Oriental Salsa
My friend sent me a courier to the famous Zigong Longdu tea, I pushed aside the purple sand pot and ceramic cup used every day on the tea table, took out the silver-rimmed glass, and used 90 degrees of boiling water to brew a cup of tea from my grandmother's hometown for a long time. While watching the buds dancing ballet in the water, I recalled what my grandmother once said: "This green tea and the glass are the best match, because it is best to look down at their graceful and slender postures, and look down less." For tea, we must taste it, appreciate it, and praise it with respect and equality. "I agree with my grandmother.
Grandma is a Zigong person, she is a person who really understands tea, she loves tea, and what she often drinks is the Longdu tea in her hometown. Since she married Hechuan, she has never returned to Zigong, and it is with this cup of Longdu tea that she relies on the nostalgia that rises from time to time. In the dance of tea, she remembered going with her father to Rong County, known as "Dragon Capital", when she was a child, and touching those wild big tea trees in the place where tea had been produced since ancient times.
My grandfather was also a tea fan, in the old days he worked at Chongqing Customs, there were many British among his colleagues, often sent some gifts to my grandfather and some Chinese colleagues, of course, grandpa also wanted to return the gift. The British love tea more than Chinese, four or five times a day, drinking bed tea when they open their eyes, and then there is morning, middle, afternoon and evening tea. However, Grandpa privately believes that the British tea set is very exquisite, but he does not understand the essence of tea too much, and feels that their drinking tea with milk and sugar is a damage to the tea gas.
Listening to my father, once my grandfather returned from a business trip to Qionglai and Zigong, he invited his British colleagues to come to his home for dinner, and drank Qionglai black tea fire cake after the meal. British colleagues have not seen this kind of cake tea and are very curious. Grandpa said that this is real black tea, but it can only be called dark tea, because black tea has long been robbed by black tea. Grandpa personally operated, but also specially ding tea cake do not break randomly, you must use a tea knife piece by piece to pry, in order to maintain the integrity of the tea leaves. Then do not use boiling water to directly flush it, but slowly inject water along the wall of the purple sand pot to let the tea leaves soak up little by little. British colleagues pointed their heads into chicken pecking rice, and drank black tea in a small purple sand cup.
After tasting the black tea that helps digestion, and tasting the Longdu fragrant tea jasmine tea brought back from Zigong, this time Grandpa used the lid bowl to brew, Grandpa said that although he was in favor of Grandma's view of the tea leaves, the three-piece set of lid bowls had a more ritual sense of drinking tea. Flowers bloom in teacups, and drinking tea has become a scenic sight. The guests all praised this Longdu tea to make people's lips and teeth fragrant. When parting, Grandpa gave the guest Qionglai black tea and Longdu fragrant tea as gifts.
Now I also agree more and more with my grandfather's view that the British drink tea lacks a little soul, which is not a pity. The famous writer Xiao Qian wrote in his article "Tea in Britain": "There is a rule at the English tea party: bread and snacks can be taken by themselves, but the teapot is always in the hands of the hostess (just as the man has exclusive rights to the fireplace fire). In addition to the teapot, there is also a jar of boiling water. When the hostess pours tea for each guest, she first asks 'strong or light'. If she answers the latter, she will pour tea and mix it with some boiling water. "Mixing water in tea seems to me to be as tasteless as mixing water in white wine.
The fourth chapter of Jane Eyre also has this description: "Listen to everyone jingle glasses and porcelain while drinking tea." "Oh, god, the reason why there are these sounds is caused by adding milk and sugar, and we Chinese drink tea basically do not make these noisy sounds." Of course, some people have to say that the people's teahouses are not full of noise for melon seeds and cigarettes. But you know, no matter how noisy the environment is, we Chinese the style of the moment we pick up the teacup, which is not available to other countries.
My dad also likes tea. He gets up every day, the first thing he does is to make tea, most of which is our Sichuan-Chongqing cloud mist green tea or jasmine tea, and sometimes also brews Guantuo tea. Dad thinks that most of the glasses are not good, like to use white porcelain cups with lids to soak, and will also use two or three times a month to cover the bowl three-piece set. I like to cover the bowl the most, the left ring finger and little finger support the chassis, the thumb, index finger, and middle finger are three-legged vertical to protect the tea bowl, the right thumb and index finger pinch the top cover handle, the middle finger lightly touches the top cover, and the ring finger and little finger are flipped like butterflies. When drinking tea, never open the top cover widely, otherwise the aroma of the tea will dissipate. Use the top cover to gently peel off the floating red, yellow and green from the inside out, slowly sip the tea soup from the gap between the lid and the bowl, and inhale it into the nose along with the aroma to achieve the double enjoyment of taste and smell. This pose I learned from my father is very standard, plus I have been performing on stage since I was a child, and the standard is carried forward on top of it - it can perfectly show my orchid finger flattery.
I remembered that among the many pots, cups, bowls, and cups, Mr. Lu Xun also preferred to cover bowls. He once wrote in the article "Drinking Tea": "To drink good tea, you must use a bowl to cover." So use a lid bowl. Sure enough, after brewing, the color is clear and sweet, slightly fragrant and slightly bitter, and it is indeed a good tea. ”
The taste of tea brewed in different vessels is different. In addition, the different perceptions also affect the mood of tea tasting.
We Sichuan and Chongqing people drink tea, a handful of tea leaves have to manage a day and a half, water is drunk and then added, called "mixed water". So the first two or three bubbles are thick and bitter, and Daddy doesn't let our children drink.
