"Gunpowder" is a Western market nickname describing the tea's round, rolled granule shape — not a grade, a quality claim, or evidence that a specific historical shaping method was used.
Gunpowder Tea (珠茶, zhūchá) is a Chinese green tea best known in the West by a nickname describing its shape: the finished leaf is rolled into small, round, compact granules that resemble old-fashioned gunpowder pellets — not a reference to flavor, processing method, or quality.
It has its own dedicated section within China’s national green tea standard, GB/T 14456.4-2016 (Part 4 of the national multi-part green tea standard series), produced mainly in Zhejiang Province. The standard describes top grade as round, compact, heavy granules with a frosted or misty surface sheen, grading down through progressively less compact, coarser granules at lower grades. Grading itself runs on an export numbering code system rather than the simple 特级/一级/二级 labels used by many other Chinese green teas: 特级 is coded 3505, with 一级 through 四级 numbered 9372 through 9375.
One detail worth flagging rather than repeating as settled fact: some sources mention that traditional processing occasionally used glutinous rice paste to help shape the granules. The standards material available for this page treats that as a historical or traditional detail, not something confirmed as universal current practice — worth knowing as background, not as a defining feature of the tea today.
The source material used for this page doesn’t document aroma, taste or liquor descriptors by grade the way it does for most other teas on this site — what’s shown here reflects the general character of pan-fired Chinese green tea rather than a Gunpowder-Tea-specific figure from the standard.
See the Green Tea guide for where Gunpowder Tea sits among China’s other green teas, and Green Gem Tea for a Guizhou green tea whose own standard explicitly compares itself to this one.
Look · Dry leaf
Top grade (特级) is described in the standard as round, compact, heavy granules with a frosted or misty surface sheen; lower grades are described as progressively less compact and coarser.
Smell & taste
Typical aroma: grassy. Flavor tendencies: brisk. Body: medium. These vary by batch, storage and brewing.
Brew · A starting point
Try 3 g in 150 ml water at 85–90°C for 60–90 seconds. Fully decant before tasting.
Read the wet leaves
Not documented in the source material reviewed for this page beyond the general pan-fired green tea process it shares with other zhāchá-style teas.
Sources & review
Compiled by ChinaTea101's editors from Chinese national and industry tea standards and reference material, then fact-checked. Last reviewed 2026-09-25. How we check claims
- Standard GB/T 14456.4-2016 绿茶 第4部分：珠茶 (Green tea — Part 4: Gunpowder tea) — National Public Service Platform for Standards Information (SAMR). Current standard; status checked on the national standards platform. View source ↗