Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea

Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea

Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea is a geographical indication protected product.

Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea is a geographical indication certification trademark.

　　Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea: The finished tea features tightly rolled, plump, and curly leaves with a sandy green and dark luster. It boasts a rich, long-lasting aroma, a mellow taste with a sweet aftertaste, and a bright orange-yellow liquor, along with a unique fruity fragrance. Locals often use it to make salted tea and pomelo rice tea to treat dysentery, heatstroke, high blood pressure, and other ailments.

　　Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea is also known as Citron Tea or Snow Pear Tea, named for its resemblance to a Buddha’s hand and its value surpassing gold, hence also called “Golden Buddha’s Hand.” It is mainly produced in Yongchun Buddha’s Hand

　　tea-growing areas located in high-altitude mountain regions (600 to 900 meters above sea level) in Sucheng, Yudou, and Guiyang towns of Yongchun County, Fujian Province. Made from the tender shoots of the Buddha’s Hand tea variety, it is a distinctive and renowned Oolong tea from Fujian. There are two types of Buddha’s Hand tea plant varieties: red-sprout and green-sprout (distinguished by the color of spring buds), with the red-sprout being superior. The fresh leaves are large, palm-sized, oval-shaped, with thick leaf flesh. They sprout in late March and are harvested in mid-April. Picking occurs in four seasons, with spring tea accounting for 40%. The finished Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea is characterized by tightly rolled, plump, and curly leaves with a sandy green and dark luster, a strong and sharp aroma, a rich and mellow taste, excellent infusion endurance, and a bright orange-yellow and clear liquor. When brewed, it emits a rich and lingering fragrance, as if several Buddha’s Hand or citron fruits were placed in the room, gently perfuming the air and refreshing the soul.

　　 Features

　　The Yongchun Buddha’s Hand tea plant is a large-leaf shrub. It earned its name “Buddha’s Hand” because of its spreading tree shape and leaves that closely resemble those of the Buddha’s Hand citrus fruit. Yongchun Buddha’s Hand comes in red-sprout and green-sprout varieties, with the red-sprout being superior. The tea plants have tall canopies, with large, palm-sized, oval-shaped fresh leaves that have blunt tips, curved main veins, uneven and wrinkled leaf surfaces, thick and soft leaf flesh, yellow-green glossy leaf color, and sparse serrated leaf edges.

　　 Efficacy

　　Tests show that the water extract content of Buddha’s Hand tea is 46%, tannin 21%, crude protein 25%, tea polyphenols 2.4%, and flavonoids Yongchun Buddha’s Hand

　　12 mg/g, zinc 57 μg/g. Among these, the zinc and flavonoid contents are the highest among all Oolong teas. The flavonoids in the tea help lower blood pressure, reduce blood lipids, and soften blood vessels, while zinc promotes children’s growth and adults’ health, and delays aging. In 2003, Fujian College of Traditional Chinese Medicine confirmed that Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea has significant therapeutic effects on colitis. Research is also ongoing to verify its health benefits such as softening blood vessels and cardiovascular system, and reducing blood pressure and lipids. Regular consumption of Buddha’s Hand Tea can aid in weight loss, quench thirst, aid digestion, eliminate phlegm, improve urination, enhance vision and mental clarity, and remove internal heat and greasiness.

　　 Origin

　　Yongchun County, a famous hometown of overseas Chinese in southern Fujian, known as the “land of everlasting spring with flowers blooming year-round and a mild climate.” Yongchun County has a long history of tea production, with 68,000 acres of tea gardens, an annual output of 3,935 tons, and over 1,600 tons exported annually, making it one of China’s top three Oolong tea export bases. Its premium teas—Yongchun Buddha’s Hand, Narcissus, and Tieguanyin—are all top-grade Oolong teas, especially the Buddha’s Hand, which is Yongchun Buddha’s Hand

