Seconds from a mass transit railway stop in the Tin Hau district of Hong Kong, three staff members at the LMM Perfume Lemon Tea shop chop, blend and furiously shake their freshly made plastic cups of “Overlord Handmade Lemon Tea”, which costs more than $5US a serving, an above average price for the city.

“What kind of lemons do you use?” they’re asked.

“Perfume lemons!” they shout proudly. The resulting taste doesn’t resemble a classic lemon iced tea, nor is it as tart as homemade lemonade. It’s tangy, like a sweeter grapefruit, and due to an aftertaste that resembles lime, it’s abrasive, refreshing and addictive all at once. One’s taste buds crave more just to assimilate the unique flavor.

Ten minutes away on Cannon Street in the busy Causeway Bay district of the city, two local women grab oddly shaped green lemons from a full box at their feet. Once in hand, they too slice and dice their produce before adding salt and ice to the mixture they call “Trump Salted Lemon Tea” at their Yau O Lemon stall.

“Where do you get your lemons from?” they’re asked.

“Guangdong,” one of the women responds in halting English.

LEMON! SEE THROUGH IN THE SUNLIGHT

Half a block away on the same street, a line of people are gathered at a bright yellow stand where the staff look flustered as they take orders from the crowd. Inside their stall, a blending machine is shaking the tea like a jackhammer. This is Lam Heung Ling, one of the latest branches of an expanding chain that originated in the Zhangjiang region of China’s Guangdong Province, a little over 400 kilometers from Hong Kong.

Because they claim to sell nearly 10,000 cups of iced tea a month at each branch, Lam Heung Ling has even purchased their own lemon orchard in China, where they grow the special lemons that form the basis of many of their drinks. They even say they deliver them to Hong Kong within 38 hours. “When life gives you lemons, smash them!” says their prominent logo. Their motto is apt, for day and night these days, they’re doing a smashing business.

In the early 2000’s, Hong Kong went gaga for coffee and bubble tea. Over the last decade, it was burgers and bakeries. And now, it seems the city is craving iced lemon tea. Fortunately, it’s in a good location to meet demand, even if nobody is quite sure why the sudden craze exists.

Make no mistake, lemon tea has been popular in Hong Kong for decades. It’s long been consumed to undercut greasy food served in local neighborhood diners. For 47 years, local brand Vita, for example, has done a booming business packaging their lemon tea in paper box containers and selling them in over 40 countries.

Lemon Tea Culture: To Guangdong and Back!

Over the last several decades, Hong Kong’s basic lemon tea culture eventually spread to neighboring Guangdong province across the Chinese border.

More recently, in turn, entrepreneurs there have created their own unique iced lemon tea styles, and have now been exporting some of those brands back to Hong Kong. Whereas Hong Kong’s iced lemon tea was once black tea powder, water, syrup, ice cubes and a few slices of lemon, these new brands emphasize the “homemade” and “healthy” aspects of both their craft, and the lemons themselves.

Today’s iced lemon tea makes full use of local, homegrown Chinese lemons for flavor – and bright, colorful marketing to sell.

The lemons are “muddled”, “crushed”, “hand crashed” or “smashed” to maximize the taste and get the most out of the scent. Ice is also key, as are unique twists for each branch. Jo’s Cha, which boasts 500 branches in China alone, mixes lemons with jasmine tea, or even bitter gourd. “LMM Hand Crashed Lemon Tea” uses both smooth and wrinkled lemons for different flavor mixtures. Many shops also offer to mix the lemon tea with such fruits as peaches and grapes.

Part of the current ice lemon tea attraction could be attributed to a growing health awareness in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. During one press conference held by the Shanghai municipal government at the peak of the crisis, a doctor affiliated with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine said that Chinese food therapy was recommended for people who were self-treating at home and that people who “have no symptoms or nasal congestion can soak water with fresh lemon slices to drink.”

Following that event and similar comments made online, sales skyrocketed throughout China.

Major stores across Shanghai and Beijing reported selling out of the fruit. One lemon farmer in Anyue, a county in the southwestern province of Sichuan, even claimed that his sales increased to 20 to 30 tons a day, from just five or six tons before the pandemic. Other farmers reported that their sales had at least doubled. “It seems people have suddenly realized lemons are good,” one farmer told the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s premiere daily English newspaper. “I hope the awareness will last.”

Aside from health and taste, pure commerce could also be playing a part. 1,200 kilometers from Hong Kong, Anyue county is hailed as China’s “lemon capital” and one of the world’s five biggest lemon-producing areas, responsible for over 80 percent of the country’s output. It’s currently home to 561 lemon processing firms with future plans calling for “eight lemon theme parks, ten lemon demonstration areas and six agricultural tourism attractions″, according to The China Project, a New York based-China focussed online news platform. They recently even opened a “lemon tourist area” in Yanqiao Village, featuring lemon trees alongside amusement rides.

A glimpse at a crowded lemon iced tea shop in China. It’s estimated that there are anywhere from nearly 10,000 to half a million lemon tea shops in the country now.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Tongnan county, an International Lemon Festival was recently held to go along with its already established Lemon Research Institute. Currently, officials in Tongnan and Anyue are also discussing the joint development of a mega lemon industrial park.

So it’s quite certain that lemons – and lemon tea – have a flavorful future in China at least, while in Hong Kong, it’s anyone’s guess how long this cool and smashing trend will last. Already, in some local publications, there are stories of emerging new tea trends from Taiwan, which include such experimental flavors as charcoal roasted black tea, offering a “rich tea soup aroma”.

But if you’re going to leave a sour taste in someone’s mouth, it might as well be with lemons.

POST SCRIPT: This is a variation of a story I wrote that was originally published on a French website called Newsendip. Recent visits to China made me want to revisit this article. There are a few notable differences now between lemon iced tea on the Mainland and Hong Kong. The most obvious one is the size of the shops. In China, they’re often spacious (as opposed to Hong Kong’s cramped stalls), which gives way to a brighter environment and more attractive atmosphere (“Good mountains, good water, good lemons!” proclaims one shop). They’re also far cheaper ($13-16 RMB as opposed to $30-38 HK). Mainland shops also have the edge when it comes to experimenting. Watermelon, coconut, and even banana blends are being highlighted now in China. But eventually, such styles will trickle down to Hong Kong. Where the tail was once wagging the dog, not anymore…