How to Make Chinese Eight Treasures Tea at Home – 八宝茶 (Ba Bao Cha)

I’ve been meaning to post this blog for some time knowing many of the people in my circles may enjoy it and share with others.

Yes! Another recipe blog post. Don’t worry, I won’t make you read through the whole entire thing just to get to the recipe. I’m going to give you the recipe first so you don’t have to scroll down to the bottom of this post to get it.

But before I do that here are some quick bits of information about Eight Treasures Tea and it’s health benefits.

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About Eight Treasures Tea

Eight Treasures Tea, or Ba Bao Cha, is super tasty and the perfect amount of sweet. Honestly, you can put any eight items into your tea to make your own flavors. The key is how much you add. If you add too much of one item, you may get too much floral, sweet, or bitter tastes. When I tried this tea at a hot pot place, it had very similar ingredients to the tea recipe in this post.

Health Benefits

From what I have read, and from what I know about the Chinese culture, teas are meant to cleanse the body of toxins and revitalize you. In China, when you are sick people will tell you to ‘drink more hot water’ because they believe it cleanses the body of toxins and sickness and makes you feel better. This is the same with soups, and you may see some families drinking hot soup with almost every meal.

As far as healthy tea blends go, the Eight Treasures Tea has health benefits like restoring your chi, helping you relax, giving you an energy boost, lowering blood sugar and cholesterol, and hydrating skin.

The Eight Treasures Tea Recipe

Because I didn’t have any ginseng and couldn’t find it at my local market, I used a little dried lemon, which did provide for more of a bitter taste. I recommend using the ingredients below for the best batch. The key is not using too much of the ingredients in one carafe or the tastes will be overwhelming. Everyone’s taste buds are different, so start off with lower quantities of each item first when making this for the first time.

Prep Time: 3 minutes
Brew Time: 10-15 minutes
What You Need:

I’ve put links to the items you will need in the post for your convenience! Just add to your cart and GO!

• Dried Rosebud Flowers
• Dried Chrysanthemum
• Dried Long Gan – (a fruit similar to Lychee but smaller)
• Dried Goji Berries
• Dried Red Dates
• Ginseng
• Green Tea – (I like Dragon Well)
• Rock Sugar

You’ll need a big carafe or pot for this to steep in. It’s easier to make a large carafe of the tea rather than making a single cup, just because there are so many ingredients. But if you would only like a single cup, make sure it’s a big cup.

Combine your desired amount of ingredients to the carafe and let it steep for 10-15 minutes. As the ingredients steep, the flavor of the tea will become more and more flavorful. The goji berries and the dates with have really opened up by then.

Where to Find Ingredients

Many of these ingredients you can find at your local Chinese market, online, or in your basic grocery store. If you can swing it, try to get your tea from a Chinese tea importer. The teas you can get at Chinese markets are very good and have likely been sitting on the shelf for a long while.

I’ve been able to tell the difference between qualities during my time in both countries and the products that aren’t sold in a Chinese market, and are fresher, are usually the best.

If you can find a place that imports Chinese teas, you’ll get better quality and flavor if you purchase from them.

How I Found This Tea

It’s likely you won’t get to this part because I gave you the ingredients and recipe for the beverage. However, in case you want to know how I discovered this tea, here’s the story.

I was at a hot pot place celebrating one of the teachers from EF who was leaving onto other journeys after a beloved time with EF. We decided to go to a hot pot place near the Xi’an City Wall. When we arrived, we order massive amounts of food and then drinks. Everyone seemed to order this tea and I didn’t think much of it.

When everyone was handed their steaming hot clear beer mug full of this beverage and the colorful ingredients swirling around inside, I, of course, asked what it might be. Whoever I had asked offered me a quick sip, and I was forever hooked.

On my way out the door, I took a few moments to ask the server in the restaurant what was in the tea. Beside her were already pre-made clear mugs covered in cellophane for preservation, she started pointing to each item and naming them off.

No doubt, there would be a recipe online, but at times, I’m shocked by what I can’t find sometimes. To spare myself any future shame I might feel for not asking, I asked anyway.

If you enjoyed this blog post and tried this tea, leave a message in the comments! To see more about my journeys in China and other things I’ve learned, visit my article on getting a massage in China.

Other Recipes to Try!

• Tomato and Scrambled Egg Dish
• 5 Simple & Authentic Chinese Recipes to Make at Home
• Easy Dumpling Recipe