Xiàngwō chá (象窝茶) is a tea of the Tianlushan mountains (天露山, Tiānlù shān) of Xinxing County (新兴县), Yunfu prefecture-level city, in the west of Guangdong Province. The Xiangwo farm lies on the northern edge of the range, at more than 600 m above sea level, in almost constant fog. The name is protected as a geographical indication product and is codified in a local standard, but the descriptions of the standard found give no class: according to a 2019 publication, green, red and aged series are produced under this name.
1. Classification and Origin
- Type: Not established by any document. The 2019 publication names three product series — “象窝绿茶” (green tea), “象窝红茶” (red tea) and “陈香茶” (aged tea; which class it belongs to is not stated). The brand was noted as a promising red tea brand — that is an assessment, not a class set by a document.
- Category: Geographical indication product; a local tea of Yunfu prefecture.
- Origin: China, Guangdong Province (广东, Guǎngdōng), Yunfu prefecture-level city (云浮, Yúnfú), Xinxing County (新兴, Xīnxīng), the Tianlushan mountains.
- Protection zone: According to the application accepted for examination in 2010 — the Tianlushan mountains within the towns of Taiping and Rencun of Xinxing County. I have not checked the final boundary in the act of approval.
- Geographic coordinates: Xinxing County — about 22.7° N and 112.2° E.
2. History and Cultural Significance
- History:
- County gazetteer. The 2019 publication quotes the gazetteer of Xinxing published in the Republican era (民国《新兴县志》): the county’s mountains are deep, the forests dense, the land well suited to tea, and the best teas are Tianlushan and Longshan tea (天露山茶、龙山茶). Xiangwo, as the publication interprets it, is part of Tianlushan tea.
- Early tea growing. According to the same publication, before the 1950s tea at Mount Xiangwo (象窝山) was made on a small, scattered scale by local peasants and monks. The text says “before the 50s of the 19th century” — next to the account of 1956 this looks like a slip.
- 1956. According to the publication, educated young people went into the mountains to lay out gardens, brought in batches of the Yunnan large-leaf variety from Yunnan, mastered propagation by cuttings and brought the garden area to more than eight hundred mu; the tea received the name “象窝茶”.
- 2007. According to the same publication, on 16 January 2007 the Guangdong Xiangshun Holding Group (广东翔顺控股集团) began consolidating the resources of the farm, brought in new equipment and renewed the choice of varieties, cultivation, care and technology.
- 2010. The application for protection as a geographical indication product was accepted for examination. The register has not recovered the number and date of the act of approval.
- 2013–2014. The provincial standard DB44/T 1254-2013 “地理标志产品 象窝茶” was published on 20 December 2013 and put into effect on 20 March 2014. According to the wording of its scope, it applies to tea whose protection was approved by AQSIQ.
- 2021. A local standard of Yunfu prefecture, DB4453/T 06—2021, with the same title was issued: published on 20 May 2021, put into effect on 20 June 2021. Among the drafters are the county bodies for quality supervision and for agriculture and the Xiangwo Tea Farm Co., Ltd.
- 2022. The agricultural plan of Yunfu prefecture for the 14th Five-Year Plan period lists Xiàngwō chá as a geographical indication product of Xinxing County, and Xinxing and Luoding county-level city (罗定) as the key tea counties of the prefecture.
- 2023. The provincial standard of 2013 was repealed effective 1 February 2023. No information on the repeal of the 2021 prefecture standard is found in the records consulted.
- Awards: The publication lists them without years and without the names of those who awarded them: “organic tea”, “famous brand of Guangdong”, one of the ten most promising red tea brands of China, first prize at a national famous tea competition, one of the ten famous teas of Guangdong.
- Name: 象 — “elephant”, 窝 — “nest, lair”; 象窝 — the name of the mountain and the farm. In the 2019 publication the brand is called “象窝禅茶” — “Xiangwo Chan tea”.
- Cultural significance: The publication links the name “禅茶” with the Guoen Monastery (国恩寺), which is separated from the farm by a single mountain, and traces Xiangwo tea culture to the era of the sixth patriarch of the Chan school, Huineng (惠能). This is a claim of the brand; I have not checked it. According to the same publication, the farm lifted more than four hundred families of four neighboring villages out of poverty.
3. Botanical Description and Raw Material
- Variety / Cultivar: According to the 2019 publication, from 1956 the gardens were planted with the imported Yunnan large-leaf variety (云南大叶种, Yúnnán dàyèzhǒng). Current varieties and varieties allowed by the standard are not found in the sources consulted.
