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Huoshan Jinji Zhong

The local population of Huoshan County in the Dabie mountains of western Anhui, named for Jinji Shan — golden rooster mountain — one of the localities its best material comes from, and the plant behind Huoshan Huangya, one of China's small handful of surviving yellow teas. It is described as shrub-type, large-leaf and late-sprouting, and the late budding is the agriculturally interesting part: Huoshan's tea sits above 600 m in a cold mountain county, and a population that waits is a population that does not lose a crop to a late frost.

霍山金雞種Camellia sinensis var. sinensisChinaAlso called Huoshan golden rooster populationAlso called Jinji Shan population

Where it sits in the botany

Huoshan Jinji 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: huoshan jinji zhong, huoshan jin ji zhong, jinji zhong.

Where it came from

A local population of Huoshan County, Anhui, named as the raw material of the geographical-indication product Huoshan Huangya, whose best-regarded localities are Jinjiwu, Jinshantou, Jinzhuping and Wumijian above 600 m.

How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. DB34/T 319-2012 is confirmed to exist under that number, title and date in the provincial standards archive; its text was not obtained. The variety name and its shrub-type, large-leaf, late-sprouting description reach TeaHQ through consistent secondary Chinese writing including the provincial tea industry association. See the source record.

What the plant is like

Shrub habit, large leaf for a Chinese small-leaf-region population, and a late spring flush. Vigorous bud growth is the quality most often reported of it, which is what a bud-and-first-leaf yellow tea needs: Huangya is picked to a standard that leaves no room for a population with thin, sparse budding.

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.

Late sprouting in a high, cold county is a frost-avoidance trait rather than a defect, and it puts Huoshan's picking window behind the famous Anhui greens further east. A grower choosing an early cultivar for an earlier market is trading that protection away, which is the trade the GI standard's insistence on the local population forecloses.

What it does in the cup

The men huang smothering step is what makes Huangya yellow rather than green, so the cup is a processing outcome first. What the population is credited with is the thickness and the sweet return the tea is graded on, against the thinner cup a lowland cultivar gives at the same picking standard.

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.

  • Yellow tea — The rarest of the six categories: a green tea given an extra smothering step that removes its grassy edge and leaves a rounder, mellower cup.

Teas in the catalogue made from Huoshan Jinji Zhong

Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

Sources

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