Vine tea, a small-leaved species belonging to the genus Vitis viridis in the family Vitis vinifera, is a wild vine. Because after making tea, there will be a layer of moldy hoarfrost on the surface of the dry tea, and the ancient Tujia people called it "mold tea", and later renamed "berry tea".
It is an ancient and niche tea, medicinal and drinkable. Because it is not a camellia plant, rattan tea does not belong to one of the six major tea categories in the tea classification, but is a medicinal health tea that belongs to the same substitute tea as ginseng tea and eucommia tea.
In the past, the Tujia people lived in the remote mountains of Xiangxi, the information was closed, and they lived a self-sufficient life, once they were sick, they relied on the herbs in the mountains, and rattan tea was one of them.
It is recorded in the existing Hunan Institute of Nationalities' "Commenting on the Five Volumes of Butterfly Biography", "Yongding County", and "Yongding Native Chronicles", which shows that rattan tea (berry tea) was an indispensable tea-like plant for both medicine and food in the life of the Tujia ancestors at that time.
After more than 30 years of efforts by many scientific and technological workers, it has been proved that vine tea (berry tea) is the plant resource with the highest flavonoid content found at home and abroad. Known as the "King of Flavonoids".
The main production areas of rattan tea are in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, Yongshun, Xiangxi, and Enshi, Hubei, which is also a selenium-rich and high-selenium soil belt in China, so rattan tea (berry tea) is also a kind of selenium-rich tea. It has many health care effects.