Oolong Teas

Ti Kwan Yin (Tieguanyin) Tea, Tea of the Iron Bodhisattva

This is the most famous of all Chinese oolongs. Guanyin, sometimes called the Goddess of Mercy, is actually more like the Buddhist equivalent of the Madonna. She is a bodhisattva, one who is qualified to enter nirvana, but chose to remain on earth to bring all to enlightenment. Statues of her stand in many Buddhist temples, and a woman who wants a child may pray to her. A legend gives why a tea bears her name.

An iron statue of Guanyin stood in a rundown temple in central Fujian's Shaxian (Sand county). The temple's condition aroused the concern of a tea grower who passed it daily. Financially unable to repair it, he thought that the least he could do was to burn incense and clean the place twice a month.

One night Guanyin appeared to him in a dream and told him to look in the cave behind the temple for a treasure. He was to take it for himself but also to share it with others. There he found a single tea shoot which he planted and cultivated into a bush with leaves that produced a singularly fine drink. He began selling it under the Guanyin name, and gave many cutting to his neighbors. All prospered, and eventually the temple was repaired.

Another reason why this tea is so named: For the appearance of its processed leaves - dark as iron and heavier than other teas, but with a quality as pure and beautiful as Guanyin.

Tieguanyin is also the name of a tea strain. The short, spreading shrub has glossy, dark green leaves, soft and fat with curling serrated edges. The tightly twisted, shiny dark green leaves produce an aromatic brownish-orange liquor of high astringency. These leaves- can be used through many more infusions than most varieties.

This is the tea that the people of Chaozhou on the Guangdong province coast like to brew gongfu style in tiny pottery teapots and sip from thimble-sized cups, the better to savor its orchid like flavor and long-lasting aftertaste.

A related oolong also made in Fujian and exported is Ti Lohan (Tielohan, Iron Arhat, a monk who has put aside all the passions of the world). It comes from Hui'an, and is particularly famous in the Philippines.

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