Fengqing Da Ye

The large-leaf population of Fengqing county in Lincang, and the material behind most Dian Hong. Its very high bud content and heavy golden down are what give Yunnan black tea its characteristic appearance, and the sweet, malty, cocoa-leaning liquor it produces is why Dian Hong reads as a distinct style rather than a Yunnan version of a Fujian black tea.

鳳慶大葉種Camellia sinensis var. assamicaChinaAlso called Fengqing large-leaf

Where it sits in the botany

Fengqing Da Ye is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. assamica, 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: fengqing da ye, feng qing da ye zhong.

What the plant is like

Large leaf with abundant golden-downed buds, high in the compounds associated with body and sweetness. The default stock for Dian Hong.

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.

A large-leaf Yunnan population grown in a warm county at moderate altitude, with a very high bud proportion and heavy golden down on the shoot — which is what makes a fine bud-grade black tea economic here in a way it is not on stock with less tip. It grows and crops as assamica does, over a long season with no true dormancy.

What it does in the cup

Reported as giving a sweet, malty, cocoa-leaning liquor with substantial body — the character that makes Dian Hong read as a distinct style rather than as a Yunnan version of a Fujian black tea.

How much of this is really the cultivar?

The appearance is genuinely the cultivar: heavy golden down on a large bud is what a Dian Hong looks like and no processing puts it there. The taste is more shared out. Oxidation length and firing decide whether the same leaf reads sweet and malty or flat and harsh, and the sweet-potato note the style is sold on is a manufacture signature as much as a plant one. A useful test is that Yunnan material made as green tea or as sheng tastes nothing like Dian Hong.

Cultivar, growing site and processing all shape a cup, and the cultivar is very often the smallest of the three. It is also the one that fits on a label, so almost every commercial incentive runs toward overstating it. This section is on every cultivar page that has been reviewed for it, including the ones where the honest answer is “less than you would think”.

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.

Black tea — Tea taken deliberately through full enzymatic oxidation, giving the dark leaf, amber-to-red liquor and malty or brisk character most Western drinkers think of as simply 'tea'.
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 Fengqing Da Ye

Dian Hong

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.

Fengqing Da Ye vs Yinghong No. 9 — Two large-leaf Chinese cultivars grown for black tea in two provinces, one a long-standing Yunnan stock and the other created deliberately for a state project in Guangdong. They are the plants behind Dian Hong and Ying De Hong respectively.