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The Naxi people live on the cold plateau in northwest Yunnan Province where the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain lies and three rivers are running, namely the Jinsha River, the Lancang River and the Yalong River. The fight between dragon and tiger tea, a kind of tea mixed with white spirit mainly distilled from sorghum or maize, is regarded as a good medicine to dispel cold, so it is favored by the Naxi people.
The brewing method of fight between dragon and tiger tea is also very special. First, put some tea in a galipot when the water is boiling on the fire, and then baked the tea together with the pot. To avoid that the tea is singed, one needs to keep on turning the pot to let the tea be heated evenly. When the scent of the tea is baked out, pour the boiling water in the pot and cook it for 3-5 minutes. At the same time, pour the white spirit into a cap-cup with an amount of half cup, and then add the tea into the same cup. When the two kinds of liquid mix together, they will give out crack sound, which is regarded as a good omen by the Naxi people, so louder the sound, happier the people on the spot. The tea is also believed to be a good medicine to cure cold, so better drink the tea when it is still hot. One can refresh oneself through drinking the delicious and strong tea. When making the fight between dragon and tiger tea, one must not pour the white spirit into the tea, but the other way round.
The brewing procedure of the salty tea is similar to that of the fight between dragon and tiger tea, but only replace the white spirit with salt. The Naxi people also make other kinds of tea, such as the oil tea which is made by adding cooking oil and sugar tea by adding sugar.

Living in Inner Mongolia and some areas adjoining to the province, the Mongolians mainly live on beef and mutton, complemented with rice and vegetables. The brick tea is an indispensable beverage to herdsmen and drinking salty tea with milk is a Mongolian tradition. The Mongolians usually have tea three times and one meal a day. To drink salty tea with milk is not only a way of quenching thirst but also the main nourishing source. Every morning, the first thing that a housewife does is to prepare a pot of salty tea with milk for the whole family. The Mongolians like drinking hot tea, so they usually drink the tea while eating fried rice in the morning and leave the pot on the fire. Every day, Mongolians go out in the early morning and graze the herd for a whole day, so they only have one meal in a day after they return home in the evening, but they keep drinking salty tea with milk three times a day.
The salty tea with milk uses green or black brick tea as its main material and an iron pot as the cooker. Fill the iron pot with 2-3 kilograms of water, and then put 50-80 grams of brick tea pieces into the pot once the water boils. After another 5 minutes, pour milk into the pot with a ratio of 1/5 to water and stir it, and then add certain amount of salt. When the whole pot of the mixture boils, the salty tea with milk is ready to be served.

As one favorable tea of Dong ethnic minority, oil tea is like a kind of dish which can allay one's hunger, expel the wind and humid air, stimulate the appetite and prevent one from catching cold. For a people living in mountain areas all years round, the oil tea is really a kind of beverage that helps to improve one's health.
The procedure of making the oil tea has four steps.
First, choose tea. There are two kinds of tea which can be used to make the oil tea, one is specially-baked tea dust, and the other is tender leaves and buds just picked from tea trees. Which one to choose depends on different drinkers' taste.
Second, prepare other materials, including pignut, popcorn, soybean, sesame, polished glutinous rice, and dried bamboo shoot
Third, make tea.
If the tea is made for a cerebration or a banquet, then the fourth step is required, that is to prepare the tea. One needs to fry the prepared materials and put them into bowls, and then filtrate tealeaves before pouring the brewed tea into those bowls when the tea is still hot.
Because there are many materials to prepare when making the oil tea and the brewing procedure is complicated, so many people invite oil-tea experts to help them during important occasions.

