Camellia sinensis var. sinensis ★★★☆☆

Si Ji Chun

Also known as: Four Seasons Spring · Four Seasons Oolong · Sijichun

Intense gardenia-lilac florals at an everyday price. Famous for cropping in all four seasons.

Species

var. sinensis

Lineage

Modern selection

Country

Taiwan

Year

—

Leaf size

Medium

Cup quality

3/5

Si Ji Chun (四季春, "Four Seasons Spring") is a Taiwanese oolong cultivar that began as a chance seedling discovered by a farmer in the Muzha district of Taipei and was propagated for its remarkable vigour. Its name comes from its defining trait: it flushes almost year-round, giving growers far more harvests than the premium high-mountain cultivars.

Because it is productive and lowland-friendly, Si Ji Chun is inexpensive — yet it punches well above its price on aroma, with a loud gardenia-and-lilac floral character. It is the workhorse behind much affordable Taiwanese oolong and a great deal of the Si Ji Chun grown in Vietnam for export. Connoisseurs treat it as an everyday floral oolong rather than a collectible, but its aromatic punch makes it a frequent gateway tea.

Modern selection

Selected from heirloom material in the 20th century.

Lineage data & sources

Clonal / landrace selection — selected from its regional population, so a specific mother and father plant are not individually documented.

Sources: teadb.org