After the dense autumn rains, Jiangnan ushered in the middle of the autumn moon in the ugly season, and it was also the last breath of the six qi of autumn: frost. Although there is no frost, I can already feel the cold of early winter.
If Gu Yu is the most beautiful solar term in the twenty-four solar terms, then frost must be the most poetic solar term. Not to mention the beauty of autumn frost in the "Book of Poetry and CrabApple"; or the beauty of autumn leaves that "stop and sit in love with the maple forest at night, and the frost leaves are red in February flowers"; and the chrysanthemum fragrance of "Lan you have a beautiful chrysanthemum, and Huaijia people can't forget", and the beauty of the wood aroma of "the moon cave is abnormal, and the golden jade grits scatter the heavenly fragrance". For tea, the plum fragrance aged over the years in Pu'er tea, its sour and sweet astringent breath and the late autumn wood fragrance of the dissipation of the cold, between the collection and release, together create the beauty of zen tea fragrance. In this autumn and winter at the time of frostfall, drinking medium-aged Pu'er raw tea with some plum flavor is particularly appropriate, if you look at it from the perspective of health care tea, you should pay attention to not drinking cold green tea and white tea anymore.
The plum fragrance in the tea, especially refers to the pure dry warehouse aged for about seven years of Pu'er raw tea transformed into a soup of incense, which is characterized by a clear and transparent plum sweet fragrance, rather than a stuffy sour and sweet taste, and can not have the shortcomings of sourness, throat locking. In the storage process of Pu'er new tea, the slow appearance of plum fragrance is also a manifestation of the transformation of tea to the humidity of the storage environment. In the environment with high humidity, plum fragrance will be produced relatively quickly, but it will be sour, stuffy and not clear enough, and there is also a risk of mildew. The lower the humidity, the later the plum fragrance will appear, but it will be clearer and more transparent, sweet and sour. There is a way is "without a cold bone, which plum blossoms are fragrant", this process of aging and transformation of Pu'er tea, the requirements for tea quality and storage environment are also extremely strict.
Referring to Mr. Shi Kunmu's "Interpretation of Classic Pu'er Terms", Yunnan Pu'er tea is divided into four major production areas of Banna, Pu'er, Baoshan and Lincang, and each large production area is subdivided into different tea areas and mountains, villages, so rich Pu'er tea varieties, in the process of storage and aging, not all Pu'er raw tea stored for a long time, there will be plum fragrance. The more aged and fragrant Pu'er tea, the most interesting thing is that in the process of transforming from new tea to old tea, different tea aromas at each stage, such as floral fragrance, fruit aroma, honey fragrance, almond fragrance, wood fragrance, jujube fragrance, etc., taste the beauty of these transformation processes of tea fragrance, what is appreciated is the art of creation of time, if you blindly pursue those old teas that have been too old, you will only taste the results of aging, and lose the beauty of enjoying its changing charm. I used to have a batch of 2004 barren mountain ancient tree Pu'er raw tea, around 2012, the plum aroma of this tea is rich and sweet, but by around 2015, it has gradually transformed into a sweet wood aroma.
The plum fragrance in tea is also a fragrance with Zen beauty, and its fragrance is the fragrance of flowers and fruits that have been accumulated by chance for a long time, and it is also a metaphor for zen people's enlightenment. In the Qing Dynasty, Liu Zhishou wrote a joint sentence for the Foshan Jingtang Temple Guest Hall: "Words are true, when the plums are ripe, the wood is fragrant; the quiet is interesting, the tea smoke is raised, and the bamboo rain comes." It cites "plum ripeness" and "wood incense" as famous cases of Zen Buddhism. In Volume VII of the Jingde Chuan Lantern Record, it is recorded that a Zen master of Matsu Dao inspected the case of his disciple Damei Fa Chang Zen Master, and Matsu confirmed the testimony of Fa Chang with the praise of "Mei Zi Shu Ye". The public case of "Mu Xi Xiang" is recorded in the "Five Lantern Society Yuan", the Song Dynasty Taishi Huang Tingjian participated in the enlightenment karma of the obscure ancestral Zen master. The wonderful taste of Zen is as stated in the previous joint sentence: "In the quiet, there is a lot of tea smoke, and the bamboo rain comes at the beginning." The so-called "tea Zen one taste", its taste in the tea, but also in the Zen, can be described: "tea should be drunk often, Zen should be often consulted, the body should be constantly cultivated, and the mind should always be provincial." ”
"When the plums are ripe, they are settled, and the wood is fragrant and zen at night." Recently, the autumn rain in Jiangnan has just begun to bloom, you may wish to find a bubble of plum fragrant tea to Guilin Park Or Suzhou Lingering Garden smell the wood and incense, maybe you can understand something.
This article is the author's original article for the Shanghai Morning News and "Zhouzhi" APP phenological journal column, see the newspaper day at the same time in the humble words and yiyu headlines, blogs, Hundred Homes, WeChat public account Dele Tang pushed the full text of the unabridged version. Please do not reprint the theft without permission.
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Caption: Zhang Ji