Taojiang Pounded Tea 桃江擂茶
Taojiang Pounded Tea is featured among the local specialties of Hunan.
Taojiang Pounded Tea (桃江擂茶) is a drink of tea leaves, peanuts and sesame ground to a paste in an earthenware bowl and topped up with water, made in Taojiang County (桃江县), Yiyang (益阳). The Taojiang County culture and tourism bureau calls it Taohuajiang pounded tea (桃花江擂茶), also known as "three raw things soup" (三生汤), and traces it to Majitang (马迹塘).
Where it comes from
The county's legend is set in the Three Kingdoms period. Liu Bei's army was marching south through Majitang in the heat of the seventh month when many of its northern soldiers, unused to the local water and climate, fell ill one after another. Zhuge Liang brought in a local folk doctor, who prescribed raw rice, raw ginger and old tea leaves pounded together and stirred into warm water. The habit of drinking this soup is said to have passed down the generations and spread to other townships of Taojiang and beyond the county, becoming today's pounded tea, with peanuts, tea leaves and sesame as the main ingredients.
How it is made
The tools are an earthenware grinding bowl (擂钵) and a wooden pestle that can be as long as two to three metres. A little tea is pounded first, then peanuts and sesame go in. The maker grips the bowl between the legs, holds its rim with one hand and the lower end of the pestle with the other, and grinds round the whole bowl, first dry and then with a little cool boiled water, until the mixture is a paste. Warm water or iced water is poured on according to the season or the guest's wish, and toasted rice is scattered over the top. Some places add sugar, some a little salt, and some leave it plain.
Flavour and how it is served
The tea is white and milky, and tastes sweet and mellow. Hosts ladle it into a large bowl with a bamboo or wooden scoop and hand it to guests with both hands, refilling the bowl before it is empty; for rarer guests they add tea snacks such as fried sweet-potato slices, roasted peanuts and sour long beans. Pounded-tea houses are found in Taojiang's county town and townships, and the bureau reports that the tea has been put forward for Yiyang's municipal intangible cultural heritage list.
More dishes to compare
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Anhua Pounded Tea 安化擂茶 →
Anhua County, also in Yiyang, has its own pounded tea; the two pages together show how the drink varies within one prefecture.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.