Lianzhou White Tea

Lianzhou White Tea

　　    Locals call it "Tengpo Tea." Legend has it that during the Tang Dynasty, when Liu Yuxi served as prefect, he noticed frequent outbreaks of disease among residents, yet the indigenous villagers of Tianshan Ancient Village in Lianzhou rarely fell ill. Upon further inquiry, he discovered that they followed a secret recipe passed down by a "spiritual woman," climbing to the summit of Tianshan Mountain to pick a type of vine leaf with white-colored foliage. They boiled the leaves to make tea, which helped ward off various illnesses. Liu Yuxi then invited tea masters to process these vine leaves into tea cakes, distributing them to residents as an essential household item. The tea's efficacy in clearing heat, moistening lungs, relieving summer heat, and reducing inflammation benefited the public and has been passed down to this day. In recent years, refined using modern methods, it has also come to be known as white tea. Its flavor is initially bitter, then turns sweet and cool, with a long-lasting aftertaste. (Qingyuan)

　　    White tea, honey jujube, and polygonatum wine are hailed as Lianzhou’s “New Three Treasures.”

　　    White tea is refined from the leaves of the Tengpo tea tree. Lianzhou has long been described as "uniting ten thousand mountains into one mountain, and countless waters into one river." Amid the vast mountains, white clouds linger, waterfalls and springs abound, and lush forests thrive. The rare wild high-mountain tea — Tengpo tea — grows in this environment of dense forests and high altitudes, with clean water sources.

　　    In Lianzhou folk culture, Tengpo tea is a favorite beverage. During the peak of summer, when Tengpo tea trees grow vigorously, villagers harvest the leaves from the dense woods, wash and dry them, then pound them evenly with a wooden pestle to make fine tea cakes. Pounding the tea requires great skill; too much force can shatter coarse leaves into uneven fragments stuck in the sticky tea paste. If the leaves aren’t pounded thoroughly, the resulting tea cake will be coarse, and the brewed tea will taste astringent. Experienced tea makers sort the leaves by coarseness, fineness, age, and tenderness, placing them in the wooden pestle in sequence. They apply force that is firm yet gentle until the leaves are mashed into a smooth and uniform tea paste. Then, they mold the paste using bamboo hoops, dry it in the scorching sun for a day, and let it air-dry in the shade once some moisture has evaporated. After removing the hoops, tea cakes the size of hawthorn pastries are formed.

　　    In the height of summer, when the fields blaze under the scorching sun and farmers tire easily from labor and suffer from intense thirst, drinking a mouthful of strong tea brewed from Tengpo tea cakes brings a cool, mellow sensation that instantly relieves fatigue. The tea cakes are excellent at reducing inflammation, detoxifying, moistening the lungs, and treating throat ailments, which is why they remain consistently popular.

　　    White tea was developed through the scientific exploration of this rare wild plant by the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Materia Medica. The underside of Tengpo tea leaves has a layer of white membrane. When processed using scientific methods, this white membrane does not fade but instead resembles a layer of white frost on the brown tea leaves, enhancing their cool and sweet taste. This "Baiyunshan White Tea Series," produced under the brand "Duolimei" using scientific tea-making techniques, comes in a wide variety of types and offers a purer flavor and higher quality than traditional tea cakes.

　　    People in Lianzhou, northern Guangdong, love drinking tea, so the incidence of high blood lipids, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol among the population is lower compared to other regions. During the development of the "Baiyunshan White Tea Series," Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Factory discovered that in addition to containing flavonoids, guaijaverin, chlorophyll, and vitamins, Tengpo tea leaves are also rich in the trace element "manganese," which plays a significant role in maintaining vascular elasticity and anti-aging.

　　    After the "Baiyunshan White Tea Series" entered the market, some Lianzhou natives traveling to northern China were pleasantly surprised to find their hometown’s white tea being served among premium teas in star-rated hotels.