In the organic tea garden of Yinggeling in Shuiman Town, Wuzhishan City, the high mountains are shrouded in mist and clouds. On the mountain slopes, rows of tea bushes stretch out in every direction, and a deep breath brings in the fragrance of rainforest leaves mixed with water vapor.

Among the neat rows of short, well-pruned tea bushes, several grow unusually tall and lush, seemingly not regularly pruned or harvested. “These are wild ancient tea trees, around 120 years old. We rarely pick their leaves; when they flower and bear fruit, we leave the fruits to cultivate new plants,” says Zhou Yujing, head of Hainan Yinggeling Jinghong Tea Co., Ltd.

A large-leaf tea tree growing in Hainan Yinggeling Jinghong Tea Garden in Shuiman Town, Wuzhishan City. Photo by Li Tianping / Hainan Daily

Deep in the rainforests of Wuzhishan, Guo Xia, director of the Wuzhishan Branch of the Hainan Academy of Forestry Sciences, is searching for wild tea trees with her team. “We have surveyed over 3,600 wild large-leaf tea trees in Wuzhishan, including more than 200 ancient trees over 100 years old. However, this is just a preliminary finding—there should be many more wild tea trees in the deep forests of Wuzhishan, and we will continue our search.”

Recently, the large-leaf tea growing in tropical rainforests has been confirmed as a new species of camellia. In recent years, central counties and cities such as Baisha and Wuzhishan have conducted surveys on wild tea resources, mapped the distribution of wild tea trees, collected and preserved tea germplasm resources, and carried out identification, evaluation, innovation, and application work to promote the development of the Hainan tea industry from the perspective of optimizing varieties.

The ancient large-leaf tea of the rainforest is rejuvenating.

The large leaves of the Hainan large-leaf tea tree. Photo by Li Tianping / Hainan Daily

Tea Veins of the Li Ethnic Group Stretch Far and Wide

The central mountainous area of Hainan Island is the core region of the tropical rainforest and also an area rich in biodiversity. The vast tropical rainforest harbors countless treasures, one of which is the wild ancient tea tree.

In the belt at an altitude of about 600 to 700 meters in the Yinggeling and Bawangling areas of the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, where the typical tropical climate meets the cool and humid zone, nearly 150,000 wild large-leaf tea trees have grown. Among them are ancient tea trees 7 to 10 meters tall with a trunk circumference that can be fully embraced by a person, measuring more than 40 centimeters in diameter.

These wild ancient tea trees, like the cycads and tree ferns of the rainforest, have grown for hundreds or even thousands of years. No one knows exactly how many wild ancient tea trees there are in the rainforest or which is the largest and oldest one.

Fruits of the Hainan large-leaf tea tree. Photo by Li Tianping / Hainan Daily

According to historical records, from 1959 to 2025, scientific researchers conducted four systematic investigations into wild tea in Hainan. The research results of Professor Yang Xiaobo's team at Hainan University show that wild tea trees in Hainan Island are widely distributed across the three major mountain ranges of Wuzhishan, Limushan, and Yajia Dalingshan, mainly in 11 central and western counties and cities such as Wuzhishan, Baisha, Qiongzhong, and Ledong, while wild tea trees are hard to find in parts of northern, eastern, and southern Hainan.

In terms of vertical distribution, wild tea trees in Hainan are mainly found in areas ranging from 200 to 1,400 meters above sea level. The Tropical Forestry Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Forestry once conducted a survey of tea resources in 164 grid plots in Jianfengling and recorded up to 86 wild tea trees. The number of wild tea trees accounted for 0.13% of the total number of trees in the plots, reflecting the richness of wild tea resources in central and western Hainan.

The Fragrant Tea Scent Spreads Overseas

During holidays and weekends, the number of tourists visiting the handmade tea shops in Shuiman New Village, Wuzhishan City, increases. Tourists follow the tea farmers up the mountain steps to pick tea leaves in the tea gardens, make tea by hand in the tea shops, and gather around stoves to Brew tea.

The large-leaf tea growing in the rainforest, also known as “Li tea,” is related to the Li ethnic group's long history of tea picking and processing. In the era before the large-scale cultivation of tea trees, some of the tea produced on Hainan Island came from wild tea trees in Li villages, picked by the hands of the Li people, though the processing methods were relatively crude. The Li people may have picked and consumed tea due to medicinal needs.

Local villagers of the Li ethnic group in Shuiman Town, Wuzhishan City, handcraft large-leaf tea. Photo by Li Tianping / Hainan Daily

In the late Qing dynasty, American missionary and botanist Charles Daniel Tenney visited the areas inhabited by the Li ethnic group on Hainan Island and discovered many clusters of wild tea trees. The Li people dried and sold the leaves, calling it “Li tea.” During the Republic of China period, scholars pointed out that Hainan's climate was suitable for tea tree growth, and as tea had high economic value, artificial cultivation of tea trees should be promoted to achieve better benefits.

In the late 1950s, Hainan established tea plantations in Baisha, Tongshi, and Baiyaling and began large-scale tea cultivation. Many local Li people became workers on these tea plantations. Since then, the tea industry in Hainan continued to develop, with tea purchased and sold overseas by the state, becoming the second most important commodity after rubber for a time. However, in the 1990s, the opening up of the tea market led to a decline in tea profits, dampening the enthusiasm of Hainan's tea farmers and causing a decrease in tea production and a contraction in planting area.

In the past two decades, the tea industry in Hainan has rapidly recovered and developed, gradually forming three major tea-producing areas in Wuzhishan, Baisha, and Qiongzhong. These areas have formulated group standards, promoted the construction of organic tea gardens and organic certification, and accelerated the application of standardized mechanical Tea processing equipment… a series of measures to improve the quality of tea production have been implemented. The brands of Wuzhishan large-leaf tea, Wuzhishan Black Tea, Baisha green tea, and Qiongzhong Baima Junhong have become well-known.

This April, Wuzhishan large-leaf tea was inspected and quarantined by Sanya Customs and shipped to the UK for sale. Compared to the exports in the 1990s, today's Hainan tea has its own independent brand and packaging and can confidently tell its brand story in both domestic and overseas markets.

Red tea from the Yinggeling tea garden in Shuiman Town, Wuzhishan City. Photo by Li Tianping / Hainan Daily

A Single Leaf Enriches the Countryside