Grades, standards and origin marks

一How Chinese standards work#

A national standard number tells you its status. GB (guóbiāo) alone marks a mandatory standard; GB/T (T for 推荐, tuījiàn) a recommended one. The first Wuyi rock tea standard, GB 18745-2002, was mandatory; it was replaced on 1 December 2006 by the recommended GB/T 18745-2006. Food safety rules, such as pesticide limits in GB 2763, remain mandatory for all tea.

A recommended product standard becomes binding on a producer who declares it. Under the labelling standard GB 7718-2011, domestic prepackaged food must print the code of the standard it is made to, the 执行标准 (zhíxíng biāozhǔn, "standard applied"), and must print a quality grade wherever that standard defines grades. A Wuyi tea labelled "GB/T 18745 特级" is therefore a producer's declaration that it meets the 特级 requirements of that standard. Market regulators can test it against that declaration (our reading of how the two standards combine).

Tea standards come in families. Oolong has GB/T 30357, with parts for basic requirements (2013), Tieguanyin, Shuixian and Rougui (both 2015) and Dancong (2017). Dark tea has GB/T 32719, including Liubao (2016) and Fu tea (2018). Green tea has GB/T 14456. Geographical-indication products have their own standards, such as GB/T 18745 and GB/T 22111. Sensory grading in all of them uses the method of GB/T 23776-2018.

二Wuyi yancha under GB/T 18745-2006#

The 2006 standard defines Wuyi yancha as oolong made by traditional methods, from suitable cultivars grown in Wuyishan's natural environment, with the quality called 岩韵 (yányùn, rock rhyme) or 岩骨花香 (yángǔ huāxiāng, "rock bone, flower fragrance"). Its protected area is the administrative territory of Wuyishan City, as approved under the GI rules. The preface notes that the 2006 edition dropped the 2002 edition's division into a 名岩 (famous-rock) area and a 丹岩 area, and its classification of cultivars.

Five product categories are defined: 大红袍 (Dàhóngpáo), 名丛 (míngcóng, named bushes), 肉桂 (Ròuguì), 水仙 (Shuǐxiān) and 奇种 (qízhǒng). Each has its own sensory grades: 特级, 一级 and 二级 for Da Hong Pao and Rougui; 特级 to 三级 for Shuixian and Qizhong; and a single set of requirements, without grades, for 名丛. Grading Da Hong Pao was itself new in 2006: in the 2002 standard it had, like 名枞, one set of requirements and no grades. Fresh leaf, 茶青 (cháqīng), is graded separately, 一级 to 三级 by the share of acceptable leaf (at least 90%, 80% and 70%). Physicochemical limits apply to every grade: moisture and total ash each at most 6.5%, broken tea at most 15.0%, powder at most 1.3%.

Wuyi yancha also has national physical standard samples, 实物标准样 (shíwù biāozhǔnyàng), against which graders compare. It was described as the first Chinese GI product to have them; the first set was made in August 2002, with new sets in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2014 and 2021.

三The 2026 revision#

GB/T 18745-2026 《地理标志产品质量要求 武夷岩茶》 was issued on 31 March 2026 and takes effect on 1 April 2027, replacing the 2006 edition and its 2018 amendment. It was approved in SAMR/SAC announcement 2026 No. 15, proposed by the China National Intellectual Property Administration and placed under the national technical committee SAC/TC554, and drafted by 17 bodies led by the Wuyishan City government, including Wuyi University, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University and the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Fujian press reports list seven changes. The title shifts emphasis from origin to quality. Sensory descriptions are added, including a description of 岩韵 and eight-factor terms for each grade. Physicochemical indices are added, with tea polyphenols as the core one. 陈年岩茶 (aged rock tea) becomes a category for the first time, though the published text, below, does not bear this out. Cultivation, picking and processing requirements are updated. Packaging and shelf-life labelling are clarified. Safety limits are aligned with current national standards. The definition keeps the administrative area of Wuyishan City.

