TeaHQ

Da Hong Pao

This record is about the plant, and the plant is the smaller half of the story. Da Hong Pao is first the name of a handful of famous old bushes on a cliff in the Wuyi mountains; second the name of clonally propagated descendants of them, of which Qi Dan is the selection usually identified as the true line; and third — by a very large margin in volume — the name of a commercial blend of Wuyi rock oolongs assembled to a house style, which need contain none of the above. All three are called Da Hong Pao and only the first two are a plant.

大紅袍Camellia sinensis var. sinensisChinaAlso called Big Red Robe

Where it sits in the botany

Da Hong Pao 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: da hong pao, dahongpao.

Where it came from

Propagated by cutting from the surviving mother bushes at Jiulongke in the Wuyi mountains, with Qi Dan generally identified as the line taken from them; harvesting of the original bushes was ended and they are now maintained rather than picked.

How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The account is consistently reported and locally asserted. The identity of the mother bushes, the date they stopped being harvested and the exact relationship between Qi Dan and the original material were not verified against a primary source.

What the plant is like

As a plant: a Wuyi rock-tea cultivar giving a thick, roasted, mineral-inflected oolong. As a name on a tin: usually a blend, and legitimately so — the blended version is the normal commercial product rather than a fraud, which is exactly why the distinction has to be stated rather than assumed.

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.

  • Oolong — Partially oxidised teas, bruised deliberately and often roasted — the widest-ranging category in tea.

Teas in the catalogue made from Da Hong Pao

Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

Guides covering this cultivar

  • When the tea and the plant share a name — Tie Guan Yin, Da Hong Pao, Shui Xian, Rou Gui, Fo Shou, Bai Ji Guan: each is the name of a cultivar and the name of a tea, and the two do not reliably travel together. This is the most common single confusion in Chinese and Taiwanese tea.

Sources

  • TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ

This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No breeding register or institutional record stands behind the account above, which is why the origin note carries its confidence in the open rather than reading as a citation.

How TeaHQ handles sources

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this cultivar against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.

  • Da Hong Pao the plant vs Da Hong Pao the tea — One name doing three jobs: a handful of famous old bushes on a Wuyi cliff, the propagated descendants of them, and — by a very large margin in volume — a roasted Wuyi oolong blended to a house style that need contain none of the above. Only the first two are a plant, and the third is what almost everyone actually buys.