TeaHQ

Bai Lu

A Taiwanese bred cultivar planted principally in the north-west for Oriental Beauty, where the tea depends on leafhopper feeding to develop its honey aroma. Bai Lu was selected in part for how it responds to that damage — the plant has to be attractive to the insect and has to convert the injury into aroma rather than simply losing yield — which makes it one of the few cultivars bred around a pest relationship instead of against one.

白鷺Camellia sinensis var. sinensisTRES No. 17TaiwanAlso called TRES No. 17Also called Tai Cha 17Also called White Egret

Where it sits in the botany

Bai Lu 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.

Registration code: TRES No. 17. 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: bai lu, pai lu.

Where it came from

Released by Taiwan’s tea research and extension service as part of its numbered TRES series.

How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The registration number is genuine; the release year and parentage were not verified against a primary source.

What the plant is like

Suited to heavily oxidised, jassid-bitten production. Grown mainly in Hsinchu and Miaoli for Oriental Beauty rather than for high-mountain oolong.

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.

  • Oolong — Partially oxidised teas, bruised deliberately and often roasted — the widest-ranging category in tea.

Teas in the catalogue made from Bai Lu

Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

Guides covering this cultivar

  • Cultivars that emigrated — A cultivar is a plant, and plants move. Several of the best-known named cultivars are now grown thousands of kilometres from where they were bred, which quietly turns a cultivar name from an origin claim into something much narrower.

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.

  • Bai Lu (No. 17) vs Qing Xin Da Mao — The two cultivars used for Oriental Beauty, a tea defined not by a plant or a place but by an insect. Both are chosen for how they respond to leafhopper feeding rather than for their own flavour, which makes them the clearest example in tea of a cultivar selected for a relationship.