The published text settles what the press could not. Its limits apply to every category: moisture at most 7.0%, broken tea 15.0%, powder 1.3% and total ash 6.5%, and at least 34.0% water extract and 12.0% tea polyphenols; the last two are checked in periodic type tests rather than on every lot. Its definitions make Da Hong Pao a blend of several clonal cultivars, 名丛 a clonal elite bush or cultivar other than Rougui and Shuixian, Shuixian the product of the clonal Fujian Shuixian, and Qizhong the product of seed-grown Wuyi caicha. Da Hong Pao, Rougui, Shuixian and Qizhong each now have three grades, 特级, 一级 and 二级, so Shuixian and Qizhong lose their 三级; 名丛 keeps one set of requirements. There is no 陈年岩茶 category. The roasting clause sets light, medium and full fire as time and temperature ranges, but the labelling clause only lets compliant tea carry the GI name, the standard number and the GI mark: cultivar and roast level are not compulsory label items, as an early explainer had claimed. New physical standard samples were evaluated on 29 July 2026 by nine experts. Grading is by quality only, and the samples do not distinguish 正岩, 半岩 and 洲茶.

四Pu'er under GB/T 22111-2008#

GB/T 22111-2008 《地理标志产品 普洱茶》 was issued on 17 June 2008 and took effect on 1 December 2008. Protection of the name itself dates from AQSIQ announcement 2008 No. 60 of 13 May 2008. The standard was last reviewed on 4 August 2025 with the conclusion that it remains valid, and the official platform shows no revision in progress. It falls under the same GI committee as the yancha standard.

It defines pu'er as tea made from sun-dried Yunnan large-leaf maocha, 晒青毛茶 (shàiqīng máochá), from within the protected area, processed within that area by specific methods. It defines Yunnan large-leaf tea as the tree and small-tree large-leaf varieties grown in Yunnan's tea areas, and recognises two types: ripe pu'er, loose or compressed, and raw pu'er, which in the standard exists only as compressed tea. The protected area, set out by prefecture, county and township in the standard's Annex A, covers 639 townships in 75 counties of 11 prefecture-level divisions, from Kunming and Chuxiong to Xishuangbanna, Lincang and Dehong, with gardens mainly at 1,000–2,100 m. Three consequences follow. Pu'er made outside Yunnan is not pu'er under the standard. Small-leaf tea is excluded. And "pu'er" says nothing about which mountain within the area.

On keeping, the standard says only that pu'er is suitable for long-term storage. Beijing News reported in August 2026 that new rules point toward printed dates instead: a national guide to shelf-life setting, GB/T 47141-2026, in force from 1 August 2026, and the revised labelling standard GB 7718-2025, from 16 March 2027. Only loose ripe tea is graded, in eleven grades from 特级 through 一级 to 十级; compressed tea has no grades. The physicochemical limits differ by type. Sun-dried maocha may hold at most 10.0% moisture, raw pu'er 13.0%, ripe pu'er 12.0% loose and 12.5% compressed (web copies giving 13 and 14% are wrong). Raw tea and maocha need at least 35% water extract and 28% polyphenols; ripe tea needs at least 28% water extract and may hold at most 15% polyphenols, an upper limit that reflects how far piling converts them. Researchers at Yunnan's metrology institute have argued that parts of the 2008 text, including the polyphenol requirement and the sensory method, no longer fit production and should be revised.

五How geographical indications are granted#

China has run three routes to 地理标志 (dìlǐ biāozhì, geographical indication) protection. The quality-inspection route began with the 1999 rules on 原产地域产品 (yuánchǎn dìyù chǎnpǐn, origin products) and became 地理标志产品 under 2005 rules. The trademark route registers a 集体商标 (collective mark) or 证明商标 (zhèngmíng shāngbiāo, certification mark). The agriculture ministry ran a third register of agricultural-product GIs. A unified GI logo has been in use since 16 October 2019, and the older marks were withdrawn at the end of 2020; GI administration now sits with the China National Intellectual Property Administration.

Wuyi shows the quality-inspection route in practice. The applicant was the Wuyishan Municipal People's Government; protection was approved on 8 March 2002 by AQSIQ proclamation No. 23; a technical specification defines the area, the product and the methods; and the Wuyishan market supervision bureau is the control body. Producers inside the area who meet the standard may apply to use the GI mark and the area name on their packaging.

Outside China, the EU–China agreement on geographical indications, signed on 14 September 2020 and published in the Official Journal on 3 December 2020, protects 100 names on each side from entry into force, with 175 more to follow. The EU register holds a technical specification for 武夷岩茶 Wuyi Yan Cha, and the 2019 announcement named Anji Bai Cha among the Chinese teas.

