Eastern and Western Mengku: A Tea Comparison

Mengku East and West describe opposite sides of the Nanmeng River in Shuangjiang County, Lincang. Ma’an Mountain is to the east, Bangma Mountain to the west, with Mengku Town in the basin.

Sellers use East Half-Mountain (东半山) and West Half-Mountain (西半山) as broad tea groupings. They are useful for orientation, but don’t identify a garden or guarantee a flavour.

Names to place on each side

East	West
Banuo, Najiao and Nasai	Xiaohusai, Dongguo, Dahu Sai, Baka and Bingshan
Zhengqitang is a smaller locality under Nasai	Xiaohusai sits under Gongnong; Molie is a narrower Dongguo claim
Bawai and Nuowu are east-bank Bingdao localities	Bingdao Laozhai, Dijie and Nanpo are usually placed west

Banuo’s vine-pruned, or tengtiao, gardens give it a more specific identity than simply “east.” On the west side, Daxueshan is a mountain and protected wild-tea landscape, so it shouldn’t be counted as another administrative village. Commercial lists of “eighteen Mengku villages” often mix these different scales.

The Mengku East and Mengku West guides explain the localities in more detail.

Bingdao crosses the split

Bingdao’s five familiar localities share an administrative parent while sitting on both sides of the river. A “West Mengku Bingdao” label still needs clarification: does it mean Laozhai, another locality or a blend? The Bingdao guide unpacks those names.

Comparing the tea

Trade descriptions often call eastern tea firmer or thicker and western tea sweeter or more fragrant. Treat that as something to test. Research on four Shuangjiang origins found differences by season as well as origin, and processing and storage add more variation.

Try a sourced Banuo or Nasai-area sample beside Xiaohusai or Dongguo, matched for year and season. Use 7 g per 100 ml in porcelain, near-boiling water and short early steeps. Keep the water and timing the same.

Note aroma, bitterness, drying sensation and texture separately. Wait after each sip for sweetness or salivation. Repeat the comparison another day, preferably without the labels in view.

Before buying, ask for the village, harvest and maker, and whether the tea is one household’s lot or a broader blend. A broad blend can be enjoyable; the trouble is paying for an exact garden when the seller only knows the side of Mengku.

Sources and further reading

• Yunnan administrative-village standard DB53/T 1176.9-2023, for the current Mengku village list.
• People’s Daily Overseas Edition, “Two Mountains, One River, One Basin” (2016), for the physical east-west orientation.
• Wang Xinyu et al., Shuangjiang sun-dried tea comparison (2023), for origin and seasonal effects in sampled teas.
• CNIPA announcement no. 616 (2025), for the narrower production-area language around Bingdao Laozhai/Bingdao Zhengshan.