Ying Xiang

A later addition to Taiwan’s numbered cultivar series, bred for a strong floral aroma with better vigour and disease tolerance than Qing Xin. Its purpose is straightforward: to give growers a plant that yields like a modern cultivar while smelling closer to the traditional high-mountain material that Taiwanese oolong’s reputation is built on.

迎香Camellia sinensis var. sinensisTRES No. 20TaiwanAlso called TRES No. 20Also called Tai Cha 20

Where it sits in the botany

Ying Xiang 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. 20. 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: ying xiang, yingxiang.

Where it came from

Released by Taiwan’s tea research and extension service as part of its numbered TRES series, selected for aroma and field performance.

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

Pronounced floral aroma with better vigour and resistance than Qing Xin, planted across a range of elevations.

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.

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.

Ying Xiang (No. 20) vs Qing Xin — A bred cultivar against the plant it was bred to relieve. Qing Xin makes almost all of Taiwan’s famous high-mountain oolong and is low-yielding and disease-prone; Ying Xiang offers more vigour and more aroma across a wider range of elevations, and the trade has not adopted it in Qing Xin’s place.