anney

Other Names: Iron Goddess of Mercy, Anxi Tie Guan Yin, Ti Kwan Yin

  One of the legends is like this: In the ancient time, there was a man who was loyal to worship the Kwan-yin. Every day this man respectfully offered Kwan-yin a cup of fresh tea. Once when was offering the tea, the Kwan-yin presented and told the man that there was a divine tea tree in the mountain which he might pick from. So the man trudged and climbed to the mountain and sure enough found the tree, whose leaves twinkling with iron light. Then he transplanted the tree gingerly to his home and took care of it, which was the originator of the  tree.

  Another tale is like this: In the Qianlong Era of the Qing Dynasty, there was a woodman named Weixin in Songlintou county of Anxi. Once when he was cutting firewood, Weixin haply found an outlandish tea tree in the clearance of a mountain beside a Kwan-yin temple. The leaves are shining with green iron light embellished black. Wei then dug the tree up and took it back home and planted the tree in his own yard. Then Wei picked the leaves up and made them into tea and called that tie guan yin tea.

  There are some other tales are simply similar with the two above. The similarity of these legends is that all the Dragon well tea trees are related to Kwan-yin so the tea has a name including the two words “Kwan-yin”. And why people all used the word “tie(iron)”? There are two answers: one is the iron light the tea tree gives in the sunshine; another one is that the tea water presents the iron color when fermented.