In my impression, the traditional breakfast of Shanghainese people is inseparable from the "four kings" (flatbread, fritters, rice dumplings, soy milk). With the development of the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, in the past one or two years, more and more Yangzhou and Taizhou morning tea shops have opened in Shanghai. Many local "time-honored brands" in Shanghai have reopened or adhered to the morning tea period of seven or eight o'clock, coupled with the existing brand Cantonese restaurants, all of which have given the people of Shanghai a richer morning tea experience.
As a traditional Chinese social eating custom, morning tea is related to the eating habits of a place, and also reflects the historical development and cultural identity of a city. The reporter recently walked into the morning tea shops with different flavors in Shanghai to observe and experience the morning tea life in Shanghai. Cantonese people used to say that eating morning tea is "sigh tea", and the "sigh" means enjoyment. Drinking morning tea in Shanghai, what kind of flavor is "sighing"?
There is food but less leisure
At 8 a.m. on weekends, the "Yechun Tea House" located in Laoximen has queued up to call for numbers. More than a dozen round tables in the store are almost full, and each table is filled with authentic Yangzhou breakfast: scalded dried silk, crab yellow soup dumplings, jadeite roasted sales...
The Yechun Tea House, located in Laoximen, starts calling at 8 o'clock on weekends. Photo by Peng Wei
Yechun Tea House is a prestigious Yangzhou morning tea century-old shop that opened a branch in Shanghai more than 3 years ago. After sitting down, the reporter ordered a crab flour boiled dried silk and three diced buns, and the waiter immediately brought a small pot of green tea. Just as the reporter was looking forward to the early arrival, Ms. Yang at the next table said: "No hurry, drink some tea first." ”
Ms. Yang is a regular customer of the shop, her ancestral home in Yangzhou and a native of New Shanghai. She said that since she was a child, she followed her elders to eat morning tea in Yangzhou, and she could eat it from 7 o'clock to 11 o'clock. The local morning tea shop in Yangzhou is a group of friends or a large family of children walking together, and the dim sum on the table is piled up. But when she came to Shanghai to eat Yangzhou morning tea, she found that the "taste" was a little different, "I see that some people who come to eat morning tea are coming and going in a hurry, and in their eyes, the morning tea shop is a kind of breakfast restaurant." This is related to the relatively fast pace of work and life in Shanghai."
Boil the crab flour into dried shreds. Photo by Peng Wei
The diners who come to Yechun to drink tea are mainly middle-aged and elderly people, family groups, and a small number of young couples. Due to the large number of people on holidays, the speed of serving food in the store is a bit slow. Interestingly, the elderly are not in a hurry, and the big multilateral eats tea and chats; Middle-aged people, small couples and other diners urge the waiter to serve refreshments from time to time, and the waiting time is basically playing with the mobile phone, less leisure to drink morning tea.
The reporter noticed that from 8 to 10 a.m., the turnover rate in the store is relatively high, and there are not many customers who can eat morning tea for more than an hour and a half, and those who are fast leave in thirty or forty minutes, but some elderly people can sit for more than 2 hours. The weekdays are relatively deserted, but diners continue to arrive.
Crab yellow soup bun. Photo by Peng Wei
Compared with Yangzhou morning tea, Taizhou morning tea is slightly less well-known, and even some Shanghainese do not know it. One year ago, the first Shanghai store of "Taizhou Morning Tea" opened on North Sichuan Road, near the Taizhou Hall.
Compared with Yangzhou noodles, Taizhou morning tea noodles are larger, and the most well-known are scalded dried silk, fish soup noodles, fish soup wontons, etc. Many diners also recommended straw buns to reporters, which is a flavor that cannot be eaten in other stores in Shanghai, "that is, grass head buns, with a faint vanilla aroma, the taste is relatively rich."
Taizhou morning tea shop opened in the North Sichuan Road business district. Photo by Peng Wei
The taste of blanched dried silk is softer than that of Yangzhou, and the crab yellow soup bun is larger than that of Yechun Tea House, but the price of 48 yuan is much more expensive than Yechun. Diners reflected: "Taizhou morning tea is relatively sufficient, too 'real', soup buns, fish soup wontons, etc. can be eaten casually, other things can not be eaten." ”
Taizhou Morning Tea Shop is mainly visited by surrounding residents and office workers, and there are also diners who come to admire it. "Post-90s" Qin Fan works on Sichuan North Road, she said, the morning tea shop opens at 7 a.m., she sometimes simply takes the morning subway to come, one to avoid the morning rush hour of the subway, the other to eat a hearty breakfast, "The fly in the ointment is that here are mainly noodles, buns, steamed dumplings, roast sales, wontons in turn, a little greasy for a long time." Many residents will pack some buns and wontons to take home after morning tea.
