Tailao Mountain Lvxueya Tea

Tailao Mountain Lvxueya Tea

Tailao Mountain Lvxueya Tea is a protected geographical indication product.

　　   Tailao Mountain’s “Lvxueya” is a renowned tea famous both in China and abroad.

　　   Lvxueya, commonly known as “white tea core,” has a slender, soft, downy appearance in silvery white, also called “silver needle” or “white down.” Its lower-grade version is called “flag spear”: because the leaves resemble flags and the bud tips look like spears. This tea is made from picking one bud and one leaf.

　　   Lvxueya is a fine tea plant. It can be consumed and used medicinally. Legend has it that in the past, people carved a tea cup from the root of an old tea tree in Hongxue Cave. Without adding any tea leaves, just pouring hot water over it would produce the flavor of Lvxueya tea. Travelers who went far away used it as a small bowl. If they encountered a shady inn or villains secretly poisoning their food, the bowl would work miraculously, instantly revealing black marks.

　　   The Lvxueya tea plant on Hongxue Cave is the ancestor of all Lvxueya in the Tailao Mountain range. Legend says it was cultivated by a poor girl named Lan Gu from Caibao Village during the time of Emperor Yao. She took refuge in a cave temple in Tailao Mountain. One day, while wandering near Hongxue Cave, she discovered a unique, graceful tea tree standing out among wild grass. She cleared the weeds, enriched the soil around the tree, and watered it with water from the Dan Well at the mouth of Hongxue Cave. As the seasons passed, the tea grew crystal-clear, jade-like buds that looked like green snow. She picked the buds to make tea, naming it “Lvxueya Tea.”

　　   When this tea is brewed with mountain spring water, it becomes especially sweet and fragrant. Whenever the poor elders from Caibao Village came to visit her quietly, she would serve them Lvxueya Tea. Those who tasted it all sang its praises. One year, children in Caibao Village suffered from measles, but thanks to her distribution of Lvxueya Tea, many lives were saved. Therefore, people began calling it “immortal tea.” Kind-hearted and generous, Lan Gu passed on the tea to the poor people in the valley to cultivate. Year after year, the sprouts emerged, and Lvxueya Tea turned the hillsides green everywhere.

　　   Spring flowers bloomed and faded, autumn moons waxed and waned. Many years later, Lan Gu ascended to immortality. People deeply cherished her memory. On quiet, deep nights when the mountain moon shone brightly, everyone would call out to her in the Echoing Valley. The sound reached the heavens, and Lan Gu, moved by their voices, chose to meet them once every year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month at Wangxian Bridge.

　　   On that day, she would ride a five-colored dragon horse, her robes flowing, ornaments tinkling, her face as fair as a lotus, with delicate arched brows, looking very benevolent.

　　   Afterward, to commemorate her, people built a stone tomb for her beside Hongxue Cave, and created a lifelike statue of her at Baiyun Temple. They respectfully called her “Taimu Goddess.” To this day, every year on the third lunar month during Qingming Festival, some still offer freshly picked Lvxueya Tea on a red-lacquered tray before her statue in tribute.