Fuyun 6

A cross of Fuding Da Bai and a Yunnan large-leaf plant, bred for heavy early yields of large downy buds. It is planted extensively in Fujian for white tea and for bud-grade black teas.

福雲6號Camellia sinensis var. sinensisFuyun 6ChinaAlso called Fu Yun No. 6

Where it sits in the botany

Fuyun 6 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.

Registration code: Fuyun 6. A breeding or registration code identifies the selection in an institutional register and is often the name a grower uses when the trade name is not.

Also transliterated as: fu yun liu hao.

What the plant is like

The buds are larger and more downy than Fuding Da Bai but thinner in flavour, which is why premium Silver Needle still specifies the older cultivar.

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 cross carrying Fujian large-white and Yunnan large-leaf ancestry, bred for heavy early yields of large downy buds — which is the specification a bud-grade white or black tea sets. It crops harder than the older Fujian cultivars and is planted extensively for that reason.

What it does in the cup

Reported as giving larger, more downy buds than Fuding Da Bai and a thinner flavour, which is the standing trade-off. Premium Silver Needle still specifies the older cultivar.

How much of this is really the cultivar?

A clean illustration that yield and concentration pull against each other, and that appearance can improve while the cup does not. A fatter, whiter needle from a higher-yielding plant looks like a better tea by the visual standard the category is sold on, and the trade's continued preference for the older cultivar at the top of the market is the correction.

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.

White tea — The least handled category: withered and dried, with no fixation and no deliberate rolling.
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'.

Teas in the catalogue made from Fuyun 6

Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

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.

Fuding Da Bai vs Fuyun 6 — A widely planted white-tea cultivar and the higher-yielding cross bred to improve on it. Fuyun 6 produces larger and more downy buds and a thinner cup, which is why premium Silver Needle still specifies the older plant.