Source: Flavor Planet
"We had breakfast there... Drink oil tea", while chatting with her Colleagues in Shaanxi, she suddenly mentioned a familiar word.
"What, you drink oil tea too?!" The brain immediately entered the last visit to Gongcheng, Guangxi, and the taste of boiled ginger tea in chicken fat was in his mouth, and he did not expect that shaanxi people also drank it. "With such a heavy ginger spicy taste in the early morning, does the stomach really not roll?"
Oil tea, with bitterness as the base of floating spicy, bitter and spicy mixed with shallot oil aroma and light salty fresh
* The second season of "Boiling Bar HotPot"
To tell the truth, oil tea is not a difficult habit for locals to eat.
Confusion appeared on the face of the Shaanxi colleague: "There is no ginger in the oil tea... Just take hot water and rinse it. There is also a twist flower at the breakfast stall, and the home is a convenient bag, there are two kinds of salty and sweet. He picked up his phone and searched for it for me.
Oh yes! In "Breakfast China", I have filmed, Xi'an oil tea with twist flowers, I am a pig brain.
Twist oil tea is a Shaanxi specialty snack, generally used as a breakfast food. When eating, soak the twist flowers into the oil tea, soak them hot and soft, and scoop them into a bowl to eat
*Breakfast China Season 1
But... Wait, Xi'an's oil tea is actually fried white noodles, there is no tea ingredient at all, so why is it called oil tea? It felt as if I had discovered something metaverse, and I immediately sent a message to my friend who was also going to Gongcheng. The content of her reply was more complicated by the whole thing: "Say Cao Cao." I just drank Chongqing's oil tea yesterday, made of rice noodles, or spicy! Go back and talk to you. ”
So I was completely confused, what is oil tea?
What is Camellia oleifera?
First of all, one plant should be excluded: camellia oleifera of the camellia genus in the camellia family. This is a plant native to China, famous for its oil-rich seeds, and the tea that drinks the tea is a half-brother.
What puzzled me wasn't this camellia oleifera — although at first I thought that plant tea might be the great-great-grandfather of all foods of camellia oleifera — but it wasn't.
Plant camellia oleifera is also known as tea oil tree, and its morphological characteristics are shrubs or small trees
*Baidu Encyclopedia
It is what it is, fireworks of different colors.
Obviously, no matter where you come from, you will have the food "oil tea" in your dictionary, but when you hear it, the images that pop up in people's minds in different places are very different.
People in Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi, mention oil tea, mostly talking about a kind of tea, animal and vegetable oil, onion and ginger and fried grain, which can be eaten at any time with three meals a day.
Yunnan-Guizhou Guangxi and other places of oil tea is composed of tea leaves, fire ginger, green onion whiskers, animal and vegetable oils, etc
* The second season of "Boiling Bar HotPot"
Their production method is much the same as the Gongcheng oil tea recorded in "Boiling Bar Hot Pot", which is to fry tea leaves and onions and ginger in animal oil, mash them, add water and boil them and add salt and various accessories.
After repeatedly pounding the tea leaves and spices with a mallet, add water and stir
* The second season of "Boiling Bar HotPot"
Moreover, the excipients can usually be wrapped in the abdomen and will be fine-tuned according to the customs and products of different places. For example, Gongcheng will add fried rice and crispy fruits, and Guanyang will fry Yin rice, fried peanuts and soybeans and other foods.
A variety of different camellia oleifera excipients
* The second season of "Boiling Bar HotPot"
If it is hospitality, it will also be shabu with more precious ingredients such as pork liver, pork, potatoes and taro; If you encounter a wedding festival, there will be corresponding attention and changes.
Oil tea hot pot during hospitality
* The second season of "Boiling Bar HotPot"
When people in the Central Plains mention oil tea, they are talking about a kind of oil fried noodles that are heated by animal and vegetable oils and oils, and the white noodles are based on the bottom. In some places, nuts will be added to the noodles, and in some places, food similar to twist flowers or hemp leaves, or tofu shredded gluten will be added to the noodles that are flushed with water and wrap the stomach; Some will be made sweet, some will be salty.
Add the sautéed oil tea noodles in a bowl and rinse them with boiling water when eating
* Food table
People in the Prachuap Khiri Khan region mention oil tea, which is rice noodles that are fried and then rinsed, and finally added with green onion and ginger oil, pickles, steamed buns (fried staple food) and chili peppers for breakfast. Although it is not famous for not having a small noodle fat intestine powder bean flower, it is also an indispensable choice in life.
