Full list — on the Sources page