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What is Chinese tea?
Chinese tea is any tea made from the Camellia sinensis plant in China — the country where tea culture began. Chinese tea science sorts thousands of local teas into six categories, defined not by the plant but by how the leaf is treated after picking: green, white, yellow, oolong, red and dark tea.
What are the six categories of Chinese tea?
Green tea (lu cha)
Unoxidized: the fresh leaf is fixed with heat to keep its spring character. A single 500 g batch of Xihu Longjing takes about 26,000 hand-picked young buds.
White tea (bai cha)
Probably the oldest processing, and the gentlest: just three steps — picking, withering and drying. Browse our white teas from Fuding and Zhenghe.
Yellow tea (huang cha)
The rarest family: green-tea processing plus a slow "sealed yellowing" step that mellows the leaf. Authentic Junshan Yinzhen is made on a tiny island by a factory of just twenty people.
Oolong (qing cha)
Partially oxidized teas from Anxi, Wuyishan, Chaozhou and Taiwan — from floral Tie Guan Yin to roasted rock teas. The original Da Hong Pao mother bushes still grow in Wuyishan, but picking them has been forbidden since 2006. Explore our oolong collection.
Red tea (hong cha)
Fully oxidized — what the West calls "black tea". It was born in Tongmuguan, a mountain outpost in the Wuyi range where red tea has been made since the 16th–17th centuries. See our red teas — smoky Lapsang Souchong, honeyed Dian Hong.
Dark tea (hei cha)
Post-fermented tea, ripened by friendly microflora into deep, earthy, sweet brews. Anhua dark tea from Hunan appears in Ming-dynasty economic records as early as 1585. Start with our hei cha collection.
Pu-erh
Yunnan's own pride, made from large-leaf trees — the oldest, the 3,200-year-old "Tea King" of Jinxiu, holds a Guinness record. Raw sheng ages naturally for decades, while ripe shu pu-erh uses a wet-piling method invented in 1973.
The six categories at a glance
| Category | Oxidation | Classic region | Signature taste | Try first |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green | None | Zhejiang, Anhui, Sichuan | Fresh greens, nuts, spring flowers | Longjing |
| White | Slight, natural | Fuding, Zhenghe (Fujian) | Meadow honey, hay, melon | Bai Mu Dan |
| Yellow | Slight, via yellowing | Hunan, Sichuan, Anhui | Soft, round, gentle sweetness | Junshan Yinzhen |
| Oolong | Partial | Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan | Lilac and cream to minerals and roast | Tie Guan Yin |
| Red | Full | Fujian, Yunnan, Anhui | Honey, dried fruit, cocoa | Dian Hong |
| Dark & pu-erh | Post-fermented | Yunnan, Hunan, Guangxi | Earth, wood, aged sweetness | Shu pu-erh |
How do you brew Chinese tea?
The simplest tool is a gaiwan — a lidded bowl from a classic Chinese tea set. Use plenty of leaf, short steepings, and adjust the water: around 80°C for green, white and yellow teas, 95–100°C for oolong, red and dark teas. Good leaves give five to ten infusions.
We buy our teas directly from farmers across China's tea provinces. Orders ship quickly from our Amsterdam warehouse to the Netherlands and all of Europe — and you can always taste before you buy at the Moychay tea club — Rozengracht 92H, Amsterdam.
Facts and figures in this guide are based on “Geography of Chinese Tea” by Sergey Shevelev, founder of Moychay — written after visiting every tea-producing province of China.
