• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Let's Drink Tea!

Everything You Need, To Enjoy Drinking Tea

  • Home
  • Tea Help
    • What’s Your Tea?
    • Where to Buy Tea Online
    • Buying Guides
      • Best Chai Tea
      • Best Glass Teapot With Infuser
      • Best Green Tea Brands
      • Best Herbal Tea Brands
      • Best Instant Tea
      • Best Loose Tea Infusers
      • Best Small Electric Kettles
      • Best Tea Cups
      • Best Tea Infuser Mugs
      • Best Tea Infuser Travel Mugs
      • Best Tea Sets
      • Best Whistling Tea Kettles
    • Brewing Guide
  • Types Of Tea
    • Black Tea
      • Assam Tea
      • Ceylon Black Tea
      • Darjeeling Tea
      • Golden Monkey Tea
      • Keemun Tea
      • Lapsang Souchong Tea
      • Nepal Black Tea
      • Yunnan Black Tea
    • Green Tea
      • Bancha Tea
      • Biluochun
      • Dragon Well Tea
      • Genmaicha
      • Gunpowder Tea
      • Gyokuro
      • Houjicha
      • Jasmine Tea
      • Lushan Yunwu Tea
      • Lu’An Gua Pian (Melon Seeds)
      • Matcha Green Tea Powder Guide
      • Sencha Tea Guide
    • Oolong Tea Guide
      • Ali Mountain Tea
      • Big Red Robe (Da Hong Pao) Tea
      • Dancong Tea Guide
      • Iron Goddess Tea
      • Pouchong Tea
      • Shui Xian Tea
    • Pu-erh Tea Guide
    • White Tea
      • Jasmine Silver Needle Tea
      • White Hair Silver Needle Tea
      • White Peony Tea
    • Yellow Tea
  • Blog
    • Other Tea Types
    • Tea Advice
    • Tea Information
    • Tea Preparation
    • Tea Recipes
You are here: Home / Types Of Tea / Green Tea / Lu’An Gua Pian (Melon Seeds) Tea Guide

Lu’An Gua Pian (Melon Seeds) Tea Guide

Lu An Melon Seed green tea

Lu’an Melon Seed is a Chinese green tea. Pronounced “Liu An Gua Pian” and also known as Liuan Leaf, it holds the “China Famous Tea” designation.

The leaves smell sweet and fresh; when wet, they resemble melon seeds, hence the name. The brew has a smooth, sweet, nut-like flavor that is slightly reminiscent of toasted pumpkin seeds.

Table of Contents

  • 1 Where To Buy Liu An Gua Pian Tea
  • 2 How To Prepare Lu’An Melon Seed Tea
    • 2.1 Brewing Instructions
  • 3 Best Liu An Melon Seed Teas
    • 3.1 Most Convenient
    • 3.2 Best Buy
  • 4 More Information About Melon Seed Tea
    • 4.1 Processing
    • 4.2 History

 

Where To Buy Liu An Gua Pian Tea

Lu’an Leaf Tea can be difficult to get outside of China. You may find it in a specialty tea shop or through some online vendors. If you are unsure where to begin, you can check out some of my recommendations below.

 

How To Prepare Lu’An Melon Seed Tea

The preparation instructions given here are for loose leaf teas. For tea bags, you can just follow the instructions given on the box.

Chinese green teas are generally much easier to brew than Japanese varieties and this one is no exception. Like most other green teas, Liuan Leaf tea should be steeped in cooler water than black or oolong teas.

A temperature of 80°C (176°F) is a good starting point. To get this temperature, you can just use a simple stove-top kettle to bring the water to a boil and then let it cool down for about two minutes.

For Chinese teas, the temperature is not as important as it is for Japanese teas. As long as it is a bit below boiling, it should be fine. If you would like to be more accurate in judging the water temperature, you can simply use a thermometer.

If you plan on trying a lot of varieties of tea and/or coffee it might be worth it to invest in a water boiler/warmer or an electric kettle with a variable temperature setting.

Personally, I recommend this Cuisinart kettle, because it has presets for every type of tea, so you always get the perfect temperature:

Cuisinart CPK-17P1 Electric Cordless Tea Kettle
Cuisinart CPK-17P1 Electric Cordless Tea Kettle
$99.95
View on Amazon
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
03/22/2023 08:35 am GMT

Many Chinese will brew Liu An Gua Pian in a plain 8oz glass. Many restaurants in China do this as well.

In tea shops, however, you will usually be served Lu’An Melon Seed in a traditional lidded cup called a gaiwan, which is what I will use for these instructions.

 

Brewing Instructions

  1. Fill your gaiwan (or glass) about halfway with hot water to pre-heat it. Tilt the cup a bit so that the water creeps up the side and then rotate it so the inside gets wet all the way around. Then pour the water out.
  2. Cover the bottom of the gaiwan with a shallow layer of dry leaves. You will need approximately 1 teaspoon. Use twice this amount if you are brewing your tea in an 8oz glass.
  3. Fill the gaiwan about one third of the way with hot water. The temperature should be below boiling; around 80°C (176°F) is ideal.
  4. Tilt the cup a bit and rotate, so that the leaves get wet all over. Then add more hot water until the gaiwan is 80-90% full.
  5. Place the lid on the gaiwan and let the tea steep for 1-2 minutes. It is ready to drink when most of the leaves have sunk to the bottom of the cup.
  6. When you get down to about one quarter of the tea remaining, refill the gaiwan with hot water of the same temperature as before and let it steep for 30 seconds to one minute.
  7. You can get 3-5 infusions out of most varieties. Increase the steeping time 30 seconds to one minute for each infusion. How many infusions you do depends entirely on your taste. Experiment.

