Ku Ding Cha, “the bitter nail tea”

Ku Ding Cha reads “the bitter nail tea”: the bitterness is extreme, it is the first taste, and the leaf is sold rolled and twisted into small nails. Yet it is not a tea: the tree is a holly, Ilex kudingcha, a tall evergreen with thick, leathery, spineless leaves that grows in the mountain valleys of southern China. The most renowned comes from Wuzhishan, on Hainan; Guangxi is the other major source. The young leaves are picked around Qingming, in early April. The sign of quality is in the cup: after the bitterness comes a clear, lasting sweet aftertaste; if it does not come, the leaf is mediocre. One story has it that it became a tribute tea under the Ming.

Refreshing the upper body

In traditional Chinese medicine, the leaf is cold, bitter in flavour with a sweet aftertaste. Bitterness clears and makes things descend; to sweetness, tradition attributes the ability to generate Fluids. It is therefore a bitter, cold herb that does not dry like the others. It enters the Liver, which opens into the eyes, the Lung, which governs the surface, and the Stomach. Its best-known action is to disperse Wind-Heat, which according to tradition reaches the upper body first: the head, the throat, the eyes. The action that recurs in every source is to clear the head and brighten the eyes. With chrysanthemum buds, it forms the classic pairing for the head and eyes.

A bitter infusion that quenches thirst

Carried by its sweet aftertaste, Ku Ding Cha is traditionally used to generate Fluids and quench thirst, and the texts also credit it with dispelling irritability at the same time. It is infused in hot water that is not fully boiling, the first infusion is discarded, and the same leaf can be steeped several times. Because it is very cold, it is readily combined with warm, sweet ingredients, red jujube, longan flesh or ginger: the aim is not to correct its action but to protect the Middle. It is not an everyday tea, and tradition advises taking it for limited periods.