Sichuan and Chongqing has more than 3,000 years of tea history, and many high mountains, clouds and mist in the production of good tea, in addition to the aforementioned Zigong Longdu fragrant tea, Qionglai black tea, as well as Emei bamboo leaf green, Qingcheng snow bud, Qionglai Wenjun green tea, Sichuan red early white tip, Yongchuan Xiu bud, Ya'an Tibetan tea, Bashan bird tongue, Guang'an pine needles, Xiangshan tribute tea and so on, are well-known. Chuanyu loves tea people with a good mouth.
One year, I went to the world's tea holy mountain with my college classmates Jingwa, Xiaoli and Lihua - Sichuan Mengding Mountain to worship the tea ancestor Wu Lizhen, and also watched the seven immortal tea planted by his own hands. In 1186, the thirteenth year of Chunxi, Emperor Xiaozong of Song named Wu Lizhen the "Master of Ganlu Puhui Miaoji" and the place where he planted the seven immortals by hand as the "Imperial Tea Garden". The Qing Dynasty's "Chronicle of Mingshan County" records that these seven tea trees "did not wither or grow for two thousand years, their tea leaves were thin and long, sweet and clear, yellow and blue, and the fragrant clouds in the cup covered them, condensing without dispersion." He was called the "ancestor of tea cultivation" by later generations, because he was indeed the first person in the world to grow domesticated wild tea leaves.
Going up to Mengding Mountain with relatives and friends who are in harmony with the three views, watching the clouds and mist, listening to birdsong, smelling tea, and tasting manna is a great enjoyment of life.
When you go down the mountain, you must bring back the mengding manna, the mengding yellow bud or the mengding stone flower. These three kinds of teas have been listed as the top ten famous teas in China. With curly leaves and clear tea soup, it is revered as the old and famous tea pioneer in tea. And the top of the yellow buds, the buds are revealed, the floral fragrance is quiet, and the back is mellow and mellow. The top stone flower, the appearance is like the flat moss on the stone, the oil is moist and shaped, and the whole bud resembles a flower after brewing. I once gave them to my father who loves tea, he was reluctant to drink, only friends who know tea came to visit, only to brew two cups to taste together, of course, do not forget to ask the mother to take a few sips.
When I was a child, my father and mother were busy at work, and there was no time to take care of me, sometimes putting snacks, comic strips, paper and pencils, and toys for me to play alone at home, and sometimes let me follow my uncle, second uncle, and third uncle who was a Chinese medicine doctor to go out to find medicine and buy medicine. So I grew up traveling to the famous rivers and mountains, small towns and ancient towns, knowing herbs from all over the world, tasting local delicacies, and seeing a lot of fragrant tea leaves and interesting tea drinking methods.
The first time I drank black tea was in Qionglai, I remember that Uncle Dabo bought a lot of medicinal herbs in an old friend, those names I can casually recite, there are Sichuan, Chuanwu, Chuanbeimu, Sichuan Beef Knee, Chuan continuum, Chuanming ginseng, Chuanmuxiang, Sichuan Neem and so on.
This medicinal herb merchant Uncle Wang invited us to his house for dinner, and my aunt made some home-cooked dishes and milk soup noodles, and then bought scalded duck outside and came back, saying that this duck and milk soup noodles were qionglai specialties. Now that I think back to the taste, I have to smack my lips and say "Bashi." The third uncle mentioned the Qiongjiu he had drunk that time, and he still extended his thumb. After the meal, the drink is Qionglai black tea. The brewing method is different from my grandfather and father's use of purple clay pots, white porcelain cups or lid bowls, Uncle Wang used a small copper pot, put a piece of black tea in it to brew, and then poured into a fair cup, and then poured from the fair cup into a small cup in front of each of us. He said that this black tea is also a specialty of Qionglai, which relieves greasiness, lowers blood pressure, and calms the nerves.
Uncle Da said, "This is the legendary fire cake, right?" Before that, I had only drunk Anhua black tea and Hubei green bricks. ”
"Yes, the source of black tea is actually in our Sichuan. Because of the special geographical location, people in the northern grassland areas have to go south, people on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have to go east, and people in the interior want to go west. The green vegetables in the northwest grassland are scarce, and tea has become the drink of life of the grassland people. The earliest tea horse mutual market is the use of our Sichuan Qionglai fire pancake black tea. ”
Uncle Wang boiled the soaked tea leaves with water on the small stove, and then drank it, and I said: "It's like mung bean soup, it's really fragrant." ”
"The widow is teachable!" Uncle Wang praised me for my talent for tasting tea, saying that when this black tea was finally boiled, it not only had a more cooked mung bean aroma, sweet wine or pine smoke, but also could analyze the unbusted nutrients.
Now I not only love to drink tea, but also love to collect tea, and like everything related to tea. For example, I use perfume and toothpaste, and I especially like to use tea-scented ingredients.
You must bring your own kettle and tea leaves when you go abroad, you can eat less rice, but you can't drink less tea, and a cup of Chinese tea clears the throat and moisturizes the lungs and relieves homesickness.
About the Author:
Dongfang Shasha is a national first-class writer, a member of the China Writers Association, the editor-in-chief of the Guangdong Writers Association", and a senior judge of the Guangdong Writers Title Review Expert Database. He has won dozens of awards such as the National Xu Xiake Travel Literature Award, the Bingxin Prose Award, the Fei Xiaotong Fieldwork Award, the National Non-Fiction Prose Award, the Guangdong Provincial Prose Award, etc., and has authored essay collections, novels, youth cultural books, etc. His works have been included in various classic anthologies and college entrance examination essay analysis tests, and have been translated into a variety of languages for publication and distribution abroad. The collection of essays "Smelling the Fragrance and Recognizing the Flower Demon" is the first collection of literary essays on aroma and life in China.
Editor: Chen Cui