🌿 There goes an old folk saying, "Gula Tea existed before Heshan County was established", which fully encapsulates the thousand-year heritage of Gula Tea, a renowned tea from the Lingnan region. This famous tea originating in the hometown of overseas Chinese during the Song Dynasty flourished in the Qing Dynasty, gaining fame at home and abroad for its superb flavor described as "comparable to Wuyi tea yet with a delicate aroma". It once accounted for 80 to 90 percent of Guangdong's tea exports, earning Heshan the reputation of "the top tea-producing county in Guangdong".
🍂 Yet after being impacted by wars, industrial iterations and skill gaps, this renowned tea with a 700-year history once nearly faded into oblivion. From the moment the Hakka ancestors in the Song Dynasty sowed the first tea seed, to the current path of rebirth driven by the integration of culture and tourism and the empowerment of intangible cultural heritage, the story of Gualuo Yinzhen is not only a history of the rise and fall of the overseas Chinese hometown hidden in the aroma of tea, but also a history of inheritance and breakthrough for China's niche traditional famous teas.
📜 A Millennium-Long Origin: Ancient Lingnan Tea Nurtured by the Fertile Land of the Xijiang River
🏡 1. The Hakka ancestors initiated the history of tea cultivation in Heshan
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📖 Historical Records Verification: According to Heshan County Annals, the tea industry in Heshan originated in the Song and Yuan dynasties, boasting a history of over 700 years to date, and the origin of tea cultivation in Heshan can be traced back to Gulao Town.
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🧑🌾 Folk Legend of Origin: A Hakka couple from Fujian in the Song Dynasty migrated to the cave at Shiyantou, Lishui Village, Gulao with tea seeds, and reclaimed wasteland to grow and process green tea. They were the earliest tea-growing ancestors in Heshan. After their passing, the local people venerated them as "Lord Shi and Lady Shi" and honored them as Tea Ancestor of Heshan.
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🌱 Initial form of the tea garden takes shape: Later, villagers in Lishui expanded and built tea gardens based on Kuigen Mountain, and successively established ten villages. As a result, Kuigen Mountain was renamed "Tea Mountain", and the tea aroma of the overseas Chinese hometown by the Xijiang River has since taken root and been passed down.
🏛️ 2. The Legendary Tale of County Establishment
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📅 Background of Administrative Evolution: In the 10th year of the Yongzheng reign of the Qing Dynasty (1732), to standardize regional divisions and stabilize people's livelihood, the imperial court of the Qing Dynasty designated parts of Xinhui and Kaiping to establish Heshan County. Prior to this, Gulao Du, which had been under the jurisdiction of Xinhui, was officially incorporated into the territory of Heshan.
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🚢 Pioneering Industrial Development: By the mid-Ming Dynasty, tea cultivation and processing in Gulao had already taken shape on a considerable scale. Leveraging the transportation advantage of the Xijiang River, Gulao grew into a commercial distribution hub, where the imperial government established a special administrative division called "Gulao Du", and the tea industry became deeply integrated into the local economy and people's livelihood.
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👨💼 Official Boost and Upgrading: Huang Dapeng, the first county magistrate of Heshan, attached great importance to the development of the tea industry, compiled Heshan Tea Mirror, systematically popularized tea planting and tea processing techniques, and attracted Hakka immigrants from Huizhou, Chaozhou and Meizhou to reclaim wasteland and plant tea, further expanding the scale of Heshan's tea industry. As a result, the saying that "Gulao tea existed before the establishment of Heshan County" became widely known.
🌄 3. Terroir Endowment
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⛰️ Topography and Climate: Located between the Dayunwu Mountain and the Gudou Mountain, the Gula Tea Hill stands at an altitude of 200-400 meters, featuring a hilly mountain microclimate. With an annual average temperature of 21.8°C, a long frost-free period throughout the year, and an annual rainfall of about 1800 millimeters, the area enjoys a mild and moist climate ideal for tea plant growth.
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🌊 Endowed with hydrological advantages: The Xijiang River flows directly towards the Shiyan Head of Chashan before turning eastward. A large amount of water vapor evaporates from the river surface all year round, creating a mist-shrouded environment with abundant dew in Chashan, which forms a natural moisture-retaining environment for tea cultivation.
