---
title: "Zhōnglù gòngchá"
url: https://thetea.app/article/zhonglu-gongcha
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-01
source: THE TEA — encyclopedia of Chinese tea (https://thetea.app)
---
# Zhōnglù gòngchá (忠路贡茶)

*Zhōnglù gòngchá* (忠路贡茶) is a green tea of the town of Zhonglu (忠路镇) in the county-level city of Lichuan (利川市), Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, in the west of Hubei Province. The name is protected by geographical indication certification mark No. 61888753 of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). The provincial press describes *Zhōnglù gòngchá* as a high-end organic green tea that the town is building under the slogan “organic across the whole territory”. *Gòngchá* is “tea for the court”, an honorary title rather than a class: the town has acquired a reputation as the “home of tribute tea”, but evidence of this tribute is not found in the sources consulted.

**1. Classification and Origin:**

* **Type:** Green tea (绿茶, *lǜchá*). The class is named not in the mark document but in a publication in *Nongcun Xinbao* (农村新报) dated May 21, 2025: the town is “building a brand of high-end organic green tea ‘忠路贡茶’” (打造高端有机绿茶品牌). I have not seen the text of the mark with a description of the product.
* **Category:** Organic green tea of Enshi (according to the town's description); geographical indication certification mark.
* **Origin:** China, Hubei Province (湖北, *Húběi*), Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture (恩施, *Ēnshī*), Lichuan county-level city (利川, *Lìchuān*), Zhonglu town (忠路, *Zhōnglù*).
* **Zone:** The register links the mark to the county-level city of Lichuan; I have not seen a specific production zone or its legal boundary. Publications speak of the tea of the town of Zhonglu.
* **Geographic coordinates:** The center of Lichuan is at about 30.3° N and 108.9° E; coordinates of the town are not found in the sources consulted.

**2. History and Cultural Significance:**

* **History:**
    * **“Home of tribute.”** *Nongcun Xinbao* (2025) writes that Zhonglu has long had a reputation as the “home of thousand-year tribute tea” (千年贡茶之乡). I have not found documents on tribute from Zhonglu, so I name neither the era nor the circumstances.
    * **The mark.** The name “忠路贡茶” is registered as geographical indication certification mark No. 61888753. The mark appears in the report on Hubei geographical indications for 2023 and in the provincial brand report of 2025; the registration date and the holder are not found in the sources consulted.
    * **2025.** According to *Nongcun Xinbao*, the town is pursuing a strategy of “organic across the whole territory” (全域有机) and relies on four attributes: “green, ecological, organic, selenium-rich” (绿色、生态、有机、富硒).
* **Name:** “Zhonglu” (忠路) — the name of the town; *gòngchá* (贡茶) — “tribute tea”, tea that was sent to the court.
* **Cultural significance:** Zhonglu is part of the zone of Lichuan Hong, the red tea of the same county-level city. One town thus stands behind two names: the green *Zhōnglù gòngchá* and the red Lichuan Hong.

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

* **Varieties / Cultivars:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Harvest standard:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Harvest time:** No data found in the sources consulted.

**4. Terroir and Cultivation Features:**

* **Region:** The mountainous west of Hubei Province, the county-level city of Lichuan.
* **Garden area:** According to *Nongcun Xinbao* (May 2025) and the *Renmin Wang* website (September 2025), the town's tea gardens occupy 55,000 mu.
* **Organic farming:** According to *Nongcun Xinbao*, 6,000 mu of gardens belonging to six tea companies have received a certificate of conversion to organic production, and nine tea companies help raise the income of more than 10,000 tea-growing households; the total value of tea output for 2024, according to the same newspaper, exceeded 200 million yuan.
* **Yangjiapo garden (杨家坡):** According to the same publication, it is surrounded by a forest shelter belt of more than 600 mu; in the garden, together with the tea, grow more than 40,000 houpo trees (厚朴, *Magnolia officinalis*) — a medicinal plant — and more than 8,000 yews (红豆杉, genus *Taxus*), plants of the first category of state protection. The newspaper lists organic production certificates of Switzerland, the European Union, the United States and China for the garden, as well as “Demeter” biodynamic certification. According to *Renmin Wang* (September 2025), the garden was laid out by a private tea company with its own brand on a plot that had been abandoned for twenty years, and the forest belt, the houpo and the yews were planted by the farm itself — for shade, protection against pests and clean air. Whether the tea of this garden is sold under the mark “忠路贡茶”, the publications do not say.
* **Altitude, climate, soils:** No data found in the sources consulted.

**5. Production Technology:**

I have not seen a document with the technology of *Zhōnglù gòngchá*. For green tea, the usual sequence is as follows:

1.  **Spreading of the fresh leaf (摊放, *tānfàng*):** The leaf gives off part of its moisture.
2.  **Fixation (杀青, *shāqīng*):** Heating stops oxidation and preserves the green color.
3.  **Rolling (揉捻, *róuniǎn*).**
4.  **Drying (干燥, *gānzào*).**

This is the general scheme of the class, not a description of the technology of *Zhōnglù gòngchá*.

**6. Organoleptic Characteristics:**

* **Dry leaf appearance:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Dry leaf aroma:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Liquor aroma:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Taste:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Liquor color:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Spent leaves (wet leaves):** No data found in the sources consulted.

**7. Chemical Composition:**

No physicochemical data found in the sources consulted. The town names “selenium richness” as one of the attributes of its tea, but figures for selenium content are not found in the publications consulted.

**8. Health Properties:**

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

**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.
    5. Top up with water.
    6. Two or three further 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:**

No price data found in the sources consulted.

* **How to avoid counterfeits:**
    * Look for the geographical indication certification mark “忠路贡茶” (No. 61888753).
    * Check that the producer is from the town of Zhonglu in the county-level city of Lichuan.
    * Organic origin is confirmed only by a certificate with a number, not by the word “organic” on the package.
    * The word “贡茶” in the name guarantees nothing by itself: the title of “tribute tea” is used by many teas.

**12. Interesting Facts:**

* In one town, the green *Zhōnglù gòngchá* and the zone of the red Lichuan Hong meet.
* According to *Renmin Wang*, in April 2022 the Yangjiapo garden in the town of Zhonglu became the first tea farm in China with a “Demeter” certificate.
* In the Yangjiapo garden, tea grows among yews, plants of the first category of state protection, and houpo trees, a raw material of traditional Chinese medicine.

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

* **Lichuan Hong ([利川红](https://thetea.app/article/lichuan-hong)):** A gongfu red tea of the same county-level city; the town of Zhonglu is part of its zone.
* **Enshi Yu Lu ([恩施玉露](https://thetea.app/article/enshi-yulu)):** A green tea of the prefecture with steam fixation (蒸青, *zhēngqīng*).
* **Wujiatai Gong Cha ([伍家台贡茶](https://thetea.app/article/wujiatai-gongcha)):** A green tea of Xuan'en County in the same prefecture — another “tribute tea” of Enshi.
* **Enshi Xicha ([恩施硒茶](https://thetea.app/article/enshi-xicha)):** The prefecture's umbrella for selenium teas; *Zhōnglù gòngchá* is not on the list of its eight brands.

**In Conclusion:**

*Zhōnglù gòngchá* is an organic green tea of the town of Zhonglu in Lichuan, whose name is protected by a certification mark. What is known about it most reliably is economic: tens of thousands of mu of gardens, organic certificates, the Yangjiapo garden among yews and houpo trees. The appearance of the tea, its variety and its technology are not described in the sources consulted, and the story of the “tribute” on which the name rests remains, for now, a word rather than a document.