The four famous bushes as cultivars
Si Da Ming Cong is a list of four named Wuyi bushes, and it is repeated constantly as though it were a ranking of teas. It is a list of plants, and the four are so unlike each other in leaf, vigour and roast tolerance that no single processing regime suits all of them.
What is being compared
Why these get confused
‘Four famous bushes’ and ‘Da Hong Pao’ are routinely used as if the second were one of the first. Qi Dan is the cultivar most single-cultivar Da Hong Pao is actually made from, and the mother bushes on the cliff have not been picked commercially for decades — so the name on a packet describes a plant and a style, not a provenance.
Point by point
| Aspect | Qi Dan | Bai Ji Guan | Tie Luo Han | Shui Jin Gui |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New growth | Conventional dark green Wuyi leaf; nothing visually unusual. | Pale, almost albino new growth — the plant is recognisable in the field at a glance. | Thick, dark, heavy leaf. | Glossy leaf with a notably smooth surface. |
| Body in the cup | Full, with the mineral depth the Da Hong Pao name is bought for. | Light, with a sweet, herbal, corn-like character unlike anything else in the group. | The heaviest and most tannic of the four, and the slowest to open. | Comparatively light for a Wuyi tea, with a honeyed floral top. |
| Roast tolerance | High; it is normally given a full traditional roast. | Low. A heavy roast erases the very thing it is grown for, so it is roasted gently. | Very high — among the most roast-tolerant cultivars in the mountain. | Medium, and it keeps its aroma through a medium roast, which is unusual. |
| Yield and ease | Modest, and it carries a lineage premium on top. | Low-yielding and delicate; genuinely scarce rather than rhetorically scarce. | Reasonable, with strong structure that tolerates rougher handling. | Moderate. |
| Brewing consequence | Rewards hot, short gongfu steeps; tolerates a long roast rest before it shows well. | Wants slightly cooler water than the rest; heat drives it towards a flat sweetness. | Needs more infusions to open, and gives its best from about the third. | Shows its aroma in the first two infusions and fades earlier than Tie Luo Han. |
| How it reaches the market | Usually as single-cultivar Da Hong Pao, at a price the name sets. | Sold under its own name, and widely imitated because the pale leaf is hard to fake and the name is not. | Sold under its own name, often as the cheapest of the four. | Sold under its own name, and the least discussed of the four in English. |
The short answer
The list is a piece of Wuyi heritage rather than a quality tier, and treating it as a shopping order leads people to Bai Ji Guan expecting a fuller version of Da Hong Pao and finding something almost herbal instead. The useful reading is by roast tolerance: two of the four take a traditional heavy roast, and two are ruined by it.
Not a ranking. TeaHQ publishes no ratings and does not know your occasion.