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🌱 Excellent soil conditions: The tea garden features deep, fertile soil rich in organic matter and minerals. Combined with the original ecosystem planting method of shading from Albizia trees among the woods and mulching with grass for tea plot maintenance, it creates the unique quality of Gulao tea characterized by its delicate aroma and sweet aftertaste.
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🌿 Tea Plant Cultivar Differentiation: The native tea plants in this area fall into two categories: the green-bud type (green core) features a delicate, high-pitched aroma and superior quality, serving as the core raw material for Gualuo Silver Needle; the red-bud type (red core) has a mild, understated aroma and is rarely used to produce high-end Silver Needle tea.
🍵The Supreme Tea: The Quality and Craft Core of Guluo Silver Needle
✨ Gulai Silver Needle, also known as Rock Head Tea, is produced at Shiyan Head, Lishui, Gulai Town. It is a renowned specialty green tea of Heshan and a premium variety of Gulai Tea, among which the "Cuiyan Silver Needle" produced in Lishui is quite representative of Gulai Tea.
🏷️ 1. Origin of the Product Name
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👀 Appearance Characteristics: The finished tea features tight, round and straight tea strips that look like needles, covered with silvery-grey hairs. Its shape is as elegant and spread-out as that of Shou Mei tea, hence the name "Silver Needle".
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🫖 Taste of the tea infusion: After brewing, the tea liquor is emerald green and clear, mellow, smooth and well-rounded, with a long-lasting sweet aftertaste, and the infused leaves are tender, fine and evenly shaped.
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🗣️ Public Reputation: It had already gained widespread fame as early as the early Qing Dynasty, and a local folk song "What a wonderful tea to pick, marry into Lishui" was once popular, which fully demonstrates the extremely high status of Guluo Silver Needle among the public.
👃 2. Unique Flavor
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🔥 Exclusive Aroma Profile: Adopting the high-temperature rolling and stir-frying process at over 300°C, the tea naturally carries a rich, mellow high-roast aroma, and is also known as "Spark Aroma Tea", which is the core feature that distinguishes it from other Lingnan green teas. Just as stated in Tongjun Lu: "processed into shreds for tea consumption".
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📜 Highly praised in historical records: In the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, Gazetteer of Heshan County commented that "Gula tea, with a flavor reminiscent of Wuyi tea yet carrying a delicate fragrance, stands unrivaled among all local products across the counties", placing it on par with Wuyi tea, the premium tea of the Qing Dynasty, as a testament to its top-tier quality.
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🎭 Layered Tasting Experience: A classic tasting mantra widely circulated among the public, with flavors unfolding in successive layers: the first infusion showcases a distinct roasted aroma, the second burst forth with sweet sugary notes, the third delivers an uplifting and refreshing sensation on the palate, and even after prolonged steeping, a mellow lingering aftertaste remains.
🛠️ 3. Craftsmanship
Gulai Silver Needle is entirely handmade, with five interlocking processes that rely on no standardized data and are entirely controlled by the tea artisan's years of experience:
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🔄 Step 1 – Spreading for Withering: Spread fresh tea leaves thinly to let excess surface moisture evaporate naturally, stabilize the internal components of the tea, and lay a foundation for subsequent fixation and shaping. It is a critical pre-step that determines the taste of the finished tea product.
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🔥 Step 2 – Fixation: Control the pot temperature at 150-200°C, put in about 700 grams of withered fresh tea leaves, and stir-fry with the tossing stir-frying technique. Remove from the pot and spread to cool when the leaves become soft, lose their luster, and the stems do not break when folded, so as to lock in the tea aroma and nutrients.
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✋ Step 3 – Kneading and Shaping: When the pot temperature drops to around 80°C, gently knead the fresh tea leaves with both hands, gradually increasing the intensity from light to firm, and roll the tea leaves into a tight, straight and round shape to form the "needle-shaped with hairy down" appearance, while evaporating excess moisture.
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☀️ Step 4 – Swaying and Drying for Shape Setting: When the moisture content of the tea leaves drops to 30%-35%, lower the pot temperature to 50-60°C, and carry out low-temperature slow baking to set the shape, so as to fix the tea's form and aroma.
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⚡ Step 5 – High-heat drum roasting (a distinctive process): Place the finished crude tea into a drum with a temperature above 300°C for high-temperature rolling and roasting, which brings out its unique burnt aroma and robust high-fire notes, while enhancing the tea's brew endurance and storage life. This is the core process that defines the flavor of Guluo Silver Needle tea.
