Quanzhou Anxi Hot Spring

Quanzhou Anxi Hot Spring, in Anxi County of Quanzhou, Fujian Province, draws on chloride thermal waters in the highland tea-growing heartland of Fujian — the famous Tieguanyin oolong tea, one of China's most celebrated and internationally recognised teas, is cultivated in the mountains surrounding Anxi, giving this thermal destination an unusually distinctive and aromatic cultural context. The naturally saline chloride thermal waters, emerging from the volcanic and metamorphic geology of the Min River headwater region, are used in therapeutic bathing following the Fujian hot spring tradition that integrates thermal wellness with the contemplative practices of Chinese tea culture. Quanzhou city itself — recently inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a historic maritime Silk Road emporium — preserves an extraordinary multicultural heritage of Islamic mosques, Hindu temple carvings, Manichaean shrines, and Song and Yuan dynasty maritime trade history that gives Anxi Hot Spring a profoundly cosmopolitan cultural backdrop.