When you grow up, no matter where you are, the taste of your hometown that you miss the most must be the taste of your hometown, even if it may be something you didn't like when you were a child.
"Oil tea" is my deepest memory of my hometown, and I wanted to write about it for a long time.
It is not a delicacy, and even before I thought that I was forced to drink it under the pressure of adults, and when friends from outside the country went to their homes, they rarely had to drink it. But nearly 10 years away from home, every time I mention the topic of "hometown", the first thing that comes to mind is to sit around the fire and come to a bowl of hot oil tea.
The production of Yongsheng oil tea is very simple, but to taste good, there is also a lot of exquisiteness.
1. Ingredients
Rice, lard, tea, water
Tea is generally loose tea, go to the market to buy by the pound, a pound can eat for a long time, there is no so-called good tea or not.
Later, when I came to Pu'er and first learned about Pu'er tea, I realized that tea had so much knowledge. One year I bought some better tea to take home, and my parents always used plastic bags to put in the cupboard with other spices, grabbed a handful every day to fry oil tea, they thought it was too wasteful, and then they never took it home.
2. Utensils
The best pottery pot for tea making utensils can make the oil tea rich in flavor. After long-term use, the inside of the clay pot is "raised" to polish, accidentally broken, often with neighbors for many days.
The disadvantage of using clay pots is that it is too time-consuming, and almost everyone in my mother's generation uses small milk pots and puts them on the induction cooker, which is convenient and fast.
3. Production
After the small stove is on fire, the clay pot is slowly roasted on the charcoal fire, grab a small handful of rice in the boiled lard, the chopsticks are turned (so each family will have several pairs of chopsticks with black hair), fry it with a low flame until golden brown, the rice is fried too white oil tea is not fragrant, and the fried too black tea soup will be very bitter, which is a process of cooking and skill. When the rice is fried thoroughly, then add the tea leaves, slightly fry, flush into the boiling water, this action must be fast, otherwise the tea leaves are easy to paste, affecting the taste. After boiling, the tea is fragrant. In order to make the oil tea more fragrant and strong, it is necessary to cook it for a while on the low heat so that the rice, tea and oil are fully blended, and then it can be drunk.
If there are elderly people in the family, no matter how busy they are, even if they get up an hour early, they will not simplify the production process.
Stir-fried rice
4. Drink
Generally the first three times out of the soup, children do not drink, too bitter, adults will also say that drinking affects the long body.
The taste is adjusted by itself, drink salty salt, drink sweet brown sugar, white sugar, rock sugar, malt milk, etc., but this is the most basic way to eat, in order to make the tea soup more fragrant, the hemp seeds and crisps will be ground into a paste, each time scooping a spoon in a clay pot to boil, immediately "ten miles of fragrance", some will also stir eggs in the tea soup. A pot of tea is boiled more than ten times, and the tea soup tastes OK.
For children, camellia oleifera tea soup is not the most attractive, will always wait until the end, compete for tea and rice to eat.
Adults always say that they have a "tea addiction", the older they are, the more they love to drink, and the more bitter they drink, they do not drink oil tea every morning, and they have no strength to work during the day. Therefore, asking good morning in my hometown is always related to tea, which is "tea is eaten" and "come and eat a bowl of tea". Breakfast is generally also a bowl of oil tea, accompanied by steamed buns, and even some people's homes, supper at night, is also oil tea.
The happiest day when I was a child was when the farm was idle, it was rainy, the adults could not work in the fields, the neighbors met together, burned a bunch of fires, boiled oil tea, roasted bait blocks, potatoes, and chatted about home. By the end, the tea soup was almost tasteless.
Figure | source network