Original title: Tea God Valley
Author: Ye Xin
I walked into the Tea God Valley in southwest Qianxi three times, and each time I felt that this place was mysterious and a magical place.
New tea picked by girls of all ethnic groups
The Buyi, Yi, Miao, and Hui compatriots have inhabited this mountain range for generations, and there are ancient tea trees all over the top of the mountain, deep in the canyon, and between the ridges, and they call this whole mountain that nature has given to the world the Valley of the Tea God.
On this plateau at an altitude of 1700 meters, there is a mountain song:
There is an ancient tea tree on the mountain,
There is a clear water well under the tree;
If you don't feel well one day,
A leaf comes a scoop of water.
When the Yi girls sang this mountain song clearly in front of me with a clear voice and words, I sincerely felt the close relationship between these large-leaf ancient tea trees and the local people.
Stepping through the mud and carefully stepping on the soft humus layers on the slopes, I pored over the crooked branches, thick shiny leaves, and mottled epidermis of these ancient tea trees, one by one. Ancient tea trees of more than a thousand years can be seen everywhere, and there are more than two thousand years old and more than three thousand years old! More than three thousand years have been numbered one by one, and the one in front of me is 3200 years old, numbered 0035. I read the sign hanging from the tree, which was jointly hung by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
It turns out that not only do the people of all ethnic groups call these ancient trees tea gods, but scientists also regard them as treasures. Seeing that I was very interested, the township escort took me to see one ancient tea tree after another with great interest, and finally led me to the oldest ancient tree enclosed by the fence.
As soon as I saw the majesty of the tea tree, I felt extraordinary. I saw that between the densely clustered, old and verdant leaves, there were delicate green bud tips, and on the thick and thin branches, between the young buds and the old leaves, there were also round and slippery tea fruits. The old tea farmer who has guarded the thousand-year-old tea tree all his life told me that this is the famous four-ball ancient tea tree.
I didn't know much, he told me in detail. Tea trees in other parts of the world, there are only three tea seeds in a tea fruit, except for the ancient tea trees in the Tea God Valley in Pu'an County, Qianxian Prefecture, Guizhou Province, and one tea fruit produces four tea seeds, so it is called the four-ball ancient tea tree. More than 40 years ago, in the Yuntou Mountain at the junction of Pu'an and Qinglong, four-ball ancient tea seed fossils were found, and after repeated identification by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was determined that the ancient tea seed fossils were more than 1.64 million years old.
What I saw today was an ancient tea tree that was 4800 years old, and the number was 0001.
"Go, go, go..." The tea farmer greeted warmly as he walked, "Drink tea and let you taste the taste of the ancient tea trees yourself." ”
When I stepped out of the woods again on the slippery mountain path with a thick layer of humus, I realized even more why the villagers of all ethnic groups revered these ancient tea trees as tea gods and called this place the Valley of the Tea Gods.
Over seventy years old, climbing mountains to drill old forests, his body was stained with spots of mud, and his half-height leather shoes became heavy, and his steps were slow. In front of the tea farmer's ancestral house, a circle of benches was placed next to the blazing charcoal fire. While warmly greeting me to my seat, the tea farmer smiled and said somewhat mysteriously, "Please take a sip of our alpine farmhouse's fire roasted tea." ”
After drinking a lifetime of tea, I know a little about the cooking and brewing methods of green tea, black tea, white tea, black tea, and yellow tea, but I have never drunk fire roasted tea.
I saw him padding it with a thick tea towel, holding the handle of the washed black sand teapot, roasting on the burning charcoal fire until the dark sand pot turned white. He put the old tea that had been stored for 29 years and the new tea in 2021 into the roasted hot tea pot together, and then shook rhythmically, and read the words in his mouth: "To get the tea to be served, the fire is trembling..." Suddenly, a tea aroma that I had never smelled before spread out from the tea pot, and we, the circle of guests sitting around the charcoal fire, invariably exclaimed.
