How Green Tea Is Named: Shape, Place and Process

Green tea names come from three sources: shape, place and process, and many names combine them. Longjing is a village and a shape. Biluochun means spring snail, which is a shape. Maofeng means fur peak, also a shape. Huangshan Maofeng is a mountain plus a shape. The system is descriptive at origin and unreliable in use, because a name that described a village in 1750 may now describe a style made across three provinces.

That is the practical problem with Chinese tea names and it is worth understanding before buying, because a name is the only information on most tins and it carries less than it appears to.

The three sources

Shape names describe what the dry leaf looks like. Longjing means dragon well, but the leaf is also flat and smooth like a sword, and the name has come to denote the flat-pan process as much as the place. Biluochun means green spring snail, from the tight spiral of the leaf. Maofeng means fur peak, from the downy tips.

Place names describe where the tea grew. Huangshan is a mountain range, Lushan is a mountain, Xinyang is a city. A place name is a claim about origin and it is the most legally protected kind of name.

Process names describe how the leaf was treated. Chaoqing means pan-fired, hongqing means baked, zhengqing means steamed. These are the least used in the market and the most informative, because they tell you what the tea will taste like rather than where it came from.

Why the system broke

Most names were coined when a tea was made in one place by one method. Longjing was a village tea; Biluochun was a Dongting hillside tea. The name described a specific product made in a specific way in a specific place.

As demand grew, producers elsewhere copied the method and used the name. A flat pan-fired leaf from Sichuan is Longjing style and is sold as Longjing. The name survived the copying and the meaning did not.

The geographical indication system is the attempt to fix this, and it works unevenly. Longjing has a protected designation with a defined area; many other names do not, and some that do are enforced only within China.

A buyer facing a tin marked Longjing has no way to tell whether it came from the protected area, from Zhejiang more broadly, or from a province a thousand kilometres away.

What a buyer should ask instead

• What is the firing method, pan-fired, baked or steamed?
• Where was the leaf grown, not where was it processed?
• Is the name a protected geographical indication or a style?
• What is the picking date and the grade?
• Who made it and can they describe the garden?
• Does the price match the claim?

The firing method is the most useful question and the least asked. A pan-fired green tea is nutty and chestnut-scented; a baked one is softer and sweeter; a steamed one is marine and grassy. Those three categories predict the cup better than any place name.

The picking date is the second. A Mingqian claim, before the Qingming festival in early April, is a claim about tenderness and it is the most commonly inflated claim in the market.

The producer is the third and the only one that scales. A named garden with a stated process is a product a buyer can learn; a name is a category a buyer can only guess at.

The names worth learning

A small number of names do carry useful information because they are either protected or tied to a process. Longjing is protected and its flat-pan method is distinctive. Biluochun is protected and its spiral shape is hard to fake. Anji Baicha is a cultivar, not a place, and the name tells you the leaf is the albino variety.

Beyond those, a name is a starting point. A drinker who learns the three firing methods and the three or four famous shapes can navigate a shelf without memorising a hundred names.

That is a smaller body of knowledge than it appears and it is more useful than the alternative, which is learning names one at a time and never knowing which of them mean anything.

The three firing methods, which names hide

Chaoqing, pan-fired, is the dominant method for Chinese green tea. The leaf is tumbled in a hot wok, which produces a flat or twisted shape and a nutty, chestnut aroma. Longjing and most Anhui teas are made this way.

Hongqing, baked, uses a hot air or charcoal bake rather than a wok. The leaf keeps its shape and the flavour is softer and sweeter, with less of the toasted note. Huangshan Maofeng is the best-known example.

Zhengqing, steamed, is the Japanese method and is rare in China apart from Enshi Yulu. The leaf is steamed rather than fired, which fixes the green colour and gives a marine, grassy flavour that Chinese palates often find unfamiliar.

The three methods produce three different drinks and the difference is larger than most place names suggest. A drinker who knows which method a tea uses can predict the cup without knowing the name at all.

That is the single most useful thing to learn about green tea, and it takes ten minutes. The names number in the hundreds and the methods number in three.

• Chaoqing, pan-fired, gives a chestnut note and a flat or twisted leaf.
• Hongqing, baked, gives a softer, sweeter cup.
• Zhengqing, steamed, gives a marine flavour and a bright green leaf.
• The method predicts the cup better than the place name.
• Ask which method before asking which village.
• Three methods cover almost every Chinese green tea.

The grades that hide behind a name

A protected name usually comes with a grade system, and the grade is often a better guide than the name. Longjing has several grades based on picking standard and origin, from a single-bud pick down to a coarse leaf, and the price range within the protected area is wide.

A tin marked Longjing with no grade is telling the buyer that the tea is from the protected area or from a style, and nothing more. A tin with a grade and a garden name is a specific product.

The grade systems are not standardised across producers, which is the same problem as with oolong and pu-erh. The names are applied by the producer and the enforcement is uneven.

A drinker should treat the grade as a hint and the producer as the check. A specialist who states the garden and the picking date is more informative than any grade label.

• A protected name comes with a grade system.
• The grade is often a better guide than the name.
• The price range within a protected area is wide.
• Grade names are applied by the producer, not certified.
• A garden name is more informative than any grade.
• Treat the grade as a hint and the producer as the check.

Two names that work differently

Longjing and Anji Baicha are both famous and they are named on different principles. Longjing is a place and a style, and the name is protected by a geographical indication. Anji Baicha is a cultivar that became a product name, and the protection is on the plant rather than on a village.

That difference matters for a buyer. A Longjing claim is about where the leaf grew; an Anji Baicha claim is about which bush it came from. A tea can be Anji Baicha grown outside Anji and the claim is still partly true, because the cultivar is the point.

Most names are of the first kind. A few are of the second and they are worth knowing because the logic is different, and a buyer who treats a cultivar name as a place name will misjudge what the premium is for.

A final note on what a buyer can do with all this. The three firing methods and the three or four famous shapes cover most of the shelf, and a drinker who knows them can navigate without memorising a hundred names.

That is a smaller body of knowledge than the market implies and it is more useful than learning names one at a time. A name is a handle; the method is the tea.

Frequently asked questions