Hada floating on the tea path

The grasslands of Inner Mongolia have always been the places I yearn for. Since embarking on the road of studying tea, I have had the privilege of meeting many like-minded friends along the way, including Mr. Deng Jiugang. He is the executive vice chairman of the Inner Mongolia Writers Association and a famous expert in the study of tea road culture. At his invitation, I took the tea from my hometown Wuyi mountain and the book "Wuyi Mountain, the starting point of the Wanli Tea Road", and was invited to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, Erenhot and other places to participate in the tea road cultural seminar activities.

I remember that it was August 2012, when the grassland scenery in Inner Mongolia was at its most beautiful, and I took off from Wuyishan Airport. The excitement soared in the blue sky, and the sunlight at a height of 10,000 meters coated the wings with a more dazzling silver, and the wings gently cut the oncoming white clouds. Through the porthole of the passenger plane, I looked into the distance, the grassland was so quietly paved, the mountains of the great green mountains, flowing into a slight curve, when the plane began to descend frequently from the sky, the city on the grassland also faintly revealed the outline. That's Hohhot!

At this tea road culture seminar, I participated in the opening ceremony of the Inner Mongolia Tea Road Exhibition Hall. As soon as we got off the plane, the friends of the Prairie Tea Road Exhibition Hall came to pick up the wind and wash the dust for us. The beautiful girl on the prairie draped us with a pure blue hatta. Hada fluttered soft cordiality and warmth under the green wind of the grassland.

At the opening ceremony, the Inner Mongolia Tea Road Research Association thanked the experts and scholars of tea road culture with a song and dance with strong national characteristics. On behalf of the Inner Mongolia Wanli Tea Road Research Association, Deng Jiugang once again presented hada to us, which is the holiest and noblest ritual of the Mongolian people. Fan Meizi, director of the Tea Road Exhibition Hall, toasted us with Mongolian toasting etiquette. She held up the wine glass in one hand, bent her fingertips with the other, and picked up the wine in the glass and bounced upwards, the movement was so sharp and elegant.

Located in the grassland belt of northern China, Inner Mongolia is the birthplace and bearer of grassland civilization, and many ethnic groups have left their own distinctive and colorful grassland culture on this hot land, and Hada is one of the cultural symbols. The color of the Mongol Hada is mostly blue, because this is the color of the sky revered by the Mongols. Hada is a ceremonial item for the Mongolian people. Hatha is required for Worship, Worship, Weddings and Funerals, New Year's Greetings, and Respect for Elders and Dignitaries. "Without feathers, no wings can fly; no manners, no good looks are laughed at." This proverb is a true portrayal of the Etiquette advocated by the Mongolian people.

In September 2013, I flew to Inner Mongolia again to attend the Second China-Mongolia-Russia Wanli Tea Ceremony Mayors Summit held in Erenhot, Inner Mongolia. Erenhot is one of the earliest areas in Asia to find dinosaur and dinosaur egg fossils, is the world's largest Cretaceous dinosaur fossil burial site, the territory has a 134 square kilometers of national geopark, known as the "hometown of dinosaurs" reputation. So when we enter the city, we can see two huge urban sculptures of dinosaurs with their necks stretched out to kiss each other, arching into a city gate. Erenhot is also the northern gate of our country, and beyond the national gate is Mongolia, and the tea road extends from here to Russia. Ulana, president of the Inner Mongolia Tea Road Research Association, is the ambassador of the Tea Road to promote the grassland road and Mongolian-Russian culture, and she knows not only Mongolian but also Russian. She has come to Wuyishan many times and contributed to the third Mayors' Summit of Cities along the Wanli Tea Ceremony in Wuyishan City. She said that she grew up drinking milk tea, and there is grassland culture and tea culture flowing in her cultural blood, so she is full of love for southern tea.

From the 17th century to the 19th century, China, Mongolia and Russia opened up an international trade route based on tea trade, the Wanli Tea Ceremony. Most merchants started from the tea-producing provinces of southern China, passed through Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other places, and crossed the national border to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other places in Russia. On this Wanli tea ceremony, Inner Mongolia is an important distribution center for merchants and goods. Many black brick teas shipped from the southern tea area are combined with the milk on the grassland to form a traditional milk tea culture, a unique milk tea culture in Inner Mongolia, and nourish the humanistic blood of the grassland tea road.

To this day, the nomadic tribes of the northern steppes still follow the ancient custom of "preferring to have no food for a day than without tea for a day". This also fully illustrates the importance of tea to the lives of nomadic people. The Mongols usually drink brick tea, the most popular of which is the green brick tea produced in Hubei. Under the blue sky of Inner Mongolia, milk tea is drunk like this: it is piping hot, with brick tea, fresh milk as the main raw material boiled out, there must be salt, some plus fried rice, when poured out of the milk teapot, with a strong salty milk aroma of hot air; but also in the cup of tea floating a layer of golden cream. People who are not used to it will feel that there is a smell, that is, the wrong sense of taste that needs to be corrected, that is the real milk tea aroma.

I brought back the Hada given by my friends from the grassland, so that I could not forget the humanistic customs of the grassland for a long time. Today, the grassland tea road has been revived, the grassland road in Inner Mongolia is being integrated with the "Belt and Road", wuyi mountain, as the starting point of the Wanli tea road, in the excavation and protection of the cultural heritage of the Wanli tea ceremony, there is a long way to go, but also to pass on the torch, so that Hada becomes a cultural link connecting Wuyi Mountain and the grassland, closely linked.

【Source: Minbei Daily】

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