Without waiting for the praise of the people to land, I saw that the tea farmer poured the boiling water from the teapot into the teapot, put the teapot on the charcoal fire, and in a few moments, the tea in the teapot was churning and boiling. The tea farmer pointed to the tea pot and said: "Such boiled tea, you can brew seven or eight courses, the tea taste and color are unchanged, you can swing the dragon gate array around the fire pond." With that, he poured a small bowl of tea and asked me to taste it. When the tea was not so hot, I took a sip, and in an instant, a refreshing fragrance penetrated my lungs, and I tasted it patiently, like chestnut, a faint orchid fragrance, the caramelized aroma of fried beans, and the coolness of mint, in short, an intoxicating aroma that I had never felt before. Drinking a bowl, another bowl, seeing that I was drinking well, the tea girl on the side said like a silver bell: "Teacher Ye, this thousand-year-old tree tea, one bubble tea, two bubble soup, three bubbles and four bubbles are the essence..." At her instigation, I drank five small bowls in one breath. Grilled by charcoal fires, we braved the winter rain to delve into the wet mountain forest to visit the cold and tiredness of ancient tea trees disappeared without a trace.
The tea farmers who have lived in the mountains and forests for generations to guard this ancient tea tree tell us that in the late winter and early spring of each year, the Buyi, Yi, Miao, and Hui villagers in the villages and villages drink tea one after another, sing one ancient song after another, and sacrifice the tea god in their minds with simple and simple rituals, remember their ancestors, and express their family, friendship and love.
This time to the Tea God Valley, it is the winter waxing moon, the mountain forest has seen the tip of the tender green buds, so that we participated in the "'Guizhou Green Tea' First Picking" activity.
On this morning, the tea slopes of the Tea God Valley were dotted with points of tea tips with one, two and three leaves. This gratifying scene caused the tea-picking girls to sing the tea-picking songs of their respective nationalities, and the laughter between the mountains and mountains above and below the Tea God Valley was loud and cheerful. I was infected and couldn't help but reach out and collect a full slap of new tea. The old Zhiqing who accompanied me sighed while picking young leaves, drank ancient tree tea, and these days I only felt that my internal organs had been cleaned again, and I felt refreshed, and I felt the same way.
The wonder of the Tea God Valley and the mystery of the Tea God Valley are closely related to its unique terrain and the climate of the Yunnan BorderLand.
The entire slope of the Tea God Valley rises and falls slowly, there are rugged paths connecting the tea mountains, and they are surrounded by tall mountains in all directions - in addition to the Yuntou Mountain, which found the fossils of the four-ball ancient tea seed, there is also a mountain barrier that stretches for more than ten kilometers called Baiji Mountain by the common people and is scientifically known as Baiju Mountain, as well as Yunpan Mountain in the west and wild sheep cave in the north. The altitude of the four alpine peaks is around 1600 meters, while the altitude of the Tea God Valley is only about 800 meters. This naturally formed deeply cut terrain has distinct characteristics of mountain height, steep slope and valley depth. A tributary of the Beipan River, the Xibi River, flows from the other end of Qinglong. Geologically, the mountain karsts of the Tea God Valley are strongly developed, and the Ming River, the Volt Stream, the underground riverbed, the cavern, the sinkhole, and the deep ditch provide a rich water source for this mountainous area. All in all, this typical low-latitude, high-altitude area, the three-dimensional climate is obvious, forming the characteristics of "a mountain divided into four seasons, ten miles of different days". The Valley of the Tea Gods happens to be in a gentle and moist area, so wild ancient tea trees have been able to thrive here for thousands of years. During the winter month, waxing moon and New Year's moon, with the help of this special warm microclimate promoted by nature's miraculous work, the young bud tip of the "first harvest" we see at this time is prompted.
Generations of living in the Valley of the Tea God of the Buyi, Miao, Yi, Hui people, with the help of the mystery of the Tea God Valley, to make the scale of the tea garden bigger, on the basis of poverty, adhere to the concept of green development, so that the wild ancient tea tree resources left by the ancestors, take the road of sustainable industrial development, enter the stage of rural revitalization, I believe that the dream of "a leaf rich side of the people" will soon be realized.
Guangming Daily (2022.02.11. 15th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily