According to legend, in ancient times there was a man who sincerely worshipped Guanyin Bodhisattva. Every morning, he would worship a cup of green tea in front of the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva. Once he was offering tea, Guanyin Bodhisattva appeared, pointing out that there was a mountain where God could pick tea. So he trudged to the rock and found this magical tea, only to see the leaves of the tea tree shining with iron color. So, he carefully transplanted the tea tree to his home, carefully maintained it and propagated it through pruning. This is the ancestor of Tieguanyin tea tree.
Another legend is that during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a woodcutter named Wei Xin in Songlintou Township, Anxi. Once, when Wei Xin was chopping wood, he accidentally found a strange tea tree in a crack in the rock next to Kannonji. Its leaves were shining with black sand and green iron in the sun. So he dug up the tea tree, brought it back to his home, planted it in his yard by cutting branches, and picked its leaves to make tea, which was called Tieguanyin.
There are also some legends similar to the above two legends. These legends are similar in that tea trees are all related to Guanyin Bodhisattva, so the name of tea has the word "Guanyin". There are two explanations for the word "iron": one is that the leaves of tea trees shine "iron color" in the sun, and the other is that the tea leaves are "brown as iron" after fermentation.
Tieguanyin originated in Xiping, Anxi County, Fujian Province, and has a subtropical monsoon climate. The folk proverb here says, "There are flowers in four seasons, and there are thunder and no snow in severe winter". Surrounded by Xiping mountains in Anxi, the soil is mostly weakly acidic red soil, which is very suitable for the growth of tea and can be described as the aura of the land. Anxi Tieguanyin is fat, curly and firm, with golden and bright soup color, rich fragrance, long aftertaste, rich taste, mellow and fresh, fragrant at the entrance, sweet and sweet aftertaste, and has the reputation of "seven bubbles with fragrance".
Anxi Tieguanyin "bathes in the essence of the sun and the moon, gathers the spirit of the mountains, and gets the glow of haze. Eating it can cure all diseases." Drinking Tieguanyin tea regularly is good for health and longevity, just like the blessing of Guanyin Bodhisattva. In addition, the tea color of Anxi Tieguanyin has a unique black sand green iron color, so it is called "Tieguanyin". This explanation is logical and I think it is more appropriate.