What Is Da Hong Pao Today: a Cultivar, a Blend or a Style?
Short answer
Almost all Da Hong Pao sold today is commercial Da Hong Pao, a blend of several Wuyi rock tea cultivars finished to a recognised house style. The six famous mother trees on the Jiulongke cliff have not been picked since 2006. Tea from bushes cloned from those trees exists too, but "Da Hong Pao" on a label usually means the blended Wuyi product defined in China's rock tea standard.
By D² Tea Lab, Burnaby · Updated
Da Hong Pao (大红袍, "Big Red Robe") is the most famous name in Wuyi rock oolong. It's also one of the most confusing, because the same name is used for three different things.
1. The mother trees
On the cliff at Jiulongke (九龙窠), in the Tianxin Rock area of the Wuyi Mountains, grow six tea bushes known as the Da Hong Pao mother trees. Their yield was tiny, under a kilogram a year.
On 13 May 2006, the Wuyishan city government decided to stop picking the six trees and let them rest, citing their longevity and the area's World Heritage protection. People's Daily confirmed in 2024 that they still stand on the cliff, unpicked, so no one is drinking new mother-tree tea. (For the stories around these trees, see Da Hong Pao legends: what's history and what's modern?)
2. Clones of the mother trees
In the early 1980s, Chinese scientists propagated the mother trees from cuttings. A 1995 provincial appraisal found the clones kept the mother trees' traits, and by 2006 Wuyishan had more than 40,000 mu (about 2,700 hectares) of Da Hong Pao gardens, according to Xinhua. Tea from cloned plants was first sold as Da Hong Pao in 1985.
You may see tea sold as "pure" Da Hong Pao (纯种大红袍) or linked to a cultivar called Qidan (奇丹). Chinese trade articles connect Qidan genetically to some of the mother trees, but we haven't been able to verify that from an official source, so treat such claims with care.
3. Commercial Da Hong Pao, the blend
This is what most of us actually drink. China's national standard for Wuyi rock tea (GB/T 18745-2006) divides Wuyi rock tea into five products: Da Hong Pao, famous bushes (名枞), Rougui, Shuixian and Qizhong. In the standard, Da Hong Pao is one of those product categories rather than a single bush.
The standard has just been revised. GB/T 18745-2026, published in March 2026, takes effect on 1 April 2027. According to a tea master quoting the new text, it defines Da Hong Pao as tea made from semi-finished leaf of several clonal Wuyi rock tea cultivars, blended and finished. The revision also:
- renames 名枞 to 名丛 ("famous bushes"),
- requires labels to state the cultivar and the roast level: light, medium or full fire (轻火 / 中火 / 足火),
- defines Wuyi rock tea as produced within the administrative area of Wuyishan City, with the characteristic yan yun "rock bone, floral fragrance" (岩骨花香).
Which cultivars go into the blend is up to the maker. Rougui and Shuixian are commonly mentioned in the trade, but the standard doesn't prescribe a recipe.
So which is it?
| Mother trees | Clonal Da Hong Pao | Commercial Da Hong Pao | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Six bushes on the Jiulongke cliff | Tea from bushes propagated from them | A blend of Wuyi rock tea cultivars |
| Available? | No, not picked since 2006 | Yes, less common | Yes, most Da Hong Pao sold |
| How to recognise | n/a | Sold as a single cultivar | Sold as "Da Hong Pao", often with a roast level |
Is your Da Hong Pao real? If it's Wuyi rock tea sold as Da Hong Pao, it is real commercial Da Hong Pao, which is what the name means in the trade and in the standard. It isn't mother-tree tea, and nothing on the market is.
What it tastes like
Good commercial Da Hong Pao is roasted, so expect toasty, caramel and stone-fruit notes, often with a mineral finish. Blending lets makers balance aroma, body and roast, which is part of why it's so consistent and so popular. (For what roasting does, see What is yan yun? and our note on roasting coffee and oolong.)
Tasting it at D²
Our Roasted Oolong Tea Latte and Roasted Oolong Boba Tea Latte are built on Da Hong Pao. Its roast is the reason it stands up to milk.
Sources
- Xinhua via Sina, Wuyishan stops picking the Da Hong Pao mother trees, 2006-05-14: sina.cn
- People's Daily, on the Jiulongke mother trees and Wuyi rock tea zones, 2024-03-20: people.com.cn
- GB/T 18745 (2006 and 2026 editions), SAMR national standards platform: std.samr.gov.cn; 2006 preview: chinesestandard.net
- Minbei Daily via People's Daily app, on the 2026 standard's definition of Wuyi rock tea, 2026-08-06: peopleapp.com
- Tea master's summary of the GB/T 18745-2026 changes: sohu.com; Tide News on the revision: tidenews.com.cn
- Oxford, "The Modern Invention of Big Red Robe Tea" (2021): ox.ac.uk