Eight treasure tea soup Fragrant a bowl of deep affection

At the Lunar New Year temple fair many years ago, the children's cheeks were glowing apple red, and their little hands were frozen and shrunk into the woolen gloves woven by their mothers. Mischievous boys rushed into the ice on the side of the road in groups, and at this time, the plastic soles and black velvet shoes they wore on their feet became the best props for skating. Run two steps, one foot on the ground, the plastic sole on the ice surface, instantly gliding eight or nine meters... In that year, the temple fairs in sijiucheng had not yet been grilled skewers and stinky tofu to "unify the country", and the air was filled with not the smell of cumin today, but the oil aroma of fried enemas and the sweet aroma of tea soup that wafted from time to time.

Jingweier traditional snack tea soup is rumored to originate from the Ming Dynasty, the Ming and Qing dynasties prevailed in Beijing, belongs to the royal refreshments, the Qing Dynasty Palace Guanglu Temple in the imperial dining room there is tea soup, and then introduced to Tianjin, popular in Beijing and Tianjin, the variety of methods are basically the same. "Dumen Bamboo Branch Words" once outlined various snacks on the streets of old Beijing: "In the morning, a bowl of sweet pulp porridge is eaten before tea soup and noodle tea are eaten." "The tea soup with apricot yellow color, delicate texture and moderate thickness is hot and sweet, which is the favorite food of old Beijingers." Pay attention to the point, like to add orange cakes, lotus seeds, walnuts, red date meat, melon strips, sesame seeds, plums, etc. in the tea soup and then boil water to stir, the taste is sweet and smooth, called "Eight Treasures Tea Soup". Nowadays, some traditional food is becoming less and less common, and only a few people are still obsessed with finding the old taste between the streets and alleys.

Babao tea soup is a soup porridge mixed with eight kinds of fruit ingredients, and traditional Chinese tea is not beaten by eight rods, but why should the name be started with tea? In fact, there is another word metaphor for this - "brewing". Cleverly borrowing from the ancient tea culture and taking its meaning is the wisdom of Beijingers, and the soul is all brewed here.

Viewers who have watched the TV series "Four Generations Together" will remember the scene of Mrs. Qi going to the stall to buy rabbits, and there is a scene in which the tea soup is brewing. A large teapot with a dragon's head is steaming, the large copper pot is golden and polished, the body of the pot is cast with a dragon, and the spout is the shape of a dragon head, and the dragon head is tied with two velvet flower balls. The copper pot is lit with coal in the belly, filled with water along the belly, and when the charcoal fire of the pot boils the water to 100 degrees, the tea soup can be brewed. The small whistle next to the lid of the copper pot "whined", the master of the tea soup held the bowl in one hand, lifted the copper pot with the other hand, the spout tilted downwards, a stream of boiling water rushed straight into the bowl, and the water was full of tea soup in an instant. Because it is eaten with hot water, it is called "tea soup". As a cover for the tea soup industry, the large copper pot that is always polished with dazzling brilliance and the wonderful sound of the copper flute are quite local and very tempting.

There is a poem in the "Hundred Songs of Food in the Ancient Capital": "In the big copper pot, there is blazing coal firewood, and the white water and clear soup are rolling open." A bowl of rushing can feed the stomach, sweet is best to fill the baby. And the note said: "Tea soup has stall holders, there are burden pickers, and its only logo is that the large copper pot is also." This thing is still sweet, salty eaters are not seen, children like to eat it. "The large copper pot with water weighs 40 kilograms, and the craftsmen who make tea soup must not only have strength, but also have skill, brew a bowl of tea soup, look very simple, but there is a lot of exquisiteness." If you play with the dragon head kettle Liso, the water flow must be not hurried, and the posture must be just right.

Feng Jicai, a famous folk writer in Tianjin, has a passage "Good Mouth Yangba" in "Ordinary Strange People", and the description of making tea soup in it is very impressive. "The patron came up, put the pink barley noodles, 'brushed, brushed' into the small mung bean bowl and threw it into three spoons, the right hand aimed the small bowl at the spout of the large copper pot, three feet away, the left hand lifted the pot handle slightly, the red pompom was upside down, a small stream of water braved the white gas straight to the small bowl, and then sent the small bowl to the spout, and the water flow was broken. The tea soup is blown and a bowl full of steaming. Water, not a drop spilled, a grain of rice noodles, not a grain. 'Brush, brush, brush', three spoonfuls of brown sugar again, insert a small shovel of foreign iron pieces, get it! ”

Sharp-eyed readers must have wondered when they saw this, the raw material of The Eight Treasures Tea Soup is not millet noodles, how did Mr. Feng Write Rice Noodles? In fact, no one is wrong. Mimi noodles, commonly known as yellow rice noodles, are the raw materials for Beijing-style catechu soup. Mi Zi is one of the oldest grains in China, also known as 穄, 穄子, 赤黍. "Lü's Spring and Autumn Benwei" says: "The beauty of rice... The Sun Mountain, the South China Sea. The Qin Dynasty Li Si's "Cangjie Chapter" said: "穄, 大黍也, like a black noodle is not sticky, Kansai is called a paste." "Chyroot is shaped like millet, the color is light yellow, Chinese medicine believes that its taste is sweet, slightly cold, can stop diarrhea, quench thirst, remove heat, cure cough, reverse qi." After the tea soup was introduced to Tianjin, Ma Fuqing, the founder of Tianjin's famous "Ma Ji Tea Soup", switched to using rice noodles as raw materials, which was improved to take into account the tastes of Tianjin people. Barley rice noodles are sorghum noodles, with a thick mouth, but the old Tianjin Wei beat children to eat, accustomed to a slightly coarse taste. Therefore, the Tianjin version of tea soup described by Mr. Feng, a Tianjin native, is very authentic.