After the rice milk is seasoned, the ingredients such as shallots, pickles, and steamed buns are a bowl of Bashu oil tea
* Wang Yufeng
There is also oil tea even as far away as Tibet, but with a crispy word added to the front. Locals boil tea leaves with ghee and water and salt, paired with barley noodles, or simply mixed with butter tea – both the shadow of the Yunnan and Guizhou regions and the spirit of the Central Plains.
Pour in the boiled strong tea, put the appropriate amount of ghee into a special barrel, accompanied by table salt, and repeatedly mix with a wooden handle to dissolve the ghee and the tea juice into one
* Food table
This is just a very general non-scientific classification, and if you really go into detail, you may not be able to write this book or make an independent documentary.
The origin of camellia oleifera
Buried in the database for five days, it only sorted out the superficial cognition of the tip of the Iceberg of Chinese oil tea. Simply put, the key to the difference between oil tea lies in the understanding of the word "tea".
China is the birthplace of the tea plant. In the deep mountains of Yunguichuan, a large number of wild tea trees can still be found, and the first people who come into contact with tea trees are people living near the tea mountains. Their lives are far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, and the tea trees that can enhance the taste have naturally become part of the daily diet.
Wild ancient tea trees growing continuously in yunnan
* Shallow
Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" has a record of the Chinese Tang and Song Dynasties began to transform tea from medicinal materials to daily ingredients, and ethnic minorities who hid in the mountains due to war or other reasons mostly accepted the habit of drinking tea in the Tang Dynasty, so it is still customary to add other foods to the tea juice to taste.
The old people of the Dong ethnic group will remember that their ancestors have planted tea trees for generations, and because they live in alpine mountains, "drinking oil tea is not cold."
Drinking oil tea is an indispensable eating habit in the life of the Dong people
* Guangxi TELEVISION
At this time, oil tea for them, is the survival invention of "making the best use of things". Tea trees are planted by themselves, the oil is refined by themselves, and nothing is put after cooking, and it is a cold drink to drink directly; If you are hungry, add rice or other grain as a meal; On the special day of marriage and funeral, some rare meat is put in as a holiday food.
People will use staple foods such as rice noodles to change into fried rice, sesame egg fruit, drainage and other snacks to increase the fun of tasting oil tea
* The second season of "Boiling Bar HotPot"
This also explains why in the Qiangui region, playing oil tea was originally a tradition of ethnic minorities, and later the local Han people, who participated in this food custom, expanded into a food tradition representing the region.
However, in the Central Plains, "tea" does not only refer to tea, it can also be a way of hospitality.
With the exception of Xinyang, most of the Central Plains north of the Huai River do not produce tea. Tea is a tropical, subtropical tree species, the temperature environment in most parts of the Central Plains is not suitable for the growth of tea plants, chrysanthemum tea, eight treasure tea, although called tea, but are not tea-based drinks.
Red dates, walnuts and cinnamon are the protagonists of Babao Tea
*Photo by meng Qingjia |
At this time, the definition of "tea" has been expanded into a kind of ceremonial food for hospitality, and even hides a certain meaning of "things are scarce and expensive".
In the countryside of Zhoukou in southeastErn Henan, people will call boiled water tea, and when guests come, sprinkle some white sugar or brown sugar in the boiled water, which is called "sugar tea". There are also places where poached eggs are boiled and served, which is called "egg tea".
Egg tea in Henan
*Xinzheng News
Looking back at the oil tea in the Central Plains with this understanding, you will find that it is likely that it was first extended from this "hospitality".
Close your eyes, you can imagine that once upon a time, the homes of ordinary people in the Central Plains came to the homes of distinguished guests, and the host family put all kinds of good things together, poured hot water, and brought out the appearance of inviting guests to "drink tea". This behavior has become a daily routine after the evolution of time, and the word "tea" has been retained.
Everyone sat around and had tea
*《Flavor Origin · Chaoshan》
However, is there a correlation between oil tea in the southwest region and oil tea in the central plains of Bashu? Was there really tea in the oil tea in the Central Plains of Bashu? No reliable answer has yet been found. If you have an understanding, welcome backstage private message flavor jun, we can explore the magical and rich world of oil tea together.
"Officer, do you want to come to a bowl of oil tea?"
* The second season of "Boiling Bar HotPot"