Linli Green Tea

Linli Green Tea

　　　    Tea is an indispensable beverage for the people of our country. For thousands of years, whether among royalty or common folk, at grand state banquets or intimate family gatherings, the aroma of tea can be found almost everywhere. The ancients said: “On a cold night when guests arrive, serve them tea and wine,” and also, “A single cup inspires poetic thoughts, while a breeze of purity rises from both armpits.” Therefore, tea is not only the most common form of tea tasting and heart-to-heart chats, as well as socializing among friends, but also a refined pastime where literati and poets enjoy tea and compose verses.

Since ancient times, tea has been one of China’s important specialties. The Tang Dynasty poet Lu Yu, known as the “Tea Sage” for his work Classic of Tea, has been celebrated through the ages. Even Emperor Huizong of Song, Zhao Ji, personally authored the Treatise on Tea, drawing extensively from classical texts to create an impressive and comprehensive work.

　　    China boasts an extremely rich variety of teas, with the oldest being green tea. Green tea is vibrant green in color, with a clear and glossy infusion, a lasting fragrance, and a refreshing, mellow taste. It is the most diverse and widely consumed type of tea.

　　    Linli Green Tea has a long history. Legend has it that its cultivation began as early as the Tang Dynasty and spread across all towns and villages in the county. In the early 1970s, towns such as Guanting, Jiuli, Xin’an, Wenjia, and Sixinggang introduced high-quality tea varieties from elsewhere and developed plantations on idle mountain land. The rows upon rows and ridges upon ridges of tea bushes, emerald-green like jade, undulate along the hills, resembling a carpet or an ocean. When the tea blossoms are in full bloom, the sea of flowers creates a magnificent natural landscape that is truly breathtaking. As a result, towns such as Guanting, Jiuli, Wenjia, and Xin’an, which boast “ten-thousand-mu tea gardens,” produce 1,000 dan of green tea annually and serve as key tea production bases for the provincial tea research institute.

　　    As the saying goes, “Good mountains and good water produce good tea.” Among the diverse range of Linli Green Tea varieties, the most renowned is “Baimaojian Green Tea.” Its characteristics are threefold: first, its superior quality. The tea is picked before the Qingming Festival, carefully selected for its tender, jade-like leaves with visible white fuzz, consisting of one bud and one leaf. Even the most skilled and nimble tea pickers can usually harvest only about 2 jin of fresh leaves per day. Second, its elegant shape. When brewed in a glass cup, the buds stand upright toward the sky, suspended as if “ten thousand brushes writing in the sky,” then gently sway up and down before slowly sinking to the bottom of the cup, resembling “bamboo shoots emerging from the earth.” Third, its pure and mellow flavor. As described in the Qing Dynasty’s Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature: “Sipping it feels light, as if tasteless, yet afterward one senses a profound harmony — this tasteless taste is the ultimate flavor, precious and rare.” Therefore, Linli Green Tea, with its excellent quality, beautiful shape, and mellow taste, is increasingly popular among people.