The name of a tea almost always tells you where it is from. Bi Luo Chun means specific hills above Lake Tai, Liu Bao is one small town in Guangxi. Once you know the map, the catalogue stops being a list of strange words.
Yunnan
The south-west, bordering Burma and Laos. This is where pu-erh comes from, and where the oldest tea trees grow, some counted in centuries. Altitude, mist and a wide gap between day and night temperatures give a thick, powerful leaf.
Yunnan red teas, known as Dian Hong, carry the sweetness of cocoa and dried dates. Pu-erh from the same region can be entirely different depending on whether it is raw or ripened in controlled humidity.
Fujian
The south-eastern coast, and probably the most versatile region in China. White teas come from here: Silver Needle from buds alone, White Peony from a bud and two leaves, Shou Mei from older leaf — cheaper, but not worse.
Jasmine teas are made in Fujian too. The leaf is layered with fresh flowers for several nights in a row, the flowers replaced each time. The more repetitions, the deeper the fragrance — which is why jasmine teas can differ so much in price.
From the Wuyi mountains in the north of the region come rock oolongs with a distinctly mineral taste, and Golden Monkey is the local red tea with golden buds in the dry leaf.
Anhui
Eastern China, the Huangshan mountains. This is home to Mao Feng, a green tea with a narrow, twisted leaf and a clearly floral fragrance. Anhui also gave the world Keemun, a red tea the British loved so much it became the base of many breakfast blends.
Zhejiang and Jiangsu
Two neighbouring provinces on the East China Sea, both known for green teas. From Zhejiang comes Long Jing with its flat pressed leaf and a taste of roasted nuts. From Jiangsu, from the shores of Lake Tai, comes Bi Luo Chun.
Bi Luo Chun has a peculiarity: the bushes grow mixed with fruit trees, apricots and plums, and the leaf takes on part of that fragrance. The name translates roughly as “emerald spring spirals” and describes the shape of the curled leaf.
Guangxi
The south, near the Vietnamese border. This is where Liu Bao comes from, a dark tea of the hei cha family, ripened in baskets. It once travelled by river to the ports and on to workers in Malaysian mines, and it was that long journey through humid climate that shaped its taste: earthy, deep, with a note of damp wood.
Unlike greens, dark teas improve with age. A few years make Liu Bao softer and sweeter than fresh.
Why know any of this
A region is not a guarantee of quality — every one makes both great tea and mediocre tea. But it tells you what to expect: Fujian tends floral and delicate, Yunnan strong and sweet, Guangxi earthy. That is enough to pick something new without landing on a taste you dislike.