Four words that are not synonyms
VARIETY, in the botanical sense, means one of the two main forms of the species — var. sinensis and var. assamica. There are only two in common use and everything else is below them. CULTIVAR means a named, deliberately selected and propagated plant type: Yabukita, Jin Xuan, Samidori, Okumidori. Cultivars are registered or at least named, and they are propagated by cutting so every plant of one is genetically identical. CLONE means the same thing viewed from the propagation side — a plant grown from a cutting rather than from seed. All cultivars are clonal in practice; the word "clonal" on a Darjeeling packet is distinguishing modern selected material from older seed-grown plantings. LANDRACE, sometimes "seed-grown" or "old bush", means a genetically mixed population that was never selected into a named cultivar. Much traditional Chinese planting is this, and it is why a Chinese tea often names a place rather than a cultivar. The common error is treating a cultivar name as a variety or as a tea style. Tie Guan Yin is both a cultivar and a tea; the two are not the same thing, and Tie Guan Yin tea is made from other cultivars while the Tie Guan Yin cultivar is used for other teas.
Where single-cultivar labelling is normal
TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.
JAPAN. Yabukita dominates planting by a very wide margin, and single-cultivar tea is a speciality product sold precisely because it is not Yabukita — Saemidori, Okumidori, Asatsuyu, Gokou, Samidori, Asahi. A Japanese packet naming a cultivar is telling you it is a single-farm or small-lot product rather than a blend to a house standard. TAIWAN. Cultivar naming is routine and informative: Qingxin for traditional high-mountain oolong, Jin Xuan for the softer, milkier style, Si Ji Chun for the year-round one. Here the cultivar substantially predicts the style. DARJEELING and NEPAL. "Clonal" and specific clone numbers appear, distinguishing selected material from the older China-bush plantings. CHINA. Much less common, because much of the material is landrace and because the place name is doing the work. Where a cultivar IS named — Fuding Da Bai for white tea, particular Dancong bushes — it matters a great deal.
What a cultivar name predicts, and what it does not
It predicts a TENDENCY, and a real one: how early the plant flushes, how it handles cold, how it responds to shading, whether it suits deep steaming, roughly what aromatic direction it leans in. It does NOT determine the cup. The same cultivar in two prefectures, at two harvests, steamed to two depths and finished by two merchants gives four different teas, and the spread between them is comfortably larger than the spread between two cultivars treated identically. So the honest reading of a cultivar name is: this producer chose this plant deliberately and is telling you, which is a signal about the producer as much as about the plant. It is not a quality grade, and a Yabukita from a careful maker beats a rare cultivar from a careless one.
Why single-cultivar tea is a small market
Because blending is the norm for good reasons. Different cultivars flush at different times, which spreads a producer's harvest risk and workload; blending them evens out year-to-year variation and lets a merchant hit a consistent house standard. A single-cultivar tea gives up all of that. It is a deliberate choice to show one plant's character at the cost of consistency, and it is priced for a market that wants exactly that. The consequence for a buyer: single-cultivar tea is more variable year to year, more likely to be sold with a harvest date, and better bought in the quantity you will drink that season.
How to use the information
Read the cultivar as one of four things you want, alongside origin, harvest and maker. On its own it is the least predictive of the four; combined with the others it sharpens everything. If you find you like a cultivar, the useful next step is to try it from a different region or a different steaming depth rather than to buy more of the same, because that is the experiment that tells you how much of what you liked was the plant. And give a rare cultivar name used as the entire selling point the same scepticism you would give any single-variable claim. It is a real thing to know and it is not a substitute for the other three.