- Harvest: No data in the sources consulted.
- Harvest standard: No data in the sources consulted.
- Raw material requirements: I have not seen the text of the standard, so I do not give its requirements.
4. Terroir and Cultivation Features
- Region: The northern edge of the Tianlushan range in Xinxing County.
- Growing altitude: According to the 2019 publication, the gardens lie above 600 m, the highest point is 860 m.
- Climate: Fog all year round, high temperature and humidity — according to the same publication; no figures.
- Soils: No data in the sources consulted.
- Area: According to the publication, the farm’s eco-park has more than 7,000 mu of forest and more than 4,000 mu of tea gardens.
- Garden care: The main fertilizer is straw, bean bran, chicken and cow manure; pests are controlled by biological means, light traps and hand picking; chemical pesticides, according to the publication, are not used.
5. Production Technology
The technology of Xiàngwō chá is not found in the sources consulted, and I have not seen the text of the standard. For orientation — the general schemes of the classes, not a description of this tea:
- Green tea: spreading (摊放, tānfàng), fixation by heat (杀青, shāqīng), rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn), drying (干燥, gānzào).
- Red tea: withering (萎凋, wěidiāo), rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn), fermentation (发酵, fājiào), drying (干燥, gānzào).
How the aged series “陈香茶” is made is not described in the sources consulted.
6. Organoleptic Characteristics
The descriptions are from the 2019 publication, by series; I have not seen the standard’s requirements for appearance.
- Dry leaf appearance: No data in the sources consulted.
- Dry leaf aroma: No data in the sources consulted.
- Liquor aroma: Green series — tender, high and fresh (香气香嫩高爽); red — sweet and rich (茶香甘甜浓郁). For the red series it is not specified whether this is the aroma of the liquor or of the dry leaf.
- Taste: Green series — fresh and mellow (滋味鲜醇); red — rich, brisk, fresh and sweet (滋味浓爽鲜甜).
- Liquor color: Green series — yellow-green, bright (汤色黄绿明亮); red — bright red, clear (汤色红艳明亮).
- Spent leaves (wet leaves): No data in the sources consulted.
7. Chemical Composition
No data in the sources consulted.
8. Brewing
Class practice — the parameters depend on the series.
- Green series: 80–85 °C, 3 g per 150 ml, first infusion 40–60 seconds, a glass tumbler or gaiwan, two or three re-infusions.
- Red series: 90–95 °C, 3 g per 150 ml, first infusion about a minute, a gaiwan or porcelain teapot, several infusions with increasing time.
- Aged series: The class is not named, so I do not give parameters.
9. Storage
Class practice. Green tea — in airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture and odors, drink within a year. Red — in a dry dark place at room temperature, in tight packaging, away from odors.
10. Price and Counterfeits
No price data in the sources consulted. According to the 2019 publication, the output value of Xiàngwō chá (产值) in 2018 exceeded 20 million yuan — about twenty times more than ten-odd years earlier.
- How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look on the packaging for the geographical indication product mark and a reference to the standard DB4453/T 06—2021.
- Check that the tea was made in Xinxing County, in the zone of the Tianlushan mountains.
- Look at which series is in the pack — green, red or aged: the name alone does not tell the class.
11. Interesting Facts
- Why the mountain is called the “elephant’s lair”, the sources consulted do not explain.
- The name has had two standards in turn: the provincial one of 2013 and the prefecture one of 2021; the first was repealed in 2023.
- According to the 2019 publication, the garden area grew from eight hundred-odd mu in the years of the first plantings to more than four thousand.
12. Comparison with Other Guangdong Teas
- Yingde Hongcha (英德红茶): A red tea of the north of Guangdong; according to the corpus article, it too grew up on the Yunnan large-leaf variety, brought to Yingde in 1955. Unlike Xiangwo, its class is defined by the name itself.
- Renhua Baimao Cha (仁化白毛茶): A Guangdong geographical indication name under which both red and green tea are made — a similar case of “the name is wider than the class”.
- Fengkai Hongcha (封开红茶): A western Guangdong red tea of Zhaoqing prefecture.
In Conclusion:
Xiàngwō chá is the name of a mountain farm on the northern edge of Tianlushan, under which green, red and aged series are sold. The documents about it speak of the zone, the standards and the protection, not of appearance. The rest — fog above 600 m, the Yunnan large-leaf variety since 1956, the county gazetteer that praised Tianlushan tea — is known mainly from a publication about the brand. It is worth choosing by series, not by name.
Sources
Standards
Full list — on the Sources page