六What grade words do and do not guarantee#

Grade words such as 特级 (tèjí, special grade), 一级 (yījí, first grade) and 二级 (èrjí) are sensory grades within one product category. Graders judge appearance and the infused tea, aroma, liquor colour, taste and spent leaf, against physical reference samples using the GB/T 23776 method (see Tasting vocabulary and how to evaluate). A 特级 Shuixian and a 特级 Da Hong Pao are on different scales, and a 名丛 has no grade at all. In pu'er, the third digit of a factory recipe code is a leaf grade on a different scale again, describing leaf size rather than quality.

A grade does not encode where in the GI area the tea grew, how old the plants are, which year it was made, or how it was stored. The 2026 yancha samples explicitly ignore 正岩 versus 洲茶. 老枞 has no unified age standard. A grade is also only as good as the label it sits on: it means something when the label names the standard, and nothing when it does not.

Many grade-like words are not grades. "AAA", "S+", "A+++++", "Premium" and "Top Grade" are vendors' own scales. Prize words such as 金奖 (gold award) or 一等奖 (first prize) come from competitions, 茶王赛 (cháwángsài; in Taiwan 比赛茶), which are real but run by many different organisers with different rules. Read them as marketing until you know who judged what.

“Famous tea”, 名茶, belongs to a different vocabulary again. Zhongguo mingchazhi (2000, p. 2) compares definitions involving reputation, distinctive sensory qualities or appearance, historical continuity and recognition in the market. It quotes several earlier authors rather than presenting one timeless national grading scale. A place on a famous-tea list therefore tells you about recognition in a particular context; it does not establish the sensory grade of the packet in front of you. Keep the named tea, a competition result and a product’s stated grade as three separate pieces of information.

七Anti-counterfeit features and their limits#

Factory and brand tea carries a growing stack of security features. Menghai added microprinting and embossing to the 内飞 (nèifēi) ticket pressed into its cakes, dated by English Wikipedia to the late 1990s and early 2000s; a vendor account citing the factory dates its anti-counterfeit label and neifei to 2006, with upgrades in 2007 and 2010. Brands add scratch-off or printed codes and QR codes. One supplier describes a "one cake, one code" system for Chen Sheng Hao that links cake, tong and case, logs every scan with time and place, and flags a code that has been scanned repeatedly. The SC licence number, standard code and GI mark on a pack can each be checked against official records.

Every one of these proves less than it seems. A code lookup confirms that a code was issued, not that the tea in the wrapper is the tea the code was issued for. Genuine wrappers, tickets and boxes can be collected and reused, and convincing imitations exist: Shanghai police announced in April 2021 the seizure of more than 10 t of counterfeit brand-name cakes and over 20,000 fake wrappers, sold online at about ¥200–800 a cake. A repeated-scan warning helps only if the first scan was the buyer's. The GI mark shows that a producer is authorised to use it, not that a particular pack meets the standard. (These limits are our reasoning from how the systems work, illustrated by the cases cited.)

The strongest protection is still a chain of evidence: the right channel, consistent printed details, a price that makes sense, and a tea that tastes like what it claims to be.

八White tea: product, form, origin and edition#

Read the title as well as the number. GB/T 22291-2017 is the white-tea product standard, issued on 1 November 2017 and effective from 1 May 2018. Its scope specifies tea buds, leaves and tender stems processed through withering, drying and sorting. Its Silver Needle definition names both the plant material and the single-bud requirement; a product name is more specific than an informal “premium” label.

GB/T 31751-2015 concerns compressed white tea and took effect on 1 February 2016. A white-tea cake therefore needs to be read as a finished form with its own declared standard, not identified as pu’er merely because it is round. The standard number alone does not tell you the harvest year or prove an aged-tea claim.

Origin standards add another layer. As checked on 20 October 2026, the published GB/T 22109-2026 for Zhenghe white tea and GB/T 20354-2026 for Anji Baicha both take effect on 1 April 2027. Anji Baicha remains a green tea despite the translated name. Keep product category, geographical claim and applicable edition separate, and do not assess an older label as though a future edition were already in force.