春茶
Apr 20 – May 6
From Guyu (谷雨) to Lixia (立夏). Ranked second for quality after autumn by zh-Wikipedia; 'prized' with autumn tea by en-Wikipedia.
安溪县安溪縣
Anxi County
Minnan oolong county, origin of Tieguanyin; the whole county is the 'Anxi Tie Guan Yin' GI area. About 600,000 mu of gardens; a national hub of the tea trade.
At a glance#
- Output
- People's Daily (Jan 2025): about 600,000 mu of gardens and 62,000 t of tea a year (year not stated). Xinhua (Oct 2025) says over 60,000 t is grown locally while up to 300,000 t a year is sold through Anxi; 31,000 t in the first half of 2025; about 1.2% of China's tea area, 2% of its output and nearly 10% of its trade. Total tea-industry output value: 41.6 billion yuan in 2024.
Where it lies#
Tea places nearby, plotted by their coordinates. Only physical positions are shown, no boundaries.
1510 places shown Across the view · 641 km
33 places shown Across the view · 61 km
Picking calendar#
夏茶
Jun 21 – Jul 7
From Xiazhi (夏至) to Xiaoshu (小暑). Usually rated lower quality. The GI says modern climate-controlled processing has much improved summer tea.
暑茶
Aug 7 – Aug 23
'Heat tea', from Liqiu (立秋) to Chushu (处暑). By the solar terms this is already autumn, but locally it is counted as a hot-season picking.
秋茶
Sep 23 – Oct 8
From Qiufen (秋分) to Hanlu (寒露). Rated best by zh-Wikipedia. In 2017 picking ran from late September, with about 60% done by mid-October.
Terroir#
- Soil
- Mainly mountain sandy soils, pH 4.5–6, loose and deep, high in organic matter. Red soil at lower elevations and yellow-red or yellow soil higher up; the GI gives the boundary as '700cm', which is presumably 700 m. Said to be rich in manganese, zinc and molybdenum.
- Slope and light
- The climate figures are 1991–2020 normals for the county-seat station (131 m, in Outer Anxi), so they are warmer than the mountain gardens. The GI gives 16–21 °C mean temperature across the county, 1,850–2,050 hours of sunshine and 260–350 frost-free days. It also stresses diffuse light, large day–night temperature swings at altitude, and hills that keep sea winds out of the interior.
Cultivation#
- Cultivars grown
- TieguanyinHuangdanBenshanMaoxieFoshouQilan 奇兰Meizhan 梅占Baxian 八仙
- Landraces
- Tieguanyin is a clone; the GI says it is propagated by cuttings. Qilan, Maoxie, Meizhan, Baxian and similar cultivars are traded together as 色种 ('mixed cultivars').
- Plant age
- Gardens are clonal; a Tieguanyin 'mother tree' (母树) site is kept at Xiping.
- Practice
- Clonal planting from short cuttings (an Anxi method dating from 1978, per the GI). Fresh leaf is picked at the open-bud (驻芽) stage, two or three leaves, rather than as tender buds. In the 2010s the county moved away from intensive yields, returning tea land to forest and leaving bushes taller (2017 reporting).
Local words#
闽南乌龙 Minnan oolong乌龙茶 / 青茶 oolong乌龙茶 oolong半发酵 partially oxidized发酵度 oxidation level晒青 sun-withering晾青 resting摇青 shaking做青 zuoqing萎凋 withering包揉 cloth-ball rolling绿叶红镶边 green leaf with red edges焙火 roast精制 refining拣剔 sorting等级 grade (special grade, grade 1, grade 2)品种 cultivar母树 mother bush茶王赛 tea competition
| Local words | Dialect | |
|---|---|---|
| 铁观音 thih-koan-im (Pe̍h-ōe-jī) | Minnan | Tieguanyin, 'Iron Guanyin' |
| 安溪 An-khoe (Pe̍h-ōe-jī); An-khue (Tâi-lô) | Minnan | Anxi (place name) |
| 茶 tê (Pe̍h-ōe-jī; Quanzhou vernacular) | Minnan | tea |
| 王淡 → 黄旦 not given in source | Minnan | In Minnan, 王 'Wang' sounds like 黄 'yellow' and 淡 like 旦, so 'Wang Dan's tea' became Huangdan. |
Market#
- Trading towns
- 中国茶都 China Tea Capital market (county seat; opened 2000; about 1,800 shops, 3 trading halls, over 3,000 stalls) · Gande 感德 town tea market · Xiping 西坪 · Xianghua 祥华 (collection centre)
- Output
- People's Daily (Jan 2025): about 600,000 mu of gardens and 62,000 t of tea a year (year not stated). Xinhua (Oct 2025) says over 60,000 t is grown locally while up to 300,000 t a year is sold through Anxi; 31,000 t in the first half of 2025; about 1.2% of China's tea area, 2% of its output and nearly 10% of its trade. Total tea-industry output value: 41.6 billion yuan in 2024.
