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What Is Guan Yin Tea?
Guan-yin tea (Tie Guan Yin tea) is one of the best teas that are good for people’s health and it depends on Oolong tea group. This tea has strong and sweet flavor, natural smell, and fresh yellow color. People usually name for Tie Guan Yin like “7 times using still keep good flavor” which means people can brew tea 7 times without disappearing their flavors. People still know the Tie Guan Yin tea as one of the “China’s Famous Tea” in China.
The Original Of Guan Yin Tea
People named this beautiful emerald green tea after the Chinese Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yin. Poets of the Middle Kingdom have described this premium tea for its purifying taste, bringing you into a peaceful, meditative state of mind.
As the name already implies, this tea comes from Anxi Nature Reserve in Fujian Province which has been a prosperous tea growing region throughout history, and a major tea export area since the Song dynasty.
There are two version of the origin of this tea that is the “Wang” and “Wei” stories. In the “Wang” version, Mr. Wang discovered this tea and presented to Emperor Qianlong. The Emperor gave the name of Tie Guan Yin. In the “Wei” version, it was the Goddess of Mercy who enlightened Mr. Wang in a dream as to the location of this tea plant. Moreover, Mr. Wei gave the name of Tie Guan Yin in honor of the Goddess of Mercy. Both versions are recorded in genealogical records, and neither of them was officially recognized by the government. Interestingly, the “Wei” version is the more popular of the two. Of course a tale involving visions of goddesses is usually more fun to talk about.
Different Names Of Guan Yin tea
There are a lot of names of this tea and it specifically depends on their history.
As I mentioned, people named this tea after the Chinese Goddess of Mercy Guanyin, who is known in Japan as Kannon and in Korea as Gwan-eum. Guanyin is a female embodiment of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva. Other spellings and names include “Tie Kuan Yin“, “Tit Kwun Yum”, “Ti Kwan Yin”, “Iron Buddha”, “Iron Goddess Oolong”, and “Tea of the Iron Bodhisattva”. People normally call them in the abbreviated form as “TGY”.
Different Types And Styles Of Guan Yin tea
Tie Guan Yin is one of the most famous types of Chinese tea and has been very popular for centuries. No doubt that people can find Tie Guan Yin in the menu of most Chinese restaurants throughout the world. Other than the huge demand of Tie Guan Yin in the world’s tea market, this tea is often sought after in China domestic tea market, not only for own consumption, it is one of the top-listed teas as the gift tea in many occasion.
There are three major styles of Guan-yin tea that is Charcoal, Traditional Light Roast and Modern Green Style.