Fish soup ravioli. Photo by Peng Wei
The reporter observed that the atmosphere of drinking tea in the Taizhou morning tea shop seems to be less, and it is difficult to make people settle down. Barley tea in the store is free, and if you need Longjing, Tie Guanyin, white tea, etc., it is charged tens of yuan, such as 88 yuan for a pot of white tea, which is not very cost-effective for diners who come to experience alone. If a pot of tea is missing, it is like losing the "soul" of eating morning tea, and many people quickly leave after eating a bowl of small wontons or red noodle soup. In addition, the mode of ordering is to scan the QR code, which is less interactive for diners and waiters than the check box of the paper version.
There are also regrets in the refreshment innovation
Nowadays, most Cantonese restaurants such as Diandude and Sulou are open in commercial buildings, and they open after 10 a.m. Experience Cantonese-style morning tea at seven or eight o'clock in the morning in Shanghai, and Shanghai's "time-honored brands" such as Xinya and Xinghualou have become a good choice.
Born in 1926, the Xinya Tea Room has attracted many literati such as Lu Xun and Ba Jin. Many Cantonese restaurants in Shanghai once suspended their morning tea service, but Xinya Nanjing East Road Main Store has always insisted on the morning tea stall after 7:30, accumulating many loyal old tea customers.
Whether on weekdays or weekends, Zhu Hong, Executive Chef of Xinya Cantonese Restaurant, always meets some old tea customers, who basically choose to sit at fixed tables. Most of the old tea customers are Shanghai-based "Lao Guang" (Cantonese), and some Shanghai locals who love Cantonese-style morning tea. "The 'Lao Guang' people all spoke Shanghainese with us, but they spoke Cantonese when they sat around the table for morning tea. They have been eating morning tea in Xinya since they were young, and many seventy or eighty-year-olds still insist on coming every month, which has become a feeling. ”
Xinya Tea House. Profile picture
Zhu Hong introduced that "time-honored brands" have always faced the problem of innovation. Shrimp dumplings, roasted sales, sausage flour, char siu buns, the "four kings" of Cantonese morning tea have always been hot-selling products, and Xinya has also launched an innovative version of Shanghai's local breakfast inspired by Cantonese ingredients. For example, Shanghainese like to eat rice cakes, and Xinya has developed a Matsutake Yaozhuzhu rice cake, which is very popular. Another example is the tangerine peel square cake. Bean paste square cake is a pastry often eaten by Shanghainese, and tangerine peel is an ingredient that Cantonese people like to put in cooking vegetables and soups, and its flavor is an innovative refreshment. Therefore, drinking morning tea in Xinya, the choice of varieties is diversified, and there is a style of inclusiveness.
The acclaimed Sugar Shaweng is a semi-lost traditional Cantonese dim sum developed by Xinya in the past year, which is sold out every day. This dim sum is only available in some small tea restaurants in Guangdong, and is not often seen in brand stores or large hotels. The mouth is somewhat similar to the sugar cake eaten by Shanghainese, because it is fried dim sum, it is pine and fragrant, and it melts in the mouth when you bite it. "Morning tea should be innovative, but innovation cannot be separated from the roots, on the one hand, it is necessary to tap into tradition, on the other hand, it cannot be unrecognizable."
Dim sum for Cantonese morning tea. Profile picture
Like many morning tea shops, Xinya is more popular on weekends, with a turnover of two or three times that of usual. Zhu Hong said that in the past two years, Shanghai's Cantonese cuisine has become more and more abundant, and it has also integrated local snacks, constantly improved and innovated, and the number of customers has been more than in previous years.
Another Shanghai "time-honored" Xinghualou reopened the 8 o'clock morning tea on weekdays at the end of 2021, more than one year later, how is the 8 o'clock morning tea now?