- Prices of teas claiming this origin
- At the 1995 tea-king contest a winning tea was auctioned for 58,000 yuan a jin. In autumn 2017 cooperative buying prices were about 30% up on the year, and raw tea (毛茶) sold for over 150 yuan at Juyuan and over 200 yuan in famous villages such as Nanqi (unit not stated; presumably per jin).
Misnaming to watch for: Legally 'Anxi Tie Guan Yin' must be grown and made inside Anxi County. The Tieguanyin cultivar is also grown in neighbouring counties (Hua'an, Nanjing, Yongchun, Zhangping). In Taiwan 'Tieguanyin' can describe a processing style used on other cultivars. Anxi also trades huge volumes of tea from outside the county.
History#
- 1723Yongzheng era (1723–1735): Wei Yin of Songyan, Xiping, finds the plant in the Wei origin legend. The GI and textbooks place the creation of oolong-style processing in Anxi in 1725–1735.
- 1736Wang account: Wang Shirang finds an unusual tea plant at Nanyan, Xiping, and transplants it.
- 1741Wang account: tea is passed via Fang Bao to the Qianlong emperor, who names it Tieguanyin.
- 1860Huangdan legend: Wang Dan of Zhuyang (Xiping) brings two tea seedlings to her husband's village in Luoyan (now Meizhuang, Huqiu).
- 1871Luoyan merchant Lin Hongde sells 'Huangdan tea' in Southeast Asia and renames it Huangjingui ('golden osmanthus').
- 1907Maoxie (毛蟹) plants taken from Daqiulun, Fumei (Daping) to Pingzhou by 张加协, per the Fujian tea institute's cultivar history quoted by the county.
- 1978Short-cutting clonal propagation is developed in Anxi.
- 1982Xianghua township begins holding annual township tea-king contests.
- 2000The China Tea Capital (中国茶都) market opens.
- 2000-04The 'Anxi Tieguanyin' geographical-indication certification mark is registered; the trademark owner is the Anxi Tea Industry Development Center.
- 2004-07-08AQSIQ grants national GI product protection (Notice 2004 No. 91). The area is the whole county.
- 2008乌龙茶制作技艺（铁观音制作技艺） is put on the national intangible cultural heritage list.
- 2012After 2012 neighbouring counties plant Tieguanyin en masse; with counterfeits and pesticide problems, Anxi Tieguanyin enters a slump.
- 2014-06-12安溪铁观音茶文化系统 (Anxi Tieguanyin tea culture system) is listed as a China Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage System.
- 2016-04-26Amendment No. 1 to GB/T 30357.2-2013 takes effect, adding an aged (陈香型) Tieguanyin.
- 2017-11Agricultural-product GI protection from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
- 2020-07Among the first products protected under the China–EU GI agreement (in force 1 March 2021).
- 2022Designated an FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System. Tieguanyin making is one of the 44 national items in UNESCO's 2022 inscription of 'Traditional tea processing techniques and associated social practices in China'.
- 2025-09-01GB/T 19598-2025 地理标志产品质量要求 安溪铁观音 comes into force, replacing GB/T 19598-2006 and adding the aged style.
Other names and written forms 5#
Chinese variants
- 安溪Anxi
- 中国茶都 / China Tea CapitalSelf-styled title; also the name of the county's main tea market, opened 2000.
- 小溪 / 清溪Xiaoxi / QingxiFormer county names.
Translations and trade names
- Anxi
- An-khoeHokkien (Pe̍h-ōe-jī), as in the Min Nan Wikipedia title An-khoe-koān; Tâi-lô An-khue-kuīnn.
Names and ambiguities#
Two origin legends (Wei vs Wang)
Both legends set the discovery in Xiping. The Wei version (Songyan village, Yongzheng era, a dream of Guanyin) and the Wang version (Nanyan, 1736; tribute to Qianlong in 1741) are both promoted locally: Xiping keeps sites for each, and the county calls them the 'emperor-naming' and 'Guanyin-dream' legends. Neither is historically verifiable. Some sources give 1725 for Wei. One zh-Wikipedia rendering writes Wang's name as 王士仕; Anxi's own pages use 王士让 (a Wang Shirang tea estate exists in Xiping).
Which season is best
Grown vs traded volume
Anxi grows about 60,000 t a year, but about 300,000 t of tea a year is sold through the county's markets, merchants and e-commerce. 'Shipped from Anxi' does not mean 'grown in Anxi'.
