Taiwanese Bi Luo Chun Green Tea

Sanxia Biluochun is a Taiwanese green tea from the hills of New Taipei City, made from small, downy leaves curled in the manner of the Chinese Biluochun. The cup is sweet and rounded, with green bean and chestnut notes, flowers and a citrus finish. Brewed at 80°C in a glass teapot.

Origin & Story

A Taiwanese tea with a Chinese name

Sanxia, written San Xia or Sanshia on some labels, is a district of New Taipei City in the hills southwest of Taipei. The name means three gorges, for the three rivers that meet there, and about 90 percent of the district is hilly. Taiwan's tea of the nineteenth century was mostly oolong and black tea. Sanxia's makers turned to green tea later, in the style of the Chinese Biluochun from Dongting, which we describe on our page for the Jiangsu original. This page is about what is different in Taiwan.

How the style arrived is told in more than one way, and every account comes from a tea seller. Most say it took off after the war, when people from mainland China who had settled in Taiwan asked local makers for green tea like the teas of their home regions; the first name was Hai Shan green tea, and locals later called it Biluochun. One seller dates the demand to the 1950s, another says green tea was made in Taiwan much earlier and grew when officials who had moved to the island encouraged producers to copy famous mainland teas. Read the dates as shared tradition, not record.

Which bush, and why it matters

Sanxia Biluochun is usually made from Qingxin Ganzai, also written Qing Xin Gan Zi or Green Heart Mandarin, an offshoot of Qingxin, the most widely planted cultivar in Taiwan and better known for oolong. A seller describes the Ganzai as having a gentle mandarin citrus fragrance and a sweet, nutty mung bean aroma. That is the main reason this tea tastes different from the Chinese one: it is a different plant. Competition rules no longer insist on a single cultivar, so ask the seller what is in the bag.

How it differs from the Chinese original

The leaf is the first difference. Sanxia leaf is shaped on the machines Taiwanese makers use for baozhong oolong, so it is curled and downy rather than rolled into the tight spiral of Dongting tea. It is also one of the few Taiwanese green teas made the Chinese way, pan-fired, rolled and dried, and Sanxia leaves are withered indoors for a few hours before firing.

The place is different too. Sanxia sits at a relatively low elevation, with lots sold at roughly 300 to 400 meters, and the tea has a solid, satisfying texture rather than the airy lift of high-mountain oolong. Dongting is a lakeside mountain of orchards with fruit trees among the tea. Sanxia is a hill district where a higher share of farms than usual are low-intervention or organic.

Sellers disagree on how related the two teas are. One says the Taiwanese tea has developed through local cultivation and now has little to do with the authentic Dongting Biluochun; another says it is not a mere copycat. The fair summary is that Sanxia Biluochun is a related style made from its own bush in its own hills, so it is worth tasting beside the Chinese tea rather than instead of it.

In the cup

Descriptions agree on sweetness and beans. Expect a fresh, sweet cup with green bean and chestnut notes, some flowers and a citrus-like aftertaste, a smooth and slightly buttery texture, and a pale liquor from green-yellow to eggshell yellow. It is relatively bold for a green tea. Next to the Chinese tea, think a bean note and less orchard fruit. A cup that is sweet, smooth and a little nutty, not grassy and sharp, is what you are looking for.

Picking and buying

Prized spring lots are picked as one bud and one or two young leaves, and the best come before Qingming, around 5 April. Climate change is moving harvests earlier, so early lots are easier to find; one lot sold in the UK in 2025 was picked on 8 March. When you buy, look for Sanxia (or San Xia) and the word Taiwan on the pack, since the name Biluochun alone does not tell you whether the tea is from Taiwan or China. Ask for the cultivar and the harvest date.

Brewing it

Advice on temperature is all over the place: about 70°C from one seller, 80°C from another, 88°C for spring tea from a third, and up to 95 or 98°C with very short steeps from two more. This page uses 80°C, 3 g in 240 ml and a steep of one and a half to two and a half minutes, in the middle of that range. If the cup tastes bitter, cool the water or shorten the steep; if it tastes thin, keep the temperature and steep a little longer. Hotter water pulls more caffeine and more astringency from the young buds. A glass teapot lets you watch the leaves open, and the leaf can be re-steeped two or three times, so keep it and pour again.

Reading the Flavor Profile

These values are comparative editorial positions within our own catalog, calibrated so entries can be ranked against each other. They are not laboratory measurements.