China’s tea-growing zones are shifting in a warmer world
10-11-2025

China’s tea-growing zones are shifting in a warmer world

China produces more tea than any other country, accounting for nearly half of the world’s total output. That sheer scale means any shift in where tea can grow sends ripples through farms, forests, and global markets.

A new mapping effort uses artificial intelligence to project how the tea-growing range in China could change with warming.

The core message is simple, suitability expands and moves north, while some southern strongholds hold steady.

How AI mapped China tea

Wenqi Zhang from the College of Soil and Water Conservation at Southwest Forestry University (SFU) is the lead author of the study.

“Under the background of ongoing global climate warming, clarifying the spatiotemporal dynamics of suitable habitats for tea plants and their potential impact on forest ecosystems is essential for promoting sustainable tea industry development and ecological conservation,” wrote Zhang.

The researchers tested five algorithms and selected Random Forest, a model that builds many decision trees and averages their results to improve accuracy, as the top performer.

The team combined 14 variables across climate, terrain, and soils to map suitability in four major tea regions. They report high and moderate suitability totaling about 3.4401 million square kilometers, roughly 1.33 million square miles, today.

Future projections use Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), climate scenarios that describe different greenhouse gas and development futures.

Under these scenarios, suitability strengthens in the Jiangnan and Jiangbei regions, edges expand in the southwest, and the far south stays largely stable.

China tea moves North

The most widely used plant for tea is Camellia sinensis, the evergreen shrub that produces all tea types from green to black. This plant favors warm, humid conditions.

As temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift, places that were once too cool for the tea shrubs gain enough heat for sustained growth.

The top drivers in the models include annual rainfall and how much temperature and precipitation vary over the year.

That pattern fits the monsoon climates, seasonal wind-and-rain systems that shape China’s tea belt, where water supply and timing matter.

Soils and elevation still matter. Depth, nutrients like potassium and phosphorus, and height above sea level help explain local differences even when climate looks good.

How models were tested

The researchers evaluated a group of models such as MaxEnt, a probability-based model that predicts species distributions from environmental data. 

The team also investigated Support Vector Machine (SVM), a statistical classifier that separates data into categories alongside Random Forest using multiple metrics. 

Two more note-worthy models included LightGBM, a fast gradient boosting method for handling large datasets, and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) which is a similar but more flexible ensemble model.

Random Forest balanced stability and predictive power in this dataset. Its variable importance scores highlighted water and heat as the main levers, with soils and topography refining the map.

The resolution of one kilometer was fine enough to see regional patterns without the need to capture every hillside. 

Forests at the edge of expansion

Suitability does not exist in a vacuum. The team overlaid future tea suitability with current forest cover to flag where agriculture and conservation may collide.

Two regions stand out for potential pressure under a high emissions future, the Southwest and Jiangbei tea regions.

In Jiangbei, overlap between prime tea land and forests grows by about 30 percent and reaches roughly 26,200 square miles.

Independent research adds context from the field. One paper documents expanding Asian elephant range in Yunnan while noting tea plantations have increased and natural forest has declined in parts of the landscape.

Changing tea taste

Climate does not only move maps, it can change chemistry in the leaf. A systematic review found environmental shifts can raise or lower key secondary metabolites, chemical compounds like catechins and caffeine that affect taste and aroma.

Rainfall matters in practical terms. A study tied monsoon rains to lower concentrations of some compounds compared with drier spring harvests, helping explain seasonal differences in cup quality.

As tea moves north and higher, growers may see new balances of yield and flavor. That can be an opportunity, but only if planting choices and practice keep pace with the climate signal.

Steps for tea farmers

Tea farmers should plan expansion where it minimizes ecological risk. Agencies can steer new fields toward degraded lands, previously farmed or deforested areas with less ecological value, and away from intact forests.

The use of agroforestry – mixed farming with trees – could keep canopy cover and soil in good shape.

Investing in climate resilience on existing farms can make a big difference. Measures like shelterbelts, improved drainage, and better water retention help buffer crops against heavy rains and heat waves without reshaping entire landscapes.

Tea farmers should select cultivars with proven stress tolerance and match them carefully to local soil conditions.

Future suitability maps should serve as guides rather than strict blueprints, since pests, policies, and markets will also influence results.

Global impact of China tea

China’s tea footprint influences prices, sourcing, and styles everywhere. If northern provinces add acreage while southern cores hold steady, supply may rise and diversify.

Small changes in quality can matter for specialty buyers and for growers’ income. Keeping an eye on chemistry, not just acreage, helps producers align with what drinkers want.

Consumers and retailers can support transitions that protect forests and water. Certification, procurement standards, and clear origin labeling make it easier to reward farms that manage risk well.

AI mapping points to more room for tea in parts of China and a general northward shift. That forecast comes with a warning: expansion is easiest where forests already stand. Careful choices now can protect both livelihoods and living systems.

The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

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