Xiaojinggu: Tea from Jinggu Town

Xiaojinggu is the tea-trade name for today’s Jinggu Town, in northern Jinggu County, Pu’er City. It is not one mountain or a current administrative unit. The county seat is at Weiyuan, which is one reason the similar names can confuse buyers.

Get the village name

Jinggu Town has five separate administrative villages beginning with “Wen”: Wenxing 文杏, Wendong 文东, Wenlian 文联, Wenzhao 文召 and Wenshan 文山. They are not aliases for the same tea area.

Wenshan Village contains Kuzhushan and Ma’jiu village groups in recent local reporting. Kuzhushan is the best-documented raw-Pu’er name in this guide. Wenshan Ding is a narrower commercial tea-area name whose full boundary remains unclear.

Older accounts sometimes put Kuzhushan under Wendong; more recent local reporting places it under Wenshan. “Yingpan” is another unresolved label. Old Yingpan is a village group under Yunpan, but that does not establish that every commercial Yingpanshan tea comes from there.

Taste

Several Kuzhushan examples have firm early bitterness, floral or grassy aroma, salivation and a sweet return. Others are gentler. Farmer Leaf’s 2022 Wenshan Ding description emphasises juicy texture, low astringency and almost no bitterness.

These product-specific accounts show variation within the town. They do not support one guaranteed Xiaojinggu flavour. Compare named lots and keep brewing consistent, especially when judging bitterness.

Gardens and plant material

Local reporting describes older Kuzhushan gardens as well as modern projects, including Zijuan planting and intercropping around Ma’jiu. Farmer Leaf documents vine-style branch management in particular gardens. None of those details describes every tea sold as Xiaojinggu.

A county-wide cultivar or climate description also cannot establish the plant material or conditions in one garden. Tree age needs evidence beyond an old-looking trunk.

Buying Xiaojinggu tea

Ask whether the label means the whole town, Wenshan Village, Kuzhushan, Wenshan Ding or a blend. Then ask for the garden or household, season and batch.

Older labels may say Jinggu Township 景谷乡 rather than Jinggu Town 景谷镇: the township became a town in 2013 without a change of territory at that point. Neither version identifies the garden. The useful provenance continues beyond the town name.

Sources and limits

This guide synthesizes 31 logged sources accessed 18 July 2026. Strongest sources include current administrative and land records, provincial certification lists, government agricultural reporting, a national Pu’er standard record and peer-reviewed tea research. Commercial and community tasting pages are used only for product-specific sensory patterns and market language.

Selected sources:

• Jinggu local government report on the change from Jinggu Township to Jinggu Town
• Yunnan Department of Natural Resources records for Jinggu Town villages
• Yunnan.cn reporting on Wenshan Village and Kuzhushan
• People’s Daily Yunnan reporting on Ma’jiu and Jinggu Town’s tea economy
• Jinggu local reporting on Ma’jiu’s Zijuan and intercropping projects
• Yunnan Market Regulation’s June 2024 organic-certificate list
• Yunnan Department of Agriculture on the Yangta origin of Jinggu Dabaicha
• National standards record for GB/T 22111, geographical-indication Pu’er tea
• Pu’er magazine history of Hengfengyuan
• Farmer Leaf’s product-specific 2022 Wenshan Ding account and customer notes
• Public tastings of Yunnan Sourcing’s 2015 Kuzhushan raw
• Yunnan Agricultural University study comparing Jinggu and Fuding white teas

Important unresolved points are recorded in the companion dossier: the full natural-village/garden register; the identity of Yingpanshan versus Old Yingpan; conflicting older placement of Kuzhushan under Wendong versus current Wenshan reporting; exact commercial extent; plot-level elevation and soil; tree ages; historical primary records; and controlled tasting. The current map has no defensible detail geometry or scale, and no licensed photographic package has been assembled. Keep these gaps in mind when using the more specific claims in the guide.