TeaHQ

Qing Xin Gan Zai

The cultivar behind Taiwan’s only substantial green-tea tradition, grown almost exclusively in Sanxia south of Taipei. Its leaf is soft and thin with a tender bud, which suits the unoxidised Bi Luo Chun and Longjing-style teas made there and suits almost nothing else — the reason a cultivar of real local importance has a planted area measured in a few hundred hectares.

青心柑仔Camellia sinensis var. sinensisTaiwanAlso called Gan ZaiAlso called Mandarin-heart

Where it sits in the botany

Qing Xin Gan Zai is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, the variety group one level above cultivar. It is associated with Taiwan, which is where it was selected or is most widely planted rather than the only place it grows.

Also transliterated as: qing xin gan zai, chin shin kan tsai.

What the plant is like

Soft, thin leaf with a downy bud, made unoxidised. Restricted almost entirely to the Sanxia district and rarely seen elsewhere.

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.

Soft, thin leaf with a tender downy bud, which suits unoxidised manufacture and suits almost nothing else — and that is why a cultivar of real local importance sits on a planted area measured in a few hundred hectares. A plant that can only make one kind of tea is confined to wherever that tea is made, and here that is one district south of the capital.

What it does in the cup

Reported as giving a clean, sweet, delicate green tea in the curled and flat-pressed styles the district makes, with none of the body a Taiwanese oolong cultivar carries.

How much of this is really the cultivar?

The interesting thing about it is a structural fact rather than a flavour: Taiwan's only substantial green-tea tradition rests on one cultivar in one district, and the cultivar's narrowness is why the tradition stayed small. Where a plant cannot be redirected into a more profitable category, the category it does serve is protected from competition and capped by the same fact.

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.

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

Teas in the catalogue made from Qing Xin Gan Zai

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