Suijiang Kuding Tea

Suijiang Kuding Tea

　　Kuding tea is an evergreen tree of the Ilex kudingcha species from the Aquifoliaceae family, commonly known as Tea Ding, Fu Ding Tea, or Gāolú Tea. It is mainly distributed in Guangdong, Fujian, and other regions, and is a traditional, purely natural health drink in China. Kuding tea contains over 200 components including kuding saponins, amino acids, vitamin C, polyphenols, flavonoids, caffeine, and proteins. Its final product has a fragrant yet bitter taste that turns sweet and cool, offering multiple benefits such as clearing heat and reducing summer heat, improving vision and intelligence, promoting saliva and quenching thirst, diuresis and strengthening the heart, soothing the throat and suppressing cough, lowering blood pressure and aiding weight loss, inhibiting and preventing cancer, anti-aging, and invigorating blood circulation. It is known by various titles such as “health tea,” “beauty tea,” “weight-loss tea,” “blood-pressure-lowering tea,” and “longevity tea.” In recent years, research on kuding tea has mostly focused on the nutritional and health aspects of processed tea and tea beverages. Various health foods have been successfully developed, including bagged kuding tea, kuding tea granules, kuding tea lozenges, and compound kuding tea. Currently, studies related to the cultivation, processing, physiological biochemistry, and application of kuding tea are very active, but further in-depth exploration is still needed regarding its refined and deep processing, trade, physiological and biochemical mechanisms—especially the functional components of kuding tea—in order to promote the development of kuding tea beverage resource utilization.

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[Tea Benefits]

Functional Indications: Disperse wind-heat, clear the head and eyes, relieve thirst. Used for headaches, toothaches, red eyes, fever with thirst, and dysentery. Aids digestion, resolves phlegm, relieves irritability and thirst, promotes urination and bowel movements, removes greasiness, soothes liver wind, treats tinnitus and deafness, invigorates blood circulation, and cools the uterus.

According to *Compendium of Materia Medica*, kuding tea has pharmacological functions such as dispersing wind-heat, clearing the head and eyes, promoting saliva and quenching thirst, aiding digestion and refreshing the mind, reducing inflammation and detoxifying, and lowering blood pressure and lipids. Research jointly conducted by scientific institutions such as the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Crop Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Forest Environmental Protection Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, the Geological Testing Center of the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry, and the Tea Quality Supervision and Testing Center of the Ministry of Agriculture isolated from kuding tea substances such as vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, multiple amino acids, B-carotene, polyphenols, triterpenoid saponins, as well as essential trace elements for the human body like calcium (Ca), potassium (K), sodium (Na), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), selenium (Se), germanium (Ge), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), and phosphorus (P).

According to the *Guangdong Science and Technology Daily* on May 15, 1993: “Kuding tea has the effects of lowering blood pressure, reducing blood lipids, lowering cholesterol, clearing summer heat and detoxifying, reducing inflammation and killing bacteria, strengthening the stomach and resolving accumulation, refreshing the mind, and improving vision and thought. It serves as an excellent medicine for cooling the liver, dispersing wind, relieving pain, and reducing inflammation. It shows significant efficacy in treating hypertension, obesity, oral inflammation, and pharyngitis. It also has good therapeutic effects on acute gastritis, colds, stomachache, severe headache (Shagua), malaria, and constipation. It inhibits nasopharyngeal cancer and esophageal cancer. When boiled in water for external washing, it can treat various skin diseases and burns. When brewed as tea, its flavor is sweet and cool, promotes saliva and quenches thirst, tastes bitter initially then sweet, with a long-lasting aftertaste. Hence, it is praised as ‘green gold,’ ‘longevity tea,’ and ‘beauty tea.’”

Modern scientific clinical applications show that kuding tea has the effects of reducing summer heat and detoxifying, reducing inflammation and killing bacteria, resolving phlegm and suppressing cough, strengthening the stomach and resolving accumulation, refreshing the mind, aiding weight loss and fighting cancer, resisting radiation, lowering blood pressure, reducing blood lipids, and reducing cholesterol. It is hailed by consumers at home and abroad as a health tea, longevity tea, and beauty tea, and is a widely used natural multifunctional plant beverage.