TeaHQ

Bingdao

A village group in Mengku, Shuangjiang county, Lincang, and one of the most expensive sources of sheng pu-erh material in Yunnan. Bingdao’s old trees are Mengku large-leaf stock, and the tea made from them is characterised by very low bitterness, a thick sweetness and a strong returning sweetness in the throat — a profile at the opposite pole from Bulang. The prices attract a great deal of relabelled material from surrounding villages.

冰島China1400–2000 metresAlso called Mengku Bingdao

Elevation

Recorded at 1400–2000 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

Spring picking from a very small number of old trees in one village, in quantities that cannot conceivably support the volume sold under the name. The calendar here is worth recording mainly because it makes the arithmetic of the fraud visible.

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 bing dao, bingdao. 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

  • Bingdao sheng pu-erh — Sweet from the first sip with almost no bitterness, which is the opposite of what young sheng usually does and why it commands the price it does.

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

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this region against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.

  • Bingdao vs Lao Ban Zhang — The two most expensive village names in Yunnan, one in Lincang and one on Bulang Mountain in Xishuangbanna. They are bought for opposite reasons — one for the absence of bitterness, the other for its intensity — and both are faked on a scale that dwarfs their actual production.
  • Xigui vs Bingdao — Two Lincang villages that break the rule connecting pu-erh quality to altitude. Bingdao sits high at 1,400 to 2,000 metres; Xigui’s gardens run down almost to the Mekong at 700 to 1,200 metres, and it is nonetheless one of the most sought-after names in the prefecture.