Lanshan Savoury Oil Tea 蓝山油茶
Lanshan Savoury Oil Tea is featured among the local specialties of Hunan.
Image notes
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Lanshan Savoury Oil Tea (蓝山油茶) is a bowl of fried glutinous-rice balls, nuts, beans and puffed rice soaked in a hot ginger and tea broth, made in Lanshan County (蓝山县) in Yongzhou (永州), Hunan. Locally it is also called rice-cake oil tea (粑粑油茶, babayoucha), and the Lanshan county news site describes it as a traditional snack of the county.
How it is made
The base is local glutinous rice, shaped into small balls about the size of a pigeon's egg and deep-fried. Ten to twelve of them go into each bowl with roasted peanuts, soybeans and dongmi (冻米), a puffed rice; a second Lanshan county news article also lists red beans and maize. A little chopped spring onion is scattered on top, and the bowl is then filled with a boiling broth of fresh ginger, tea leaves and a little brown sugar.
Flavour and texture
The Lanshan county news site sums up its character as hot, fragrant, sweet and crisp, with an aroma that fills the air, and credits oil tea with making people sweat and driving out cold.
Where it comes from
The Lanshan county news site tells a story that ties the dish to Cheng Jingjun (成景隽), whom Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (梁武帝) sent with troops to put down bandits around Chenzhou (郴州) and Guiyang (桂阳). When his soldiers fell ill with swelling at Fuyangtou village (富阳头村) in Tafeng town (塔峰镇), a Yao doctor explained that local people stayed well by drinking ginger tea all year round, and the swelling went down after the soldiers drank it. Cheng later asked to spend his old age in the village, grew tea and ginger there and drank several bowls of ginger tea a day; tiring of the taste, he began adding fried rice cakes, peanuts, puffed rice and spring onion, and served the result to honoured guests.
Oil tea is not unique to Lanshan: the Yongzhou culture and tourism bureau notes that drinking oil tea is widespread in the Yao villages of Jiangyong (江永), Lanshan, Ningyuan (宁远) and Jianghua (江华), and that each county makes it differently.
How it is eaten
People in Lanshan have made and drunk oil tea for several hundred years. It is prepared for festivals and celebrations and for entertaining guests, and serving it to a visitor counts as the highest courtesy. A local saying holds that a bowl on the morning of the Spring Festival wards off misfortune for the year.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.