🌟 Heyday: The Century-Long Glory of the Guangdong-Leaving Tea Industry
🌾 1. Tea Cultivation Across the Region: 80,000 Mu of Tea Gardens Exude Fragrance Everywhere
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📈 Heyday: From the Qianlong to Daoguang reigns of the Qing Dynasty (1736-1850), this period marked the pinnacle of Gulao tea's development.
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🏘️ Industry Prosperity: According to the 1827 Heshan County Annals, at that time in Heshan "every mountain produced tea, and there were over 60 tea markets", with tea trees stretching endlessly across the areas of Chashan Mountain and Dayan Mountain, and tea pickers coming and going in an endless stream.
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📊 Planting Scale: The tea plantation area across the whole county reaches 5,000 hectares (over 80,000 mu). For both the indigenous people and the Hakka people, the majority of locals take tea planting, tea processing and tea selling as their core livelihood, and the tea industry has become the pillar industry supporting the people's livelihood in Heshan.
🚢 2. Monopolized Exports: Securing the Top Spot in Guangdong's Tea Industry
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📦 Production and Export Data: During the Daoguang Reign, Heshan produced 4,000 tons of raw tea annually, with an annual export volume of nearly 3,000 tons (around 80,000 dan), accounting for 80 to 90 percent of the total tea export volume of Guangdong Province, firmly securing the title of "Top Tea County in Guangdong".
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🌍 Extensive overseas sales scope: Tea was shipped via the Thirteen Hongs of Guangzhou and the ports of Hong Kong and Macau, and sold as far as the South Seas, Europe, America, Oceania and other regions, making it one of the core specialties in Guangdong's foreign trade during the Qing Dynasty.
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🏅 High quality recognition: Heshan tea undergoes stringent foreign trade inspections, and can still maintain stable quality after long-distance ocean transportation, which is on par with the famous Wuyi tea; Gula Silver Needle is even a core benchmark product for export.
📉 From Peak to Decline: The Century-Long Lull of Guluo Silver Needle Tea
⚔️ 1. War and Turmoil: Industries Suffer Devastating Blows
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💥 Impact of Turmoil: During the reigns of the Xianfeng and Tongzhi Emperors of the Qing Dynasty, the Hongbing Uprising and the decade-long ethnic armed conflict between native and Hakka groups broke out in Heshan one after another, causing severe damage to the local people's livelihood and industries in the county.
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🔥 Industry Collapse: A large number of tea plantations were burned down or abandoned, and tea farmers who had grown and processed tea for generations were displaced, either migrating overseas or fleeing their hometowns.
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⚰️ Interruption of Craftsmanship: The inheritance of core tea-making techniques was severed, and by the Guangxu reign of the late Qing Dynasty, Guluo Silver Needle tea was already on the verge of being lost to history.
💸 2. Low Tea Prices Hurt Farmers: Variety Iteration and Industrial Chain Disintegration
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📉 Sluggish economic returns: After the brief recovery of the tea industry in the 20th century, the price of fresh tea leaves continued to decline, and the income from tea planting was meager. As a result, a large number of tea farmers cut down native tea trees and switched to cultivating cash crops such as eucalyptus and fruit trees.
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👋 Severe talent gap: Young laborers have flocked to the Pearl River Delta cities for work, leading to a sharp decline in local talents engaged in tea planting and tea processing, which has completely collapsed the traditional industrial ecosystem.
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🌱 Variety Gradual Replacement: Introduced tea varieties such as Yunnan Large Leaf with high yield and low cost have gradually replaced the native Gula tea trees with extremely low yield, leading to a continuous shrinkage in the planting area of authentic Gula Silver Needle tea.
🔥 Rebirth from the Ashes: New Development of Intangible Cultural Heritage Empowerment and Cultural-Tourism Integration
🌱 1. Industrial Recovery
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🌾 Steady Recovery Phase: Since the 1950s, relying on a stable social environment, the local government has taken the lead in restoring the cultivation and production of Gula tea, and the tea industry has gradually emerged from its slump.
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🏅 Breakthrough in Brand Certification: In 2015, Heshan Black Tea was successfully recognized as a National Geographical Indication Protected Agricultural Product. As the core variety, Gula Tea thus gained official endorsement and new opportunities for development.
