Classification and Origin
Category: míngyōu — "premium quality"; by market positioning 口粮–中, tea of the "everyday-mid" category — a solid local product, not a premium export brand.
the extreme western edge of the Jiāngběi zone (江北, Jiāngběi) — the westernmost point of the large tea belt north of the Yangtze, beyond which tea no longer ripens.
Bìkǒu Lóngjǐng (碧口龙井) — flat, "Lóngjǐng-style" processing; Lóngshén chá (龙神茶) — twisted, strip-style processing.
Origin: Lǒngnán (陇南, Lǒngnán) mountainous prefecture in the south of Gansu Province, on the very border with Sichuan and Shaanxi. Tea gardens are concentrated around the town of Bìkǒu (碧口, Bìkǒu) and in valleys carved by the White Dragon River (白龙江, Báilóngjiāng).
Type: green tea (绿茶, lǜchá).
Terroir
in source classification, Lóngshén / Bìkǒu Lóngjǐng belongs to the 引种 (yǐnzhǒng) category — "introduced", meaning grown from imported cultivars, not from an ancient local population. This makes Gansu tea akin to most northern "new" tea regions — Shandong, the northern counties of Shaanxi — where industrial tea growing was established in the 20th century by transferring cultivars from the south.
