TeaHQ

Jiukeng

An old Zhejiang population cultivar from Chun’an on the Xin’an river, one of the traditional small-leaf types propagated across the province before modern clonal selection. It is cold-hardy, late-budding and reliable, and it was widely used as breeding material and as planting stock in areas where an early cultivar would have been caught by frost.

鳩坑Camellia sinensis var. sinensisChina

Where it sits in the botany

Jiukeng 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: jiukeng, jiu keng.

What the plant is like

Cold-tolerant and late, with a clean, chestnut-sweet green-tea character. Historically important as parent material as much as in its own right.

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.

  • Green tea — Tea whose oxidation is halted early by heat, keeping the leaf green and the cup fresh, vegetal or marine in character.

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.

  • Jiukeng vs Longjing 43 — A parent and a product of Chinese green-tea breeding. Jiukeng is a cold-tolerant Zhejiang cultivar historically as important for what it was crossed into as for what it made on its own; Longjing 43 is the early, uniform selection that reshaped flat-fried green tea.