Hadong
A South Gyeongsang county on the Seomjin river, and conventionally described as the oldest tea-growing area in Korea — a priority repeated in every Korean account of the drink and recorded here as convention rather than as verified history. Much of its tea still grows from seed on steep wild-ish slopes rather than in planted rows.
History on this page: Widely repeated legend
Repeated very widely and not evidenced. Recorded because the story is itself part of the culture, not because it happened.
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 100–700 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
The ujeon, sejak, jungjak and daejak sequence, picked from bushes scattered under tree cover on steep slopes rather than from planted rows — so the picking is slower, the yield lower, and the ujeon grade correspondingly scarce.
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
Small farms and temple plantings on the Jirisan slopes, working a large proportion of seed-grown rather than clonal bushes. Wild-ish, dispersed planting is the district's identity and the reason its tea is sold by grower and temple name.
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 hadong. 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
- Korean green tea — Nutty and mild, sitting between Chinese pan-fired sweetness and a faint Japanese savouriness. Earlier pickings are lighter and more floral; later ones are fuller and more robust.
- Ujeon — Fine, sweet and nutty, with more delicacy and less body than the later Korean grades. The picking-date naming is the whole grading system here, and ujeon sits at the top of it.
Other teas recorded from here
Other growing regions in South Korea
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.
- Boseong vs Hadong — Korea’s two main tea areas differ in almost every structural respect: one is a large-scale planted district and the tea most likely to leave the country, the other is the oldest recorded growing area and still substantially seed-grown on steep slopes.