Panda tea ( Chinese: 熊猫茶), or panda dung tea, produced in the Ya’an mountainous region of

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, is a type of

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

fertilized by the dung of

panda The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear or simply panda, is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its white coat with black patches around the eyes, ears, legs and shoulders. Its body is ...

s. When it officially went on the market in April 2012, it was reputedly the world's most expensive tea with 50 grams (approximately 16 cups of tea) sold for $3,500 (£2,200), or about $200 (£130) a cup. An Yanshi, a local panda tea entrepreneur, argues that the tea is healthy, given that pandas only consume wild bamboo and absorb only about 30% of the nutrients, and that it encourages "the culture of recycling and using organic fertilizers."

References

{{Tea-stub Chinese tea grown in Sichuan