Foshou origin claim
Anxi's Huqiu town profile claims to be the origin of Foshou (佛手) and also calls it 'Yongchun Foshou'. Yongchun County, also in Quanzhou, is the place usually tied to that tea. Treat the origin claim as disputed.
Notes#
Anxi lies on the upper Xixi (Jinjiang river), south-east of the Daiyun range, between Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. It slopes from a high north-west to a low south-east: the GI specification gives Taihuajian (1,600 m) as the highest point and 32 m (Chengxiang) as the lowest, and counts 2,461 peaks over 1,000 m. Locals split the county into 'Inner Anxi' (内安溪: high, steep towns such as Gande, Jiandou, Xianghua) and 'Outer Anxi' (外安溪: the lower county seat Fengcheng, Hutou, Guanqiao). Xianghua lies at 770–1,626 m (average about 800 m) and Lutian at 350–950 m, which gives an idea of where the high-mountain gardens sit (inference: no county-wide garden elevation was found).
The GI 'Anxi Tie Guan Yin' covers the whole administrative area of the county. It is made from clonal (cutting-propagated) Tieguanyin plants and is graded in two types: clean-aroma (清香型) and heavy-flavour (浓香型, roasted). The quality ideal is the 'Yin rhyme' (观音韵), and the appearance is summed up as 'green leaves rimmed with red'. Primary processing per the GI: sunning → cooling → rocking → fixation → rolling → baking; the zh-Wikipedia account adds repeated wrap-rolling (包揉) between bakings. The GI credits Anxi with the 1978 short-cutting (短穗扦插) method of clonal propagation.
Anxi grows far more than Tieguanyin. The Huqiu town profile names Tieguanyin, Benshan, Huangjingui (from the Huangdan cultivar) and Maoxie as Anxi's 'four famous teas', and also claims Foshou. zh-Wikipedia likewise places Huangjingui's origin at Meizhuang, Huqiu (Luoyan), and says it is also grown in Zhao'an, Zhangzhou. Other cultivars in Anxi oolong include Qilan, Meizhan and Baxian (sold together as 色种 'mixed cultivars'). Tieguanyin covers over 60% of the gardens (Xinhua 2025).
Two origin legends, both set in Xiping town: in the Wei account (魏说), the farmer Wei Yin (魏荫) of Songyan village was led by a dream of Guanyin to a tea plant in a rock crevice in the Yongzheng era (1723–1735). In the Wang account (王说), the scholar Wang Shirang (王士让) found the plant at Nanyan in 1736 and, in 1741, sent tea through Fang Bao (方苞) to the Qianlong emperor, who named it. Neither can be verified historically; Wikipedia calls the Wei story culturally influential but unverifiable.
Prices of teas claiming this origin#
International retail
Show as table
| Product | Vendor | Channel | per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anxi Hairy Crab Mao Xie Fujian Oolong Tea | Yunnan Sourcing | International retail | $11.00 |
| Da Ping Mao Xie | Jing Tea Shop | International retail | $12.00 |
| Anxi Huang Jin Gui Oolong Tea of Fujian | Yunnan Sourcing | International retail | $13.00 |
| Anxi Ben Shan Oolong Tea | Yunnan Sourcing | International retail | $13.00 |
| Long Juan Ben Shan | Jing Tea Shop | International retail | $13.00 |
| Long Juan Huang Jin Gui | Jing Tea Shop | International retail | $15.60 |
| Xiao Qing Tieguanyin | King Tea Mall | International retail | $15.96 |
| Tuo Suan Tieguanyin | King Tea Mall | International retail | $15.96 |
| Gan De Charcoal Roasted Tie Guan Yin | Yunnan Sourcing | International retail | $22.00 |
| Zheng Wei Tieguanyin | King Tea Mall | International retail | $27.96 |
| Traditional Anxi Tie Guan Yin Oolong | The Steeping Room | International retail | $40.04 |
| Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea of Gande Village | Yunnan Sourcing | International retail | $68.00 |
| Lao Tie Guan Yin Aged Oolong Tea | Yunnan Sourcing | International retail | $68.00 |
| Xiping Old Tree Red Heart Tie Guan Yin | The Essence of Tea | International retail | $75.00 |
| Anxi Tie Guan Yin | Yoshi en | International retail | $319.07 |
Listings claiming this origin 15#
Price ranks compare recorded retail offers for the same tea, including offers outside the current delivery filter. Shipping and import charges are excluded.