The Dai ethnic minority is a hospitable people good at singing and dancing.
Bamboo-tube tea is known as Laduo in Dai language. The producing procedure of bamboo-tube tea is quite special, which can be divided into three steps. 1) Put the tea into bamboo tube. Put the dried spring tea (the tea growing in the spring time) or preliminary-processed tea into the bamboo tube. The bamboo used should be just chopped down and has a growing period of about one year. 2) Bake the tea. Put the bamboo tube on the fire for 6 to 7 minutes until the tealeaves is softened. Press the tealeaves with a wooden stick, and then fill up the tube again with more tealeaves. Repeat this procedure until tealeaves in the tube are compacted. 3) Take out the tea. When tealeaves are completely baked, cut open the tube with a knife and take out the column-shaped bamboo-tube tea.
After everybody sits at the round bamboo table, we can make the bamboo-tube tea. 1) Make the tea. Break off some bamboo-tube tea with fingers and put it into teacups, then pour boiling water with an amount of 7/10 or 8/10 cup. After 3 to 5 minutes of brewing, the tea is ready. 2) Drink the tea. The bamboo-tube tea has the pure taste of tea as well as the strong flavor of bamboo. One will find everything new and fresh when drinking the delicious tea.

Tea is regarded as something belonging to the gods. For the Tibetan, from Zanpu (King) to Lama, from the rulers to ordinary citizens, they eat more cheese and meat than vegetable and fruit, so tea becomes an indispensable beverage to them in every meal.
Major kinds of tea drunk by the Tibetans include buttered tea, tea with milk, tea with salt, and green tea. According to a survey, 73.9 percent of the respondents voted the buttered tea as the most popular kind followed by the tea with milk.
The buttered tea takes tea as its main material mixed with some other food, so one will find various tastes when drinking it. The tea not only can get one's body warmed up, but also can nourish the drinker.
There is a set of rules to follow when one visits a Tibetan family and is invited to drink the buttered tea. One cannot drink up the whole bowl of tea in one breath, but lick the mushy tea while drink it. The hospitable host often keeps the guests' bowl filled up; so don't touch the bowl if you don't want to drink the tea. If you have had enough and cannot drink anymore, you may leave the bowl there for the moment and drink up the tea when you're leaving. Only one follows these rules in line with the customs and manners of the Tibetans can she/he receive a warm welcome from them.

The Three-Course Tea of the Bai ethnic minority is a dramatic tea ceremony. This ceremony was originally held by the senior members of a family to express best wishes to juniors when they were going to pursue studies, learn a skill, start a business or get married. Now, to drink Three-Course Tea has become a conventional ceremony when people of the Bai ethnic minority greet guests.
In the past, the ceremony was normally conducted by the senior family members, but now juniors can also take charge of the whole procedure and offer tea to elder members. In Three-Course Tea, the brewing techniques and materials used in each course are different from each other.
The first course of tea is called bitter tea, meaning that one will suffer a lot before she/he starts his or her career.

Chinese tea may be classified into five categories according to the different methods by which it is processed.
1) Green tea: Green tea is the variety that keeps the original color of the tealeaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists mainly of Longjing tea of Zhejiang Province, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.Green Tea is the most natural of all Chinese teaclasses. It's picked, naturally dried, and then fried briefly (a process called "killing the green") to get rid of its grassy smell. Green Tea has the most medical value and the least caffeine content of all Chinese tea classes. Aroma is medium to high, and flavor is light to medium. About 50% of China's teas are Green tea.
2) Black tea: Black tea, known as "red tea" in China, is the category which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis of the green tea. The best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui, Dianhong of Yunnan, Suhong of Jiangsu, Chuanhong of Sichuan and Huhong of Hunan.Chinese Black tea produces a full-bodies amber when brewed. Black tea undergoes withering (drying), left to ferment for a long while, and then roasted. Black tea leaves become completely oxidized after processing. Black tea has a robust taste with a mild aroma. It contains the highest amount of caffeine in Chinese tea classes.
3) Oolong tea: This represents a variety half way between the green and the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. It is a specialty from the provinces on China's southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.Typical Oolong Tea leaves are green in the middle and red on the edges as a result of the process to soften tealeaves. Oolong Tea leaves are withered and spread before undergoing a brief fermentation process. Then Oolong Tea is fried, rolled and roasted. Oolong Tea is the chosen tea for the famous Kung Fu Cha brewing process. It's the serious Chinese tea drinker's tea. Aroma ranges from light to medium. Beginners in Oolong Tea should be careful as even though flavor is only mild to medium, the tea could be very strong.
4)Compressed tea: This is the kind of tea that is compressed and hardened into a certain shape. It is good for transport and storage and is mainly supplied to the ethnic minorities living in the border areas of the country. Most of the compressed tea is in the form of bricks; it is, therefore, generally called "brick tea", though it is sometimes also in the form of cakes and bowls. It is mainly produced in Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.Most Chinese Compressed Tea uses Black Tea as base tea. Compressed Tea has all the characteristics of Black Tea. It can be stored for years and decades. Aged Compressed Tea has a tamed flavor that Compressed Tea fans would pay huge price for.
5) Scented Tea: This kind of tea is made by mixing fragrant flowers in the tealeaves in the course of processing. The flowers commonly used for this purpose are jasmine and magnolia among others. Jasmine tea is a well-known favorite with the northerners of China and with a growing number of foreigners.It is subdivided into Flower Tea and Scented Tea. Flower Tea is a simple concept that dried flowers are used, without much processing, to make tea. Scented Tea uses green tea, red tea as base and mix with scent of flowers. Chinese Scented Tea has light to medium flavor and medium to strong aroma.

