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Cangwu Qun Ti Zhong

The local seed-grown population of Cangwu County in eastern Guangxi, and the plant material the national standard for Liu Bao dark tea is written around. It is a landrace rather than a cultivar: a field of it is a field of individuals, not a field of one clone, and that variability is part of why basket-aged Liu Bao from different villages tastes different in ways a single cultivar could not explain. Guangxi's tea plants sit at the small end of the large-leaf range and the large end of the small-leaf range, which is why the standard pairs this population with a second, broader category — the Guangxi large- and medium-leaf types — rather than treating either as sufficient on its own.

蒼梧群體種Camellia sinensis var. sinensisChinaAlso called Cangwu County populationAlso called Liubao local populationAlso called 六堡原種

Where it sits in the botany

Cangwu Qun Ti Zhong is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, the variety group one level above cultivar. It is associated with China, which is where it was selected or is most widely planted rather than the only place it grows.

Also transliterated as: cangwu qun ti zhong, cangwu qunti zhong, cang wu qun ti zhong.

Where it came from

A long-established seed-grown population native to Cangwu County, Wuzhou, Guangxi, named in the raw-material definition of the national standard for Liubao tea alongside the Guangxi large- and medium-leaf types and the cultivars and lines selected out of both.

How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. GB/T 32719.4-2016 is confirmed to exist under that number and title on China's national standards platform; its text was not obtained, and the raw-material clause reaches TeaHQ through secondary Chinese writing that quotes it. See the source record.

What the plant is like

A population rather than a selection, so the useful description is of a range and not of a plant: mixed arbor, semi-arbor and shrub forms with large and medium leaf, propagated historically from seed. The standard's own definition is a collective name for the tea plants native to the county, which makes it a statement about a place before it is a statement about a plant.

Why a grower plants it

Yield, hardiness, when it buds, what it resists and whether a machine can cut it. This is the half of a cultivar’s identity that decides what is actually in the ground, and it is usually left out of writing aimed at drinkers.

Seed propagation is the agronomic fact that matters and the one being displaced: clonal selections separated out of this population are permitted by the same standard, so a modern Cangwu field may be population, selection, or both. That transition is why an aged basket and a new one are not made of quite the same thing.

What it does in the cup

The betel-nut note drinkers use to identify Liu Bao is attributed in most writing to the pile fermentation and the long bamboo-basket ageing rather than to the plant, and TeaHQ follows that attribution. What the population plausibly contributes is the thickness and the tolerance of hard, long brewing that the style is judged on.

What it is usually made into

The categories this cultivar is typically processed into. It is a statement about common practice, not a limit — processing decides the category, and a cultivar can be taken down more than one route.

  • Dark tea and pu-erh — Teas changed after processing by microbial activity — either deliberate wet-piling or long, slow ageing.

Teas in the catalogue made from Cangwu Qun Ti Zhong

Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

Sources

How TeaHQ handles sources