Speaking of the tea soup of old Beijing, in the past, I paid attention to drinking the tea soup of Juyuanzhai outside the front door and the tea soup of Tianqiao, li, with sweet and mellow taste, apricot yellow color, and delicate and durable taste. The tea soup is made by washing the millet noodles, soaking them in cool water for two hours, draining the water, grinding them into noodles, and then thinning them to form the millet noodles. Take a bowl, rinse the batter with boiling water, sprinkle brown sugar, white sugar and sugar osmanthus flowers, hawthorn strips, green and red silk, raisins, melon seeds and other fruits.

Tea soup Li's tea soup has a must, brew a good tea soup to flip the bowl over, and the tea soup is not spilled, so it is called "buckle bowl tea soup". Because the ingredients of the tea soup are fried and then brewed at home, there is also a tea soup called Tianqiao after the break in Beijing, and the second half is "stir-fried at home, stirred outside", to satirize the people who fight in the nest.

Tea soup is always inseparable from hilarity. In the early years, every Lantern Festival temple fair on the 15th day of the first month, children would always clamor to eat a bowl of sticky and sweet Eight Treasures Tea Soup. Now that I think about it, I may be more to watch the exquisite craftsmanship of the master who sells tea soup. An oversized brass teapot with a spout steaming hot air, in the eyes of young children, is always full of a few legends, and the crystal water column thrown in the air always makes the viewer can't help but applaud from the bottom of his heart every time he looks at it, and there is often an impulse in his heart to jump.

Among the snacks in old Beijing, there is a snack similar to a tea soup, and there is also a tea word in the name, that is, noodle tea. One word is different, but two very different cuisines. Now younger people can't help but confuse noodle tea and tea soup, which is also understandable.

The wind of tea drinking began in the south, and later came from the south to the north, but the north could not produce for a long time, and could only import from the self-produced tea area. There is a need and difficult to meet, which promotes the development of substitutes, so old Beijing has the saying of "four major teas", namely tea soup, noodle tea, oil tea and almond tea.

In the early years, noodle tea as a snack was generally sold in the afternoon and eaten in the afternoon. There is a poem as evidence: "Hot noodle tea at the beginning of the afternoon dream, dried ginger and sesame sauce must always be added." And tea soup is a traditional snack, served throughout the day, belongs to people after tea and dinner pad bar bar bar or find supplements to find snacks. There is one of the most intuitive ways to distinguish: the tea soup is sweet and the noodle tea is salty.

The raw materials of noodle tea also have millet noodles, which are ground into a pulp with large petals and large salt, then boiled over high heat, add alkali noodles and ginger juice to boil for a while, boil into a paste, put in a bowl on the surface of the drizzle, sesame sauce to be lifted up and pulled into a silky circle poured on the noodle tea, and then sprinkled with sesame salt, live together. Yuan Ming's "Suiyuan Food List" dim sum list records: "Noodle tea: boil coarse tea juice, stir-fried noodles mixed in, add sesame sauce, add cow's milk can also be, slightly add a pinch of salt." If there is no milk, you can add soufflé and milk crust. ”

Don't look at the noodle tea is easy to make, if you want to drink it well, it is not so easy. Old Beijingers have their own rules and exquisite eating and drinking, and drinking noodle tea is naturally no exception. Old Beijingers drink noodle tea without chopsticks or spoons, but with one hand holding the bowl, and then pouting their mouths, sticking to the edge of the bowl, taking advantage of the hot momentum, and sucking in a circle along the edge of the bowl. At this time, the noodle tea and sesame sauce in the bowl flow together to the edge of the bowl and then into the mouth, and each bite is both sesame sauce and noodle tea. This is the feeling of old Beijing, the taste of old Beijing. Because of the sucking slip, the old Beijing also left a witty saying: "Silly boy drinks noodle tea - confused." "As a traditional way of eating, sucking is not only reflected in drinking noodle tea, but also in drinking fried liver and drinking bean juice, which seems indecent, but contains a deep Beijing eating culture."

Babao tea soup, like other snacks in old Beijing, tastes different from the main meal, but has a kind of "human fireworks", and there is a layer of warm exchanges and collisions between people. This taste is more like a way of life, you need to touch it carefully with a loose mind, put down your body, and integrate into the city.

Text / Zhang Tianyu Photography / Zhang Xin