Xie Yuda Tea

Xie Yuda traces to 1875, when Xie Zheng'an, born into a Huizhou tea-merchant family whose fortunes had been wrecked by the Taiping Rebellion decades earlier, rebuilt the business and created Huangshan Maofeng at Caoxi (now Fuxi), in the foothills of Huangshan. His method — picking especially tender leaf and refining the traditional firing and rolling process — produced a silver-tipped tea that sold out on its first shipment to Shanghai and quickly became a fixture among the city's tea-drinking elite. The house grew into the leading name among Huizhou's five major historical tea merchants, and its Huangshan Maofeng processing technique is now recognized as part of China's UNESCO-listed intangible cultural heritage. Six generations later, the company — now operating as Huangshan Xie Yuda Tea Leaf Co., Ltd — still processes tea from gardens around Huangshan, producing roughly 2,000 tons a year across Maofeng, Taiping Houkui and Keemun black tea, with 2022 revenue near 197 million yuan. The business markets a "state-gift tea" line alongside its retail range and sells through Tmall and its own storefronts as well as its Huizhou headquarters. It's a rare case of a single 1875 recipe still anchoring the company that invented it, six generations and roughly a century and a half on.