Gilan
The Caspian province that holds most Iranian tea, on the wet northern slope of the Alborz where the mountains wring rain out of the sea air and produce a humid, temperate strip unlike anywhere else in the country. Lahijan is the centre and the site of the earliest plantings around the turn of the twentieth century. Gardens are small, terraced and hand-picked, and output is orthodox black tea for a domestic market.
History on this page: TeaHQ synthesis
TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.
This district’s description dates something — a founding, a first planting, a period of expansion. The label above says on what basis, and it applies to the historical statements rather than to the elevation, climate or soil claims below, which carry their own confidence separately.
Elevation
Recorded at 0–900 metres.
How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.
Climate
Humid subtropical Caspian littoral: high rainfall, mild winters and heavy summer humidity, in sharp contrast to the arid plateau across the Alborz.
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
Three passes in a normal year, beginning in spring, with the first treated as the quality crop and the later ones as volume. The third is coarse and goes to the cheaper end of a domestic market.
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
Tens of thousands of very small hand-picked hillside gardens selling green leaf to a mix of private and state-linked factories under a purchase and support arrangement. No estate sector, no auction, no export identity.
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 gilan, guilan, lahijan. Romanisations of a district name vary by system and by vendor, and a packet spelling one way is not describing a different place.
Other teas recorded from here
Other growing regions in Iran
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.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this region against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Rize vs Gilan — Two coastal strips where a mountain range wrings rain out of sea air, producing tea country in countries that are otherwise too dry for it. Both supply enormous domestic tea cultures and almost nothing to the export market.