aged tea (lao cha)
'old tea'; tea aged on purpose for many years
Definition#
Trade term for tea that has been stored for years and is sold for its ageing, most often sheng pu'er but also oolong, white tea, Liubao and other dark tea. There is no fixed age threshold. Moychay (a tea merchant) writes that 'there is no strict borderline where lao begins', that some teas may be aged for as little as three years, and that serious collectors usually reserve the word for teas of a decade or more; a Taiwanese tea shop's article says old tea usually means more than ten years but has no definitive definition; a Liubao seller's article uses 老茶 for dry-stored tea of five years and up and again for fifteen years and up; Xinhua gives 10 to 20 years as an example for 老白茶; a Russian tea club calls oolong 'mature' after 15 years. A listing's age must therefore be read from the harvest or pressing year, not from the word 老茶. The word is also tied to fakery: a Jiemian article of 2018 says wet-storing tea to fake aged tea became very profitable. 老茶 is not 老树茶 (tea from old trees, 古树) and not 老茶头 (lao cha tou, 'old tea heads': lumps formed in pile fermentation, see 茶头).
Translation and usage#
| Language | Use | Alternatives & cautions |
|---|---|---|
| English | aged tea (lao cha) tea deliberately aged for years, usually from the stated vintage pinyin with a gloss |
Also acceptable
Avoid old-tree tea that is 古树 (age of the trees), not age of the leaf lao cha tou (as 'aged tea') 老茶头 means lumps from pile fermentation; unrelated to storage age |
| Deutsch | gereifter Tee (Lao Cha) bewusst über Jahre gelagerter Tee pinyin with a gloss |
Also acceptable
Avoid Alter-Baum-Tee gushu denotes the age of the trees, not of the tea |
| Русский | выдержанный чай (лао ча) чай, намеренно выдержанный годами pinyin with a gloss |
Also acceptable
Avoid старый чай (двусмысленно) 'старый' can be read as 'old trees' or as 'stale' |
| 简体字繁體字 | 老茶 | |
| 日本語 | 老茶（熟成茶） 長年熟成させた茶 pinyin with a gloss |
Also acceptable
|
Common confusions#
- No age threshold: 3 years (shop minimum), 5 or 15 years (Liubao seller), 10 years or more (collector convention, Taiwanese shop), 10-20 years (Xinhua, white tea) are all used.
- 老茶 is not 老树茶 and not 老茶头; mixing them is a common error in translated listings.
- Fake or artificially aged tea (做旧) trades under the same word; Jiemian (2018) says wet-storage faking of aged tea was very lucrative (the article writes 做假老茶).
- Taiwanese usage covers aged oolong (for example 1980s osmanthus oolong sold as 'lao cha'); whether it implies re-roasting was not verified.