TeaHQ

Ailao Mountains

A long range running through Zhenyuan and Jingdong in Pu’er prefecture, holding the Qianjiazhai forest and the wild tea trees Yunnan points to when it argues that the plant is native here. The material is genuinely different from the cultivated stock lower down: these are wild-type camellias rather than domesticated assamica, thicker-leaved and often more bitter, and they are picked and processed separately as ye sheng. Ages given for the largest trees run into thousands of years and rest on ring-count estimates and local tradition rather than settled dating.

哀牢山China1300–2500 metresAlso called QianjiazhaiAlso called Zhenyuan

Elevation

Recorded at 1300–2500 metres.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

When it is picked

Picked on the Yunnan pattern — a premium spring crop, a cheap rain-season one and a lighter autumn crop as the rain withdraws — but the wild-type material is gathered rather than farmed, so the calendar is set by what the forest does rather than by a plucking round. The stands are high, cold in winter and slow, and they crop far less than cultivated ground at the same latitude.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

How production is organised

Collection rather than cultivation for the wild-type material: villagers gather from forest trees that nobody planted and that are picked on foot over distance, and it is processed separately from the cultivated stock lower down and sold as ye sheng. Cultivated smallholder gardens sit below the forest and are worked conventionally. The two systems share a mountain and almost nothing else.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

How the name is written

Also transliterated as ai lao shan, ailaoshan. Romanisations of a district name vary by system and by vendor, and a packet spelling one way is not describing a different place.

Teas this region is known for

  • Ye Sheng black tea — Plummy and resinous with a texture more like aged sheng than black tea. Divisive, and unmistakable once met.

Other growing regions in China

The neighbouring districts are the useful comparison: they share a country, a grading convention and often a cultivar, so what differs between them is closer to terroir than anything a cross-border comparison can isolate.

Sources

  • TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ

This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No external document stands behind the elevation band, the climate note or the character described above, which is why each carries its confidence in the open.

How TeaHQ handles sources