Cool tea is a beverage commonly prepared in the Chaoshan region by boiling compound or single local herbal ingredients. In the 18th century, Li Qingxiang, a resident of Xikeng Village in Puning, summarized and formulated multiple recipes for cool tea, each composed of twenty-four medicinal ingredients, along with their preparation methods. Through generations of inheritance and innovation, today's 24-ingredient cool tea is made from authentic Chinese medicinal herbs using modern scientific techniques to extract and separate its active components, ultimately producing granulated formulations.
The 24-ingredient cool tea is composed of 24 herbs sourced from a list of ingredients that are both food and medicine. The main ingredients include: dandelion, lotus leaf, Houttuynia cordata, mulberry leaf, lophatherum, Prunella vulgaris, gardenia, chrysanthemum, honeysuckle, polygonatum, fat sea date, green plum, kudzu root, Chinese yam, fresh rhizome of reed, hawthorn, lophatherum, lily, jujube, cassia seed, black sesame, poria, tangerine Peel, and mint.
The 24-ingredient cool tea is guided by Traditional Chinese medicine theory and based on herbal ingredients, with effects such as clearing heat and detoxifying, quenching thirst, removing fire and dampness, becoming a popular health care method, especially prevalent in the Chaoshan area.
The craft of making the 24-ingredient herbal (cool) tea was announced as a representative project of the sixth batch of Jieyang Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage by the Jieyang Municipal Government in 2020. The current representative inheritor at the municipal level is Li Zhenwei.
Puning is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Guangdong Province, located in the western part of the Chaozhou-Shantou Plain in southeastern Guangdong. It is in the subtropical zone, with plains, mountains, and a long coastline and offshore islands. It has a subtropical maritime climate with high humidity and abundant rainfall, a diverse natural environment, and over 500 types of medicinal herbs. Predecessors accumulated extensive knowledge about the collection, processing, preparation, and application of these herbs, contributing immeasurably to the survival and health of the people.
Xikeng Village is an administrative village under the jurisdiction of Dahanan Mountain Street in Puning City, Jieyang Prefecture, Guangdong Province. Surrounded by green hills, the village is rich in medicinal herbs. Li Qingxiang (deceased), born in 1920, was familiar with herbal principles. Near his home was the former site of the Field Hospital of the Second and Fourth Divisions of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, a protected cultural relic of Puning City. In February 1985, Xu Xiangqian (one of the ten founding marshals of the People's Republic of China) personally inscribed the plaque “Site of the Field Hospital of the Second and Fourth Divisions of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.” His father, Li Quan (deceased in 1889), was a well-known herbal doctor who frequently brewed the 24-ingredient herbal tea for soldiers suffering from environmental conditions and injuries during the revolutionary war era. Under the guidance of doctors from the Field Hospital of the Second and Fourth Divisions of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, Li Qingxiang improved the herbal formula, formulating multiple recipes for cool tea, which gained widespread public recognition. His son, Li Wenhua, later moved to Chiwai Town in Puning City, where he further refined and popularized the 24-ingredient herbal tea through his herbal shop.
Li Zhenwei, the inheritor of the craft of making the 24-ingredient herbal (cool) tea in Jieyang Prefecture, Guangdong Province, was influenced by his ancestors' ideas from a young age and dedicated himself to inheriting the family business. For over two decades, he diligently studied pharmacology and advanced business practices, realizing that to truly inherit and develop this traditional craft, it must be supported by advanced science and technology. On July 4, 2014, he registered Guangdong Guangzhen Biological Co., Ltd. in Puning City's Industrial and Commercial Administration. To highlight the company's main business, on June 15, 2020, he registered Guangdong 24-Ingredient Health Industry Co., Ltd. with the Puning City Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, focusing on 24-ingredient health products.
The company holds numerous product trademark certificates, copyright registration certificates, and patents. After continuous research and development investment, the company broke through the limitations of traditional products not meeting national standards and being unsuitable for standardized production. Based on traditional skills and using food and medicine dual-purpose herbs, they formulated reasonable recipes, ensuring the therapeutic characteristics of the original products while improving taste and reducing bitterness and potency. They established enterprise production standards higher than the national standards (Guangdong Province's Food Safety Production Enterprise Standards) and applied for a national invention patent (a formula cool tea and preparation method for clearing throat and relieving swelling). The market feedback for the products is positive: easy to consume without brewing, convenient to carry, fragrant aroma, comfortable throat sensation. They are well-loved by consumers, particularly by overseas Chinese residing in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan; the 24-ingredient herbal tea is also a token of homesickness for overseas Chinese.
The 24-ingredient herbal tea, guided by traditional Chinese medicine theory and based on herbal ingredients, is unique and well-known in the Lingnan region. It plays a significant role in disease prevention and health care. It provides a simple and practical solution to the primary problems of disease prevention and treatment, becoming a vehicle for benefiting the public. The intangible cultural heritage of the 24-ingredient herbal tea serves as the root and vein that maintains harmony between people and nature.
