In recent years, the streets and alleys have been filled with a variety of internet red milk tea shops, such as Deer X Lane, Cui X Division, Yi X Tang, etc., and recently heard that a new Internet celebrity called "Fruit Tea" has also been launched. In fact, the flesh of various fruits is cut into pieces and then soaked in tea, so the name "fruit tea" is also.
Did you know that? In fact, a long time ago in the Song Dynasty, the Yulin area has appeared in the popular Internet red fruit tea originator - "Yulin Tea Bubble". To be precise, Yulin tea bubble originated in the Song Dynasty and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and is known as the 1.0 version of modern emerging fruit tea. As early as 2010, "Yulin Tea Bubble" has been included in the intangible cultural heritage protection project, this early fruit tea "Yulin Tea Bubble" have you ever tasted?
Yulin tea bubbles originated in the Song Dynasty, has been passed down to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, when the large families in Yulin will use "tea bubbles" to honor relatives and friends when their daughters get married, so they like to call it "new tea"; when the bride returns to the door, the woman's mother's family will prepare large and exquisite tea bubbles to give gifts, and the man will return the same specifications of tea bubbles to honor the gift. Later, tea bubbles slowly evolved into the best choice for the people of Yulin to entertain their relatives and friends during the New Year's Festival.
Yulin tea bubble because the production is all manually made by hand, the process steps are complicated, the process level is high, etc., it is difficult to form large-scale, intensive production, generally only before and after the Spring Festival to produce a small batch of "Yulin tea bubble" for sale. Therefore, every piece of Yulin tea brew produced is precious.
Up to now, there are only a few craftsmen in Yulin who know how to make tea bubbles, and there are only a few people who know. Just around the spring festival, I was able to visit a craftsman who had already started production and experience this nearly lost craft up close.
The production of "Yulin tea bubble" is the first step, choose a better quality and "old water" winter melon, so that the fleshy hard melon meat, can ensure that the tea bubble after soaking sugar drying still maintain the carving form without deformation.
Generally, the melon meat is peeled and cut into a square of 5 cm long and wide, and the thickness is about 5-6 mm. Dozens of copper zan knives are arranged in a row, explaining the intricacies and craftsmanship of making Yulin tea bubbles.
In the production of tea brews, the craftsmen rely on personal accumulation of experience, as if confidently strategizing between these limited square inches. Only to see the craftsman use the knife to carve off the excess melon meat part, or yin or yang carving, or carved on the festive meaning of the blessing text or carved on the Meilan bamboo chrysanthemum and other auspicious patterns, etc., to give a small tea bubble a beautiful vision of life.
The carved tea bubble is only in the state of the semi-finished product at this time, and it also needs to go through the important link of "sugar" to have the actual function of tea brewing. The carved tea bubble embryo is repeatedly soaked in sugar water for many times to promote the magical reaction of "water out of sugar" water sugar interchange, and finally it can be placed in a sieve and dried under the sun for about a week until dehydration is fixed.
The finished Yulin tea bubble maintains the pure white of the flesh of the winter melon, just like a small painting with square windows, but it contains secrets inside. It is only when friends and family visit that the tea bubble shows its silent character.
Take a piece of white tea bubble into the tea cup, pour in the freshly brewed tea, wait for a few minutes to fully stretch, and the sugar contained in the tea bubble is mixed into the tea with the fragrance of winter melon. At this time, the tea bubbles in the tea water are like a delicate carved white jade, blooming at the bottom of the teacup, giving people a kind of elegant enjoyment of the visual senses. Taste carefully, the sweet tea water with a fragrance of winter melon, this is not the ancient Yulin "fruit tea".
In addition to the usual specifications of 5 centimeters square, Yulin craftsmen also creatively invented a more three-dimensional Yulin tea bubble, making the shape design of the tea bubble a possibility, which also tested the craftsman's skill to a higher level.
However, due to the rapid iterative impact of other new products, as well as the complicated production process and low rate of return, not many people are willing to inherit this traditional craft, and the production technology of "Yulin Tea Brew" needs to be protected and passed on.
So, have you heard of or tasted this intangible cultural heritage fruit tea that originated in Yulin, Yulin Tea Bubble?