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cropped screenshot showing a drink called 手打柠檬鸭屎香

手打柠檬鸭屎香
鸭屎香是真的香！精选潮州凤凰……

(China-accessible version)

This drink's name translates to something like "hand-made lemon duck-feces fragrance". I get the feeling feces = 屎 isn't as repulsive as it is in other cultures. It seems strange that some marketing department would consider this an appropriate name. I'm assuming it doesn't really contain duck poo.

Question: Why is there a drink called 手打柠檬鸭屎香?

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鸭屎香

银花香单丛，俗称鸭屎香，产自广东潮州，为凤凰单丛茶中的一种香型，因种在“鸭屎土”(黄壤土)，茶叶叶形似鸭脚木而得名。现时，鸭屎香被广泛应用在茶饮行业

Silver flower fragrance (single cluster), commonly known as Yashixiang(鸭屎香), is produced in Chaozhou, Guangdong. It is a fragrance type of Pheonix (single cluster) tea. It is named because the tea leaves are planted in "duck droppings soil" (yellow loam) and the shape of the tea leaves resembles duck foot wood. At present, Yashixiang(鸭屎香) is widely used in the tea industry

手打柠檬鸭屎香

Hand-mixed Lemon and Silver Flower Fragrance Tea

Since Yashixiang(鸭屎香)is a more commonly known name than Silver flower fragrance (银花香), the tea companies use it to avoid confusion, people who know 鸭屎香 might not know it is also called 银花香

As for marketing, since everyone associates 鸭屎香 with a particular fragrance instead of duck poo, there is no major issue, on the contrary, it is a more memorable and catchy name compared to the fairy bland "Silver Flower Fragrance"

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The question has already been answered, but I would like to share a resource and its definition:

茶 Babelcarp: a Chinese Tea Lexicon 茶

You like Chinese teas but you're baffled by the terminology. You've got the name of a Chinese tea in front of you and it's not in Chinese characters, but the sequences of English letters it's been transliterated into mean nothing to you.

Or, even worse, you're looking at a Chinese website selling tea, but you have no idea what those Chinese characters mean, e.g. 猴子采铁观音. (You can use one of those automatic translation sites, but they don't recognize the tea terminology.)

So who you gonna call? Babelcarp! Just type that phrase into the blank in the form, submit it, and hope the Carp knows at least some of the words.

Good little dictionary for Chinese tea terms.

Here is their definition for 鸭屎香

(Ya1 Shi3 Xiang1) = (鴨屎香 or 鸭屎香) a series of Dancong cultivars whose name is literally, and by all reports inaccurately, Smells Like Duck Shit; speaking of the name’s inaccuracy, it has been reported that the tea’s offensive name was bestowed by local farmers who wanted to keep the cultivar to themselves because they enjoyed it so much

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  • Quote:- "it has been reported that the tea’s offensive name was bestowed by local farmers who wanted to keep the cultivar to themselves because they enjoyed it so much" This applies to 口水鸡, "saliva chicken", as well? : )
    – Wayne Cheah
    Commented Jul 1, 2023 at 1:48
  • 鸭屎香 reminds me of a fruit called 鸡屎果, (chicken shit fruit), which is actually the Guava fruit. The name came about because when chickens eat the fruit, the tough seeds were not digested and hence passed out whole and undamaged with the feces. The seeds then geminate and the seedlings grew out from the small pile of feces, hence the name.
    – Wayne Cheah
    Commented Jul 1, 2023 at 2:18
  • Sounds similar to 猫屎咖啡 and how the coffee beans are produced. If I were to take a modernists look at 鸭屎香 I would probably assume it was also named this way for similar reasons to 鸡屎果 and 猫屎咖啡, especially considering the prestige surrounding something like kopi luwak.
    – Mou某 ♦
    Commented Jul 1, 2023 at 7:03

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