The reporter also chose to experience it on weekends. At 9 a.m., there was no table of guests at the morning tea on the second floor of the Fuzhou Road main store in Xinghualou, and after less than half an hour, several tables of guests came sporadically, including local residents and foreign tourists. The selection of morning tea varieties in Xinghualou is also relatively large, reaching fifty or sixty kinds. There are also some more distinctive dim sum, such as gold medal wagyu tart, vegetable juice yuzu buns, nut shakima, etc.
Dessert at Xinghualou
In the eyes of some citizens, Xinghualou has resumed the 8 o'clock Guangdong morning tea after the redecoration, which at least meets the needs of some Shanghai citizens, and eating morning tea has an additional choice. Diner Wu said that he asked a few old friends to go to Huangshan and Huizhou next month, and chose to discuss the itinerary at the morning tea shop, drink tea, eat snacks, plan travel, and be more leisurely. But compared with the past, there is less sense of atmosphere of Cantonese-style morning tea. For example, there is no cart to push dim sum, and the refreshments are not divided into large, medium, small, etc., and the tea only has three choices: black tea, chrysanthemum, and puer, which is somewhat regrettable.
The transformation of traditional morning tea in big cities
Stealing half a day is the essence of traditional morning tea culture. Looking for the morning tea life in Shanghai, the reporter found that having to eat morning tea in a fast-paced city has become a luxury time to some extent. Morning tea, which is popular in Guangdong, Yangtai and other regions, came to Shanghai and quietly underwent some changes.
At present, among the people who drink morning tea, the main body is middle-aged and elderly, especially the retired elderly. Morning tea is not very attractive to young people in Shanghai, firstly, the usual work schedule determines that it is too late to "sigh tea", and secondly, many young people are unwilling to get up early for morning tea on weekends. According to Shanghai writer and food critic Shen Jialu, the morning tea in many Cantonese restaurants in Shanghai is gradually developing towards formal meals. "For example, most of the Cantonese restaurants such as Diandude, Taotaoju and Sulou are opened in business districts, saying that morning tea has actually become afternoon tea, and many Shanghainese enjoy it as afternoon tea." He said that morning tea to afternoon tea is more suitable for the rhythm of life in Shanghai.
Source: Visual China
Morning tea is not only developing towards formal meals, but also has a trend of all-weather consumption, breaking through the limitation of time. The reporter learned that whether it is "time-honored brands" such as Xinya and Xinghualou, or Cantonese restaurants such as Diandude and morning tea shops in Yangzhou and Taizhou, its consumption scene has expanded from morning tea to all-day time, and the time range for enjoying morning tea has been extended, from morning, noon to afternoon, and even evening, you can eat the classic dim sum of morning tea almost all day. The refreshments eaten remain the same, but the time has changed, and from the perspective of enjoying food, this is not much difference for many consumers.
During the interview, many diners reported that after Cantonese morning tea and Yangtai morning tea came to Shanghai and other big cities, the price level became more high-end. Many local morning tea shops in Guangdong have outstanding cost performance, and the per capita consumption of 50 or 60 yuan can enjoy rich refreshments, but in Shanghai, Beijing and other places, Cantonese-style morning tea is biased towards branded high-end consumption, and some brand stores have an average consumption of more than 100 yuan, while the per capita consumption of less than 50 yuan is less.
The crab flour of Xinya Tea House is sold to the emperor
In the process of tasting morning tea, some consumers also found that Cantonese-style tea houses are increasingly branded and standardized, and new problems arise under unified production. On some review sites, consumers have given bad reviews of "eating morning tea and eating the taste of quick-frozen products". They figured out the morning tea strategy: "A good morning tea shop must have a handmade open kitchen, and the fresh, handmade refreshments are baked. ”
In Zhu Hong's view, eating morning tea is better than freshly made and fresh, so Xinya morning tea insists on not using semi-finished products and pre-products. In addition, different morning tea shops should have their own characteristics, rather than 100% standardized development, which will wear out the fireworks of morning tea. He believes that with the development of the city, the form of morning tea changes from different cities and groups of people, but it will not affect its inheritance.
Drinking morning tea is a way of life that conveys the yearning for a beautiful and comfortable life. A fast-moving society needs the aroma of a pot of tea and the rich refreshments wrapped in it. City, give morning tea a place.
Editor-in-chief: Gong Danyun
Source: Author: Peng Wei