Huizhou lychees have long been celebrated in Lingnan culture, but not every growing area produces fruit of the same quality. Within Huizhou, Zhenlong is widely regarded as the standout. Its lychees are especially well known across Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao, and the area has earned a reputation as a true “home of lychees.”
What sets Zhenlong apart is not just tradition, but where and how the fruit grows. The orchards benefit from the moisture and mountain spring water that come down from Baiyunzhang and Dashuikeng. That environment gives the fruit a character very different from lychees grown on ordinary lowland farmland. The best-known local varieties, especially Guiwei and Nuomici, are prized for their clean, bright sweetness and refreshing finish. Their flesh is thick and translucent like jade, the skin peels away cleanly without juice bursting out, and the texture is smooth rather than fibrous.
Zhenlong lychees are admired for all three essentials: color, aroma, and flavor. Because the fruit is consistently high in quality and considered premium grade, it has found eager buyers both locally and overseas. Among all the varieties, Nuomici and Guiwei are the most famous. The fruit is richly colored, with plump flesh and relatively small seeds. It tastes sweet without becoming cloying, and once opened, the flesh stays pale, firm, and pleasantly dry rather than dripping. That combination has made Zhenlong lychee one of the signature fruits of Lingnan.
Why Zhenlong became known as the “Lychee Town”
Zhenlong’s reputation rests on a combination of climate, landscape, and long cultivation history.
Climate
Zhenlong lies in Huizhou and has a humid subtropical monsoon climate. Temperatures stay mild through the year, sunshine is abundant, and rainfall is generous. The average annual temperature is about 21.8°C, and yearly precipitation is around 1800–2000 mm. Those conditions are especially favorable for lychee trees.
Terrain and soil
The town is known for clear water, fresh air, and abundant hillsides. Forest covers roughly 60% of the local area, and most lychee orchards are planted on slopes rather than flat paddy land. About 14,000 mu of lychees are grown on mountain terrain with slopes under 25 degrees, giving the trees strong advantages in sunlight exposure and humidity. The soil also contains a range of minerals suited to lychee growth, helping produce fruit with both vivid color and notable sweetness.
Deep roots in local life
Lychee cultivation in Zhenlong goes back at least a thousand years. Some old village trees are so ancient that their age can no longer be read clearly from their rings. Large-scale expansion, however, came much later, in the late 1980s. Today the planting area exceeds 43,000 mu, and more than 90% of the orchards are planted with superior varieties. In the countryside, lychee trees are a familiar sight from household to household, and that long, widespread cultivation is what firmly established Zhenlong’s name.
Mountain-grown and largely untouched
Baiyunzhang lies deep in the mountains, in an area without industrial development. Mist lingers between the ridges and streams, and the lychees grown there are often described as original, natural, and free from pollution. Villages that rely on the mountain gullies and valleys can produce hundreds of tons of lychees in a good year. For that reason, Zhenlong has become one of the strongest lychee-producing areas in the Huizhou region.
For generations, growers there have focused on cultivation itself: preserving the original mountain-growing pattern, loosening the soil with organic fertilizer, and continuing to refine and improve varieties. The goal has always been to let the trees grow in a broad, natural environment while being carefully tended. The resulting fruit is valued not only for flavor, but also for containing SOD, along with a range of minerals and amino acids.
A seasonal batch of fruit to share
This month marks the start of the Zhenlong lychee season. One long-established family orchard in the area has been passed down for more than a century, with around a dozen trees of varieties such as Guiwei and Nuomici. Last year was a light crop year, so output was low and prices were high. This year had looked more promising, with many households seeing heavier fruit set, though several days of intense rain reportedly caused a fair amount of fruit drop.
A small batch of lychees was therefore set aside as a limited seasonal “bonus” for regular followers. The plan was for 8 spots, with each shipment packed personally after harvest in a foam express box holding roughly 5 to 7 jin. Each box would contain an even split of Nuomici and Guiwei.
Shipping was to be freight collect, and it was openly acknowledged that the delivery charge alone might be enough to buy a similar quantity of lychees locally. The difference, however, was intended to be in quality rather than volume.
The original shipping plan was for the Dragon Boat Festival, then later changed to the Summer Solstice because the trading market had become too busy and stock might not hold until the earlier date. To protect freshness, the fruit would be sent by SF Express or Debang, with the final choice depending on distance and whichever option better preserved eating quality. Delivery was expected to arrive in one to three days in most cases, while areas that could not be reached within that window would need separate notice.
Priority was considered for recipients outside Guangdong Province, and the final decision on whether prepaid shipping or collect shipping offered the better rate was to be confirmed later.
The lychee photos above were archive images from 2018.