Tagged: geographical indication
Zhengyan is a mapped 70-square-kilometer zone the law does not protect
Zhengyan is a mapped 70-square-kilometer zone inside the Wuyi Mountain reserve, not a marketing word, but China's national standard for Wuyi rock tea protects the whole administrative city instead, leaving the boundary that commands the real price premium enforced by nothing but reputation.
Oolong and Geographical Indication
A protected name is not a quality grade. What geographical-indication protection actually certifies for Wuyi yancha, Anxi Tieguanyin, and Phoenix Dancong.
The History of Oolong
Oolong has no single founding moment. Two Fujian counties still dispute its invention, Guangdong's Phoenix mountains claim a separate founding legend, Taiwan received the method by migration, and the word "oolong" reached English print in 1844. The documented record, region by region.
Oolong and the National Standard
A bag of oolong answers to a real government document before it answers to a taster, and the document is not one standard but a system: a mandatory floor, a recommended ceiling, and a technical committee of tea professionals who write both. Here is how China's standard system actually works, and where oolong sits inside it.
Yancha, Wuyi Rock Tea
Yancha is the oxidized, charcoal-fired oolong of the Wuyi cliffs, sorted by the state into five official categories.