Ying Kee founding year
Wikipedia gives 1881 but calls it Guangxu 8, which is 1882.
香港
Hong Kong
Major tea-trading and storage hub with small-scale local tea growing at Kadoorie Farm and restoration harvesting at Ngong Ping on Lantau.
- Level
- Area
At a glance#
- Rainfall · Mean temperature · Mean relative humidity
- Hong Kong Observatory station; 1991–2020 climate normals.
Where it lies#
Tea places nearby, plotted by their coordinates. Only physical positions are shown, no boundaries.
22 places shown Across the view · 160 km
22 places shown Across the view · 38 km
Terroir#
- Slope and light
- At the Hong Kong Observatory station, 1991–2020 normals are 2,431.2 mm of annual rainfall, a mean temperature of 23.5 °C and mean relative humidity of 78%. These outdoor station averages do not establish conditions inside tea warehouses or in upland tea gardens.
Local words#
港倉 Hong Kong storage濕倉 wet storage乾倉 dry storage入倉 warehousing退倉 airing out倉味 storage taste廣東倉 Guangdong storage陳化 ageing轉化 transformation普洱 pu'er熟茶 shou pu'er生茶 sheng pu'er乾倉與濕倉 dry and wet storage
| Local words | Dialect | |
|---|---|---|
| 普洱 pou2 lei2 / bou2 lei2 / pou2 nei2 / bou2 nei2 | Cantonese | pu'er; in Hong Kong usually the pile-fermented kind, a very common restaurant tea (Jyutping) |
| 飲茶 jam2 caa4 | Cantonese | to drink tea; to go for yum cha (dim sum at a teahouse) (Jyutping) |
| 茶樓 caa4 lau4 | Cantonese | Cantonese teahouse serving tea and dim sum (Jyutping) |
| 茶莊 caa4 zong1 | Cantonese | tea shop selling leaf tea (Jyutping) |
Market#
- Tea imports · 2024
- 13,418.2 tonnes, valued at US$103.74 million. This is the reported total for tea under customs heading HS 0902, from all origins.
- Tea exports · 2024
- 1,315.2 tonnes, valued at US$15.80 million. These are gross exports, including re-exports, rather than tea grown in Hong Kong.
- Main suppliers · 2024
- By import value: mainland China US$54.70 million (52.7% of the total), Sri Lanka US$20.06 million and Japan US$7.70 million.
- Export destinations · 2024
- By export value: Macao US$6.36 million (40.2% of the total), Vietnam US$2.28 million and mainland China US$1.54 million.
- Reading the trade figures
- The figures cover all tea in HS 0902, not just pu’er. They measure merchandise trade, not retail sales or local production. Re-exports are not isolated in this dataset. Imports minus exports should not be read as tea consumption: stocks and the different valuation bases also matter.
- Output
- Small-scale cultivation and restoration harvests are documented; no verified territory-wide annual production figure is available here.
Misnaming to watch for: '88 Qingbing' is a trader's name for a span of Menghai 7542 production; 陳國義's own definition moved from 'late-1980s 7542' to '1988–1992 Menghai 7542', and the market adds dry storage and thick paper as conditions.
History#
- 1846Flagstaff House built (now the Museum of Tea Ware).
- 1881Ying Kee Tea House (英記茶莊) founded in Guangzhou by 陳朝英.
- 1948Brook Bernacchi (貝納祺) settles on Lantau; he later starts the Ngong Ping tea plantation.
- 1950Ying Kee moves its business from Guangzhou to Central, Hong Kong.
- 1984Flagstaff House converted into the Museum of Tea Ware.
- 1988Start of the span (1988–1992) of Menghai 7542 later marketed in Hong Kong as '88 Qingbing'.
- 1989-09-14Flagstaff House declared a monument.
- 1995K. S. Lo Gallery wing of the tea-ware museum opens.
- 2013An earlier secondary account dates the former garden operation’s closure to 2013; this is separate from the later restoration harvests.
- 2025Kadoorie Farm reports renewed Ngong Ping harvests in autumn 2024 and spring 2025 after rejuvenation of about 100 old tea bushes.
Other names and written forms 4#
Chinese variants
- 香港特別行政區Hong Kong Special Administrative RegionThe formal Traditional Chinese name; written 香港特别行政区 in Simplified Chinese.
Translations and trade names
- Hong Kong, ChinaThe name used in external trade relations and in the trade statistics cited on this page.
Abbreviations
- HKSARAbbreviation of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; also written Hong Kong SAR.
Russian
- СянганPalladius transcription of the Mandarin reading; Russian normally uses Гонконг.
Names and ambiguities#
Who named the 88 Qingbing and what it covers
The usual story credits 陳國義 with naming it after his shop's 1988 opening; he later said the '8' was chosen because it sounds like 'prosper' in Cantonese, and that the name was formally given in 1992. Definitions range from late-1980s 7542 to 1988–1992 production.
Notes#
Hong Kong has small-scale tea cultivation as well as a major role in tea trading and storage. Demand for dark tea surged there after the Second World War, possibly because of the influx of refugees from the mainland, and the city's humid climate made it a byword for 'wet' storage, in which pu'er ages fast; Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Yunnan storage give noticeably different results from the same batch. The 1970s ripe (渥堆) process is described as an adaptation of merchants' wet-storage practice.
In Cantonese restaurants pu'er (普洱, read pou2/bou2 lei2 or nei2, hence the English 'Bo-lei' / 'Po lei') is one of the commonest teas, served by the pot; 'yum cha' (飲茶 jam2 caa4) means both drinking tea and a dim-sum meal at a teahouse (茶樓). Hong Kong traders also named famous factory lots: the '88 Qingbing' (88青餅) is usually credited to 陳國義 (Chen Guoyi), owner of the Hong Kong tea house 香港茶藝樂園, who later defined it as dry-stored 1988–1992 Menghai 7542; the definition is disputed. Old tea houses include Ying Kee (英記茶莊), founded in Guangzhou in 1881 and moved to Central in 1950.
The Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware (茶具文物館), in Flagstaff House (built 1846), opened in 1984 on Dr K. S. Lo's donated collection. Local tea growing also continues at Kadoorie Farm. Ngong Ping restoration harvests are documented for autumn 2024 and spring 2025; this does not establish that the former commercial estate has reopened.
Places within#
昂坪茶园
Ngong Ping Tea Garden Ángpíng Cháyuán
Historic tea garden on Lantau, now including restoration of surviving bushes and renewed small-scale harvesting. This is distinct from reopening the former commercial plantation.
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嘉道理农场茶园
Kadoorie Farm tea gardens Jiādàolǐ Nóngchǎng Cháyuán
Active tea gardens at Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden in Tai Po, Hong Kong, used for local harvesting, tea processing and education.
sourced
茂草岩
Mau Tso Ngam Màocǎoyán
Hakka village in Sha Tin with small hillside tea plots and household tea-making documented in reporting published in 2026.
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