Prices compared in the selected currency; unknown values appear last.
| Product | Vendor | Price | Per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
Anxi Hairy Crab Mao Xie Fujian Oolong Tea
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
Yunnan SourcingSelected destinations |
$5.50 / 50 g | $11.00 ≈ $0.88 a session |
Da Ping Mao Xie
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
Jing Tea ShopSelected destinations |
$12.00 / 100 g | $12.00 ≈ $0.96 a session |
Anxi Ben Shan Oolong Tea
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
Yunnan SourcingSelected destinations |
$6.50 / 50 g | $13.00 ≈ $1.04 a session |
Anxi Huang Jin Gui Oolong Tea of Fujian
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
Yunnan SourcingSelected destinations |
$6.50 / 50 g | $13.00 ≈ $1.04 a session |
Long Juan Ben Shan
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
Jing Tea ShopSelected destinations |
$6.50 / 50 g | $13.00 ≈ $1.04 a session |
Long Juan Huang Jin Gui
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
Jing Tea ShopSelected destinations |
$7.80 / 50 g | $15.60 ≈ $1.25 a session |
Tuo Suan Tieguanyin
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
King Tea MallWorldwide |
$3.99 / 25 g | $15.96 ≈ $1.28 a session |
Xiao Qing Tieguanyin
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
King Tea MallWorldwide |
$3.99 / 25 g | $15.96 ≈ $1.28 a session |
Gan De Charcoal Roasted Tie Guan Yin
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
Yunnan SourcingSelected destinations |
$5.50 / 25 g | $22.00 ≈ $1.76 a session |
Zheng Wei Tieguanyin
DetailsCompare the details Recorded seller claims; a blank means unrecorded here, not necessarily absent from the seller’s page. Matching production does not establish identical storage or condition.
|
King Tea MallWorldwide |
$6.99 / 25 g | $27.96 ≈ $2.24 a session |
Prices recorded on the dates checked. Conversions use ECB rates dated 2026-10-20; original prices appear alongside. Origin, age and cultivar are stated by the vendor.
Places within#
西坪镇
Xiping Xīpíng Zhèn
Town in south-central Anxi held to be the birthplace of Tieguanyin; both origin legends and the 'mother tree' are here. About 60,000 mu of tea, over 5,000 t a year.
sourced
感德镇
Gande Gǎndé Zhèn
High 'Inner Anxi' town in the north-west, the leading modern Tieguanyin producer and a major raw-tea market: about 50,000 mu and 5,000 t a year.
sourced
Teas associated with this place#
闽南乌龙
Minnan oolong Mǐnnán wūlóng
Grouping for southern Fujian oolong: Anxi Tieguanyin and the other Anxi cultivars, Yongchun Foshou and Zhangping Shuixian. Usually rolled into tight half-balls.
sourced
安溪铁观音
Anxi Tieguanyin Ānxī Tiěguānyīn
Rolled oolong from the Tieguanyin cultivar, protected as a GI for the whole of Anxi County. GB/T 19598-2025 defines three styles: clean (清香), heavy (浓香) and aged (陈香).
sourced
黄金桂
Huangjin Gui Huángjīn Guì
Light, very fragrant Anxi oolong from the early Huangdan cultivar, named "golden osmanthus" for its aroma; defined by GB/T 30357.3-2015.
sourced
本山
Benshan Běnshān
Oolong made from Anxi’s Benshan cultivar. Its floral aroma can resemble Tieguanyin, but it is a distinct plant and deserves its own product identity.
sourced
毛蟹
Maoxie Máoxiè
Anxi oolong made from Maoxie, a cultivar with conspicuously downy young shoots.
sourced
Cultivars that originate here#
黄旦
Huangdan Huángdàn
Early-sprouting, medium-leaf small tree from Meizhuang (Luoyan), Huqiu, Anxi; the cultivar of Huangjin Gui. National number GS13008-1985.
sourced
毛蟹
Maoxie Máoxiè
Fast-growing, very downy, medium-leaf shrub from Fumei village, Daping, Anxi; flowers freely but sets almost no seed. National number GS13006-1985.
sourced
梅占
Meizhan Méizhàn
Traditional Anxi cultivar suitable for oolong, black and green tea; also known as Daye Meizhan.
sourced
Producers based here#
安溪铁观音集团
Anxi Tieguanyin Group Ānxī Tiěguānyīn Jítuán
Successor of the 1952 state Anxi Tea Factory, maker of Fengshan-brand Tieguanyin; reorganised in bankruptcy in 2016-2017.
sourced
八马茶业
Bama Tea Bāmǎ Cháyè
Shenzhen-based tea retail chain of an Anxi Tieguanyin family, with over 3,700 shops; Hong Kong-listed since 2025, chaired by a national heritage bearer.
sourced