Xiangxi Huangjin Tea's high amino acid content is standard-documented; its name possibly coming from a golden liquor color is not — the source material raises that explanation without confirming it.
Xiangxi Huangjin Tea (湘西黄金茶, “Xiangxi Golden Tea”) is a strip-shaped pan-fired green tea from the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hunan, protected under a group standard, T/HNTI 018-2020.
Its standout documented feature is amino acid content: the standard requires a free amino acid minimum of 4.0-4.5%, well above typical green tea minimums. Amino acids are associated with the savory, umami-leaning sweetness in tea (not the same as sugar-driven sweetness), so this is a real, standard-backed distinguishing trait, not marketing language.
The tea’s name is a different matter. One plausible explanation would be that “Golden Tea” refers to a golden, bright liquor color — but the source material raises this only as a possible origin, explicitly without confirming it. This page keeps that distinction precise: the amino acid content is documented fact; the reason for the name is not.
Top grade (特级) is described as tight, fine, uniform strips, kingfisher-green with visible down, giving a rich, lasting tender aroma and a clean, fresh, sweet, brisk taste — descriptors that step down at lower grades to a chestnut-leaning aroma and a fuller, less delicate taste by 二级.
Worth being precise about the standard itself: T/HNTI 018-2020 is a group/association standard (the “T/” prefix) — a real, dedicated standard, but the lowest of the three tiers this site documents (national GB/T, provincial DB, group/association T/).
See the Green Tea guide for where Xiangxi Huangjin Tea sits among China’s other green teas.
Look · Dry leaf
Top grade (特级) is described in the standard as tight, fine, uniform strips, kingfisher-green with visible down.
Smell & taste
Typical aroma: tender, rich, lasting. Flavor tendencies: clean, fresh, sweet, brisk. Body: light-medium. These vary by batch, storage and brewing.
Brew · A starting point
Try 3 g in 150 ml water at 80–85°C for 60–90 seconds. Fully decant before tasting.
Read the wet leaves
Not documented specifically for this tea in the source material reviewed.
Sources & review status
- 中国绿茶标准研究资料库_ChinaTea101_Research_Master_File.md — Section 6.8 (湘西黄金茶/Xiangxi Huangjin Tea material card, citing T/HNTI 018-2020) — ChinaTea101 owner-supplied Source Library. Source-to-Site Expansion Mode, Batch VI. Used for the group-standard profile, grade-by-grade sensory descriptors, and the unusually high amino acid minimum. The source card itself poses the name-origin claim as a question ("'黄金茶'得名于金黄透亮的茶汤？") rather than a stated fact — this page preserves that uncertainty explicitly rather than resolving it into a confident claim.
- SCNet (DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-Event) extraction pass over the same material card, used to draft initial English prose from the raw standard citations — SCNet API (DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-Event). SCNet's draft correctly identified and preserved the source card's own uncertainty marker on the name-origin claim without being explicitly asked to flag it as unconfirmed beyond the prompt noting the question mark. Claude verified the draft against the source card directly before writing this file.
Imported from 中国绿茶标准研究资料库_ChinaTea101_Research_Master_File.md. Updated 2026-09-25. Last reviewed 2026-09-25
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