Have you ever had Kuding tea? But you must have seen it and it turned out.

For Chinese people who have grown up drinking tea since childhood, it is also common that the tea they drink does not come from the family Theaceae. Honeysuckle, Chinese wolfberry, red jujube, cassia seed, gynostemma pentaphyllum, Luohanguo, grapefruit peel, and other tea from different organs of different plants, everyone should have drunk tea, right? The plants we are going to introduce today are closely related to Kuding Tea, which is very popular with Chinese people.

The big leaves of holly look so rough that they can also be used to make tea. Picture: UFEI / Cal Poly

If you have read the previous article on the species calendar, you may have the impression that it is the raw material of Kuding tea-although it is not the only plant that makes Kuding tea.

Kuding tea. Source of authentic material: picture worm creativity

The flower is small and the color is light, but the victory lies in the quantity.

Aquifoliaceae, where Ilex latifolia belongs, is a single family, that is to say, holly is the only genus in the family. Holly is a large family, with about 400,500 species in the world, widely distributed from tropical to temperate zones in the southern and northern hemispheres, with the most species in Central, South America and tropical Asia. In China, there are about 200 species of holly, which are mainly distributed in the southern provinces which are relatively warm and humid in winter. except for a few species with deciduous leaves in winter, most of the species are evergreen trees or shrubs.

Big leaf holly can grow into a big tree. Picture: KENPEI / wiki commons

Big leaf holly is a kind of evergreen tree with straight trunk, long rectangular round leaves, dark green and bright, hard texture and obvious serrated edge. In spring, clusters of yellowish green florets emerge from the axils of branchlets and leaves, with four bases (4 petals and stamens), but often change from normal bisexual flowers to unisexual flowers due to functional abortion of pistils and stamens (that is, the stamens of male flowers are normal, but the pistil ovary atrophied and sterile can not bear fruit; female flowers, on the contrary, the ovary develops normally, but stamens degenerate and lose the function of spreading pollen).

Big leaf holly yellowish green flowers. Picture: Daderot / wiki commons

In order to avoid self-pollination as far as possible, the female and male flowers of Ilex macrophylla often grow on different branches, which do not have much ornamental value when they bloom, but they have a large quantity and a faint aroma when they are in full bloom, which often attracts many bees to collect pollen.

The amazing fruit is worth watching.

The best season to watch big-leaf holly is autumn and winter, when all the fruits turn bright red. Especially after a heavy snow, full of red fruits dotted under the snow, beautiful and moving. Big-leaf holly has a long fruit viewing period, which can be from mid-late September to January of the following year; it is strong in nature, resistant to transplantation, strong in germination, and rarely harmed by scale insects; in addition, it is resistant to drought and barren and subzero low temperature. Generally speaking, it is an excellent native fruit viewing plant, which is very suitable for popularization and application to the north of the Yangtze River.

The fruit of big leaf holly. Picture: Bayard Cutting Arboretum

In addition to the big-leaf holly, there are many species of holly that can be used as ornamental. Most of them have leathery leaves that are evergreen all the year round and bright red fruits in autumn and winter. At present, the commonly used gardens are wolfberry (I. cornuta) and its varieties (I. cornuta "Fortunei"), wolfbone leaf holly (I. aquifolium), holly (I. chinensis), iron holly (I. rotunda) and so on. This kind of plant has thick green leaves all the year round, and the flowers are small and yellowish green, even if they bloom, they do not attract people's attention. They basically belong to the background plants that no one pays attention to, but when the fruit is ripe, the bright red fruit often gives people a bright feeling.

The fruit of Chinese wolfberry (I. cornuta) is also not withered through winter, red, very lovely. Asianflora.com

Oriental Leaf Tea

Today, the raw materials of Kudingcha plants used in different parts of our country are very different. It is mainly divided into two categories: one is big-leaf Kudingcha, which is mainly composed of holly plants of holly family, such as Ilex angustifolia used in East China, Ilex angustifolia (I. kudingcha, note: this species has been incorporated into koushu I. kaushue) and wolfbone; the other is lobular Kudingcha, which is mainly composed of Oleaceae privet genus and related species, mainly found in southwest China, such as Ligustrum lucidum (Ligustrum henryi).

The Ligustrum lucidum of Oleaceae, from flowers to leaves, is very different from that of holly. Picture: helicongus / flickr

A small-leaf Kuding tea made from privet plants. Source of authentic material: picture worm creativity

As a kind of plant medicinal tea which is widely drunk among the people, Kuding tea has a drinking history of 2000 years in China. In ancient books, it is often called "Gao [Gao] Lu", "Gualu" and "bitter ng]. It is regarded as a good product for both medicine and drink.

According to the Eastern Han Dynasty "Tongjun Lu" records: "in the south there is Gualumu, also like tea, to bitter, take fire crumbs, tea, can also stay up all night." And Jiaoguang is the heaviest. " In addition, the "remains of Materia Medica" written by Chen Zangqi in the Tang Dynasty also recorded: "Gao Lu Leaf …"... Out of the mountains of the South China Sea, the leaves are as big as tea, and the southerners take it as a tea, which is very heavy. " So, which kind of plant is the "Gaolu" valued by the ancients today?

Kuding tea and tea. Picture: Shizuha / wiki commons

Unfortunately, the ancients' description of plants is not as detailed as today's flora, and only a few words of introduction have been handed down. The description of "Cha Jing" and "Herbal Medicine" in the Tang Dynasty is almost the same as the previous article; the Chronicles of Gaoyao County in the Qing Dynasty slightly added: "bitter, the height of the tree is several Zhang, the leaves are like batches, very bitter." We can infer from the descriptions of these ancient books that the ancient Kuding tea tree is a kind of large-leaf tree with leaves similar to loquat trees, which is native to Liangguang area and tastes very bitter.

Kuding tea, which is more authentic?

Then, according to the description of ancient books, big leaf Kuding tea is obviously the real Kuding tea, and the source plants are mainly big leaf holly and Kudingcha holly. However, the two forms of holly are very similar, and the only difference lies in whether the young branches are pilose, the number of florets in a single branch of male inflorescence, fruit size, kernel wrinkles and other micro-morphological differences, ordinary people can not easily distinguish between the two without looking carefully. Moreover, the production of Kuding tea mainly uses pre-flowering buds and newly unfolded new leaves, so it is impossible to determine the species by the shape of the tea.

Kuding tea holly, now the official Chinese name should be called buckle tree. Picture: foodland.at

In addition to the micro-morphological differences, the two also have obvious regional differences in origin. Big leaf holly is mainly originated in Hubei, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian and other provinces south of the Yangtze River, while Kudingcha holly is mainly distributed in Guangdong, Guangdong, Hainan, Yunnan and southern Sichuan. Therefore, East China generally believes that Kuding tea made by Daye holly is the most authentic, while South China believes that Kuding tea holly is the most authentic-basically in accordance with the traditional custom of using local materials.

According to us, how would you describe the leaves of holly? Picture: Lisa Miner / Plantilus

At present, there is no reliable paper analysis on the difference of chemical composition between them, but according to the general law that the chemical constituents of plants of the same family and genus are also similar, it can be inferred that there are some slight differences in taste and flavor.

Therefore, most people will not go to really drink the big leaf Kuding tea in the end from what kind of holly, as long as they know it is Kuding tea. As for which Kuding tea is more authentic, this is nothing more than a commercial brand debate, as long as you drink happily.

This article is the 166th article in the fourth year of the species calendar, from @ Chenshan Gang, the author of the species calendar.