Yinghong No. 9
A large-leaf cultivar selected at the Yingde tea research station in Guangdong and the basis of the Ying Hong black tea the district was created to produce. It was chosen for exactly what an export black tea needed in the mid-twentieth century — thick liquor, deep colour, cocoa-and-malt sweetness and enough strength to take milk — and it remains one of the clearest examples in China of a cultivar bred to hit a defined market specification.
Where it sits in the botany
Yinghong No. 9 is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. assamica, 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.
Registration code: Yinghong No. 9. 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: yinghong jiu hao, ying hong 9.
Where it came from
Selected at the Yingde research station in Guangdong from introduced large-leaf material, as part of the programme that established black-tea production in the district.
How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The provenance is consistently reported; the selection and release dates were not verified against a primary registration record.
What the plant is like
Large, thick leaf with high extract, giving a dark, heavy, cocoa-leaning liquor. Frost-tender and grown in Guangdong’s warm lowlands.
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.
- Black tea — Tea taken deliberately through full enzymatic oxidation, giving the dark leaf, amber-to-red liquor and malty or brisk character most Western drinkers think of as simply 'tea'.
Teas in the catalogue made from Yinghong No. 9
Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. assamica
- Assam indigenous jat
- Benifuji
- Benihikari
- Benihomare
- Benikaori
- Betjan
- Camellia sinensis var. assamica
- East African seedling tea
- Fengqing Da Ye
- GMB 7
- Kiara 8
- Lingyun Baihao
- Manipuri jat
- Menghai Da Ye
- Mengku Da Ye
- Miang landrace
- PH1
- Shan Tuyết
- Sri Lankan seedling tea
- Tai Cha No. 8
- TRFK 301/4
- TRFK 303/577
- TRFK 306/1
- TRFK 31/8
- TRFK 6/8
- TV1
- TV23
- TV25
- Yunkang 10
- Yunkang 14
- Yunnan Da Ye Zhong
- Zi Juan
- Zi Ya
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.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this cultivar against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Fengqing Da Ye vs Yinghong No. 9 — Two large-leaf Chinese cultivars grown for black tea in two provinces, one a long-standing Yunnan stock and the other created deliberately for a state project in Guangdong. They are the plants behind Dian Hong and Ying De Hong respectively.