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🌳 Large-scale planting implementation: Currently, the core tea planting area of Chashan Village covers 1,100 mu, and the planting area of the Chashan Ecosystem totals 700 mu, which is divided into functional zones including a special planting area for silver needle tea, a tea processing experience area, and a tea expo park.
🏛️ 2. Craftsmanship Protection
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📜 Intangible Cultural Heritage Accreditation Achieved: In 2022, the processing technique of Heshan Black Tea was listed in the Jiangmen Intangible Cultural Heritage List, and the traditional craft of Gulao Silver Needle has received official systematic protection.
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🔍 Current Market Status: Most of the Guluo Silver Needle tea circulating on the market today are imitations produced with introduced tea cultivars, which have a noticeable gap in flavor and aroma compared to the traditional authentic version. Genuine Guluo Silver Needle remains in a state of "museum-level scarce preservation".
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🚀 Development Direction: The local authorities have been continuously exploring a model that integrates traditional craftsmanship with modern standardized production, making every effort to promote the inheritance of the craft, the protection of ancient trees, and the restoration of fine varieties, so as to facilitate the comeback of authentic Guluo Silver Needle tea.
🌟 Epilogue: The Aroma of Tea Through Seven Centuries, Awaiting Revival in a Prosperous Age
🍃 The 700-year history of Gualuo Silver Needle tea is a compelling chronicle of industry evolution, migration, and the cultural legacy of an overseas Chinese hometown. It began with a single tea seed taking root along the Xijiang River in the Song Dynasty, rose to a golden age in the Qing Dynasty with ten thousand mu of tea plantations and exports across the globe, fell into decline and obscurity amid the wars and disruptions of modern times, and now undergoes a rebirth empowered by intangible cultural heritage and integrated cultural tourism. This ancient Lingnan tea has born witness to the vicissitudes of the overseas Chinese hometown. Today, Gualuo Silver Needle is emerging from the mist of the deep mountains, poised for a new bloom amid the tides of a new era.
🔮 Preview for Next Episode
📖 From Xiuning Songluo, a renowned roasted green tea from Huizhou, to Gulao Silver Needle, a 700-year-old tea from Lingnan, we have successively uncovered legendary teas long sealed away by history. In the next episode, we will travel to Yunnan to seek out Wukezhuang, a tribute tea originating from the ancient Nanzhao Kingdom, and savor the thousand-year memories of the Tea Horse Road and the vicissitudes of historical turning points it embodies. Stay tuned! 🌿
📚 References
[1] Gazetteer of Heshan County, 6th year of the Daoguang Reign of the Qing Dynasty edition, 1827
[2] Guluo Tea. Baidu Lingo
[3] Jiangmen Knowledge Bureau: Guluo Tea Existed Before the Establishment of Heshan County. Sohu, 2024
[4] Have You Tried Guluo Tea, the Time-Honored Specialty of Heshan? Sina View, 2020
[5] Famous Tea of the Greater Bay Area: Guluo Silver Needle. The GBA Times, 2021
[6] Xiaofeng Observation: Analysis of the Tea Industry in Heshan City, Guangdong Province, 2025. Nong Xiaofeng, 2026
[7] Jiangmen Heshan: Three Prongs Advanced in Gulao Town to Facilitate a Beautiful Transformation of a Model Town's Development. Sina Finance, 2025
[8] Heshan Builds a Tea Industry Development Pattern of "One Region, One Specialty, and All-Area Coordination". Official Website of Heshan Municipal People's Government, 2026
[9] Heshan Black Tea Culture Season | Four Major Tea Regions Develop Continuously, and the 700-Year-Old Tea Aroma of Heshan Never Fades. The Paper, 2026
[10] A Tea Trade Street Hides the Achievements and Reputation of Heshan Black Tea. Sohu, 2026
[11] Memories of Gulao: Gulao Tea, a Specialty of Guangdong. People's Government of Gulao Town, Heshan City, Jiangmen, 2025
[12] Heshan Boasts Fine Tea, a Land Nurtured by Grace and Spirit: Ode to Heshan Black Tea Recounts the Glorious Tea History of the Ancient City. Southern Metropolis Daily, 2025
[13] Jiangmen's Fine Teas Go Beyond Heshan's Gulao Silver Needle. Sohu.com, 2022
[14] Jiangmen Heshan: Spring Tea Aroma Draws Study Tour Visitors. Yangcheng Evening News/Sohu, 2023
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