Many people have eaten raspberries, the red berries that are sweet and delicious, also known as brambles. In Guangxi, the local people process the leaves of this plant to be consumed as Tea. Because it tastes sweet, it is named “Sweet Tea.” Sweet tea, along with monk fruit, Hepu pearls, and Guangxi Spices, are collectively known as the four famous products of Guangxi.
Guangxi Sweet Tea is not a traditional tea; its plant belongs to the Rosaceae family, Rubus genus, and is a perennial shrub with thorns that sheds its leaves in autumn. Its leaves resemble those of maple trees.
Sweet tea primarily grows in the Jinxiu Dayaoshan area of Guangxi at elevations between 800 and 1000 meters. This region is the second-largest kingdom of medicinal plants and animals in China and is a national nature reserve, with soil rich in selenium. Unlike other common Rubus plants, its leaves have a sweet taste, and every part of the plant is valuable—roots, stems, leaves, and fruits can all be used for tea or medicine. The sweetest time for the tea is during July and August each year.
Nowadays, sweet tea is processed using the techniques for green tea, involving steps such as withering, fixation, rolling, and Drying. The finished sweet tea has a tight, twisted shape, a lustrous green color, and a spiral granular appearance.
After brewing, the tea has a light yellow color, a pleasant aroma, and an incredibly sweet taste, like drinking sugared Water, but without being cloying. Additionally, locals use sweet tea leaves instead of sugar to make local specialties like sweet tea zongzi and sweet tea rice.
The fresh fruit of Guangxi sweet tea is also called raspberry. The fresh fruit is bright red and fragrant, with sweet flesh and is highly nutritious, containing 18 amino acids, including all eight essential amino acids, and minerals like zinc, selenium, and copper. According to the “Guangxi Standard of Chinese Herbs,” Guangxi sweet tea has the effects of “clearing heat and reducing fire, moistening the lungs, expelling phlegm, and stopping coughs” and is hailed by the folk as “divine tea.”
In addition to the above, there are two valuable components in Guangxi sweet tea: one is the polyphenols in sweet tea, and the other is sweet tea extract. The polyphenols in sweet tea have good antibacterial properties and can be used as natural food preservatives. Furthermore, they have certain effects on improving rhinitis, pollen allergies, moisturizing the skin, retaining moisture, and protecting against ultraviolet rays. In Japan, Guangxi sweet tea has been developed into various health drinks to prevent pollen allergies.
The sweet tea extract contained in Guangxi sweet tea is an ideal sweetener for food processing. It has a sweet taste that is most acceptable to humans. Pure sweet tea extract is 300 times sweeter than sucrose but has only one percent of its caloric content. Many modern foods, for better taste, contain a certain amount of sucrose, such as common yogurt, which typically contains 4-6% sucrose. If sweet tea extract could replace the use of sucrose, it would be possible to produce sugar-free foods with better flavor and effectively reduce sugar intake. This has significant implications for enriching the variety of Chinese foods and enhancing food safety.