　　also known as Citron Tea or Snow Pear Tea, named for its resemblance to a Buddha’s Hand and its value surpassing gold, hence also called “Golden Buddha’s Hand.” It is mainly produced in high-altitude mountain regions (600 to 900 meters above sea level) in Sucheng, Yudou, and other towns of Yongchun County, Fujian Province. Made from the tender shoots of the Buddha’s Hand tea variety, it is a distinctive and renowned Oolong tea from Fujian. The finished Yongchun Buddha’s Hand Tea is characterized by tightly rolled, plump, and curly leaves with a sandy green and dark luster, a strong and sharp aroma, a rich and mellow taste, excellent infusion endurance, and a bright orange-yellow and clear liquor. When brewed, it emits a rich and lingering fragrance, as if several Buddha’s Hand or citron fruits were placed in the room, gently perfuming the air and refreshing the soul. When processed into Oolong tea, the leaves are tightly rolled, plump, curly, and stem-like, with a sandy green and dark luster, a high aroma and rich taste, a bright orange-yellow and clear liquor, and bright yellow-green leaves, showcasing a unique style. When made into black tea, it yields a deep red liquor and bright red leaves, indicating excellent quality. In 1996, Buddha’s Hand was designated as a premium tea variety in Fujian Province. Currently, it is less cultivated in Anxi County but mainly produced in Yongchun County, with small-scale cultivation in central, eastern, and northern Fujian. Located at the southern foot of the Daiyun Mountains, the area features undulating peaks and abundant mountain resources. It lies in the transitional zone between the south and north subtropical regions and has a subtropical monsoon climate with abundant rainfall year-round and large diurnal temperature variations. Most of the county’s tea gardens are planted in mountainous and semi-mountainous areas, living up to the saying “the best tea comes from high mountains.” Tea gardens are distributed across 22 towns in the county, with over 10,000 farming households and nearly 30,000 workers involved in tea production. The premium teas Yongchun Buddha’s Hand, Narcissus, and Tieguanyin are all top-grade Oolong teas. Since 1985, they have won awards or first prizes in national and provincial competitions 43 times in a row and have been recognized as branded products at the China International Agricultural Expo. Among them, Yongchun Buddha’s Hand, also known as Citron or Snow Pear, is one of the uniquely flavored and premium varieties in the Oolong tea category.

　　 Honors

　　Yongchun Buddha’s Hand enjoys a longstanding reputation in Fujian, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, earning numerous accolades. It was rated as a high-quality agricultural product by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1986 and 1989; won the Gold Award at the First China Food Expo in 1988; was recognized with the Gold Award at the Second and Third China Agricultural Expos in 1995 and 1997; received the International Famous Tea Gold Award at the Second China International Tea Expo & Trade Fair in 1999, and was confirmed as a premium Fujian tea. In 2007, it was honored as the “First Tea for China’s Olympic Bid” and was gifted to foreign guests as a state gift. Many private tea enterprises also perform exceptionally well—for example, the Dashu Shen brand Buddha’s Hand Tea produced by Fujian Yongchun Yipin Buddha’s Hand Tea Co., Ltd., has twice been designated as the official tea for the Great Hall of the People.

　　 Attributes

　　The Buddha’s Hand is originally a fragrant and enticing premium fruit of the citrus family. The tea is named after it not only because its leaves closely resemble those of the Buddha’s Hand citrus but also because the dry rough tea, when brewed, emits a distinctive and unique fragrance similar to that of the Buddha’s Hand. Yongchun Buddha’s Hand tea originated in the Northern Song Dynasty. Legend has it that a monk from Qihu Yan Temple in Anxi County grafted tea tree branches onto a Buddha’s Hand citrus, carefully cultivating it into this variety. The method was passed on to his junior fellow at Shifengyan Temple in Yongchun County, and nearby tea farmers have been planting it ever since. During the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, Fengpu Tea House in Taodong, the county seat, cultivated Buddha’s Hand on vast tea gardens on Baichi Mountain. Li Shece, a tribute student of the Kangxi Emperor, praised the tea in his poem “Shifeng Tea Poem”: “I dare not claim to be the best in tea tasting, but upon sipping the sparrow’s tongue, I suddenly envy the immortals.” The late Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Zhou Gucheng, also inscribed the phrase “Famous Tea of Yongchun” for it.