"When a guest comes to my home from afar on a cold night, I light bamboo to boil tea to offer him." -- Ancient Chinese poem.
China is the home country of tea. Before the Tang Dynasty, Chinese tea was exported by land and sea, first to Japan and Korea, then to India and Central Asia and, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, to the Arabian Peninsula. In the early period of the 17th century, Chinese tea was exported to Europe, where the upper class adopted the fashion of drinking tea. Chinese tea--like Chinese silk and china--has become synonymous worldwide with refined culture. At the heart of the art of tea--the study and practice of tea in all its aspects--is the simple gesture of offering a cup of tea to a guest that for Chinese people today is a fundamental social custom, as it has been for centuries. China traces the development of tea as an art form to Lu Yu, known as "the Saint of Tea" in Chinese history, who lived during the Tang Dynasty and who wrote The Book of Tea, the first ever treatise on tea and tea culture. The spirit of tea permeates Chinese culture, and throughout the country there are many kinds of teas, teahouses, tea legends, tea artifacts and tea customs. Better-known places to enjoy a good cup of tea in China include Beijing noted for its variety of teahouses; Fujian and Guangdong provinces and other places in the southeast of China that serve gongfu tea, a formal serving of tea in tiny cups; the West Lake in Hangzhou, also the home of the Tea Connoisseurs Association, noted for its excellent green tea; and provinces in southwest China like Yunnan where the ethnic groups less affected by foreign cultures retain tea ceremonies and customs in original tea-growing areas.

Tea is the largest consumed drink in the world. All tea in the world originally came from China and only in the last 150 years has it been grown outside of China. Research suggests that Chinese tea was cultivated for medical purposes as far back as the 12th century B.C. and became a popular drink during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). There are numerous methods to produce different categories of tea. The most popular types of tea include:

Chinese Green Tea
The production process includes withering, pan-frying or steaming, rolling and shaping and drying.

Oolong Tea
A lightly fermented tea, the production process includes withering, rolling in a basket to bruise the leaf edges, short fermentation time and finally pan frying and drying.

Black Tea
A full fermented tea, the production process includes withering, rolling or cutting into strips, long and full fermentation, and drying.

Other categories of include Compressed or "Brick" Tea and Scented Tea. Brick tea is black tea that is compressed and hardened into certain shapes and is ideal for transport and storage. Scented tea is made by adding flowers such as magnolia and jasmine with the tea leaves during processing.

Tea can be classified according to its after-processing texture; small leaf being of the best quality and fannings and dust being of the worst quality. Chinese tea drinkers will never drink fannings or dust quality tea.

Small Leaf - Best Quality
Broken Leaf - Excellent to Good Quality
Large Leaf - Good Quality
Fannings - Poor Quality (Lipton and other Tea Bags)
Dust - Poor Quality (Lipton and other Tea Bags)

Health Benfits of Tea
In the beginning Chinese tea was consumed for its medicinal properties but gradully became a popular drink. The three main components of the tea are caffeine, polyphenols and essential oils. Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and promotes good blood circulation. Studies show that polyphenols may act as an anticancer agent. Essential oils aid in digestion and help emulsify fat.