Use the amounts given in these instructions as a rough guide. If you find the resulting tea too weak, add more tea leaves; if it is too strong, reduce the amount of leaves used. Similarly, try increasing or decreasing the steeping times.

If the tea is too bitter, reduce the temperature of the water. Basically, you’ll want to keep experimenting until you come up with the perfect brew for your particular taste.

 

Best Liu An Melon Seed Teas

Most Convenient

Many people already have an account with Amazon.com so it is probably the easiest place to buy tea online. They have a bunch of options that look like they come directly from Chinese store shelves. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the quality can vary a lot.

Luckily, they have recently added some new teas and among them is this Premium Lu An Gua Pian from Best Leaf Teas:

Bestleaftea Spring Picked Premium Lu An Gua Pian Green Tea
Bestleaftea Spring Picked Premium Lu An Gua Pian Green Tea
View on Amazon
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

It is an excellent tea, though it definitely costs more than all the generic varieties found on Amazon.

 

Best Buy

I prefer buying from online shops and my favorite option is this great Melon Seed from Teavivre:

Teavivre Lu An Gua Pian Green Tea
Teavivre Lu An Gua Pian Green Tea
from $28.90

Sample available for $3.00

Learn More
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

There really aren’t many options when buying this variety of tea online and the one from Teavivre is the only one that is great and still reasonably priced.

 

More Information About Melon Seed Tea

Lu’an Guapian tea comes form the Qiyun Mountain area of the Lu’an region in Anhui province, China. The bushes grow above 500 meters above sea level on steep mountain slopes. The climate is mild with a lot of rain, making it perfect for the camelia sinensis plant.

The species of camelia sinensis used is a small-leaf tea bush that is native to the area. Due to the climate conditions, the leaves end up with a higher nutritional content than most teas, making them similar to Longjing or Lu Mountain Cloud Mist tea.

 

Processing

Melon Seed tea is on the list of China’s 10 most famous teas. A big reason for that is that it is entirely unique. Unlike most green teas, which are made from the youngest leaves and the fresh buds, this one is made only from larger and more mature leaves.

Specifically, the second leaf on the branch is used, and only the leaf. No buds or any other parts are included. The leaves must be picked at a specific time of the year called “grain rain”, which usually falls around April 20th. The central vein of each leaf is removed, so that only the leaf material remains.

Processing the leaves for Liuan Guapian is involved and difficult. It starts easy enough: spreading the leaves out for a bit. Then it gets more difficult. In order to stop the oxidation process, the leaves need to be stir-fried. But unlike younger leaves and buds, the more mature leaves require higher temperatures, which makes the process uncomfortable for the workers.

Despite the intense heat, they have to control the temperature as best they can and they need to adjust the frying time based on the temperature fluctuations, which invariably happen with an open fire. Getting this exactly right, while being so close to an intensely hot fire, is exceedingly difficult.

The leaves must be roasted three times to get the flavor just right. The second roast is lighter, but the third is the most difficult of all. Every roast must be performed inside a completely sealed room.

The leaves are also shaped during the process, which is what gives them their distinctive plump shape. It is this shape that resulted in the name “melon seeds”, because the leaves resemble the shape of a melon seed.

All of the roasting and the use of older leaves results in a different flavor from other green teas. It is sweeter with a spicy, smokey overtone. It only has a very slight hint of the grassy flavor that is so distinct in other green teas.

 

History

Supposedly, Lu’an Guapian was first produced back in 1905. A local tea master bought a bunch of the larger leaves (probably because they were cheaper) and decided to try something different. He removed the central vein and all of the stems and stalks, leaving only the cut-down leaf material.

His newly invented tea was a huge hit and other farmers in the area began producing it as well. Extra production steps were added, like the pan-drying and the rolling into the distinctive shape.

This same process is still in use today. This tea is popular in restaurants in China, but you don’t commonly find it in Chinese restaurants outside China.

For more on Lu’An Melon Seed tea check out the Wikipedia page.

Enjoy this post? Please share...

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Current Deals

  • Get $6 OFF orders $40+ at Teavivre with code: sharetea
  • Get 10% OFF your first matcha at Matcha Source
  • Get 10% OFF at Culinary Teas by entering email on their site
  • Get 15% OFF at California Tea House by entering email on their site

Search This Site

Types of Tea

Footer

Important Links

  • Home
  • What’s Your Tea?
  • Blog
  • Health Benefits of Tea
  • About and Contact
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Return Policy
  • Disclosure Policy

Image Reuse

Images on this site are free to share (unless attributed to a 3rd party), as long as you give credit to Let's Drink Tea and provide a link back to the page from which the image came.

Disclaimer

Let's Drink Tea is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Nothing on this site constitutes official medical or nutritional advice. We are not professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for medical advice.

Contact

Let's Drink Tea
30 N Gould St. STE R
Sheridan, WY 98201

[email protected]

Copyright © 2023 · Let's Drink Tea · All rights reserved.