In Shiqian's life, it was roughly like this.
Get up early in the morning, go to the old street to find a bowl of mung bean powder wrapped in red oil and chili, and eat it. After sweating, find a hot spring pool and soak yourself lazily in the water.
Use the cup you carry with you to drink the hot spring water bubbling on the rocky cliff, throw in a pinch of the best local moss tea, close your eyes, and stop thinking about his mother's grievances.
Some people say that this is a rich life with money and leisure, and ordinary people can't afford it.
I said that you really don't understand life, since you have come to Shiqian, if you don't enjoy it for a while, your life will be dirty.
Shiqian County is not big, but there are many kinds of worldly happiness.
A few days ago, I wrote an article about the memories of the old city of Shiqian. Many friends recommended that they must eat noodles from Xingshiqiao, wine made from Laodaqiao, mung bean noodles from Xiji, and horseradish from Wentangpopo. .
I swallowed my saliva, and I wanted to beat your chest with my fist, and waited until Shi Qian left before you said, what a foodie.
Fortunately, I soaked in the hot spring that you are proud of, and I also drank moss tea that you entertained distinguished guests.
As a result, this trip to Shiqian was not let down.
I have been fond of drinking tea since I was a child. The hillside behind my house is full of tea trees. Every year when the camellias bloom, I will learn from hardworking bees and use a straw to suck the honey between the flowers.
My cousin is a man who is busy all day long. Farm work is one of the most old-fashioned skills in the village. The first thing he does when he wakes up every day is to grab a lot of tea and put it into a water cup and pour boiling water , drink from morning to night.
He said, "Uncle's life is continued by tobacco, wine and tea." But he only drinks rough tea that can make a sauce-colored soup. I once brought him a good Mingqian Biluochun, and he didn't want to drink it after taking a sip, because "it's too weak and tasteless."
People of the older generation may be like this. When I saw old people drinking a kind of tea in Shiqian, I suddenly thought of Tang Shu.
Perhaps, he will like this primitive "tea ceremony".
Every year before the Grain Rain and after the cold food, the Shiqian people who have tea gardens will be busy in the tea gardens singing tea-picking songs.
The picked fresh leaves are usually fried in a big pot for cooking at home after being dried in the sun. The fire in the stove shone brightly on everyone's face, and the dense tea fragrance lingered over the village.
The fried tea will be placed in a tea basket and hung on the beam of the roof, and you can take it whenever you want. As time goes by, the taste of the tea will become more and more intense.
To drink canned tea, it is boiled on a brazier in a stoneware pot. In addition to tea leaves and mountain spring water, salt, pepper, and ginger slices are added to the pot.
Imagine walking into a warm room from the ice and snow in the twelfth lunar month, and then drinking a cup of thick tea, the cold and damp that penetrated into the bone marrow in the mountains will instantly swim out with the expansion of pores.
Tea, like this, accompanies the life of Shiqian people, and the taste of the year is in it.
You may say, this is not drinking tea, this is simply drinking medicine.
You are right, the tea that is endowed with various poetic and Zen flavors today was originally drunk by the ancestors as medicine.
The origin of moss tea is a story of searching for medicine.
According to local legend, a long time ago, in the high mountains of Xinhua Village, Wude Town, there was a cave in which two gods who responded to requests lived in seclusion.
If people in the village suffer from illnesses, they only need to go to the cave and drink the water from the pool given to them by the gods to ensure that the illnesses will disappear.
It is said that one day, an old man in the village also fell ill, and his family helped him to the cave. Unexpectedly, the fairy was not there, and the spring water in the cave dried up, and the pool that used to store water was full of fallen leaves.
In desperation, the old man simply picked up the fallen leaves in the pool and chewed them as medicine. Unexpectedly, he felt full of fluid in his mouth, and he was completely relieved of his illness.
After the villagers heard about it, they went around the cave to look for the deciduous tree species, took them home and planted them. When the spring was warm and the flowers bloomed, the seeds germinated and grew up. In a few years, the mountains and plains were covered with such trees.
People pick the young shoots of trees every spring, dry them and store them, and boil the leaves for drinking every day.
It's strange that people in this village have never suffered from any strange diseases since then.
Because this kind of tree will bolt moss when it grows young leaves, which are as fresh and tender as vegetable moss, the locals call this kind of leaves "moss tea".
And because the color of the leaves will gradually change from purple to dark green as the seasons change, so it is also called purple moss tea.
The local people are grateful for the protection of the gods and bestowed the fairy tree on one side, so they respect the tea tree very much and regard tea as a sacred object. No matter offering sacrifices to heaven and earth, ancestors or holding weddings, toasting tea is the most solemn ceremony.
Shiqian moss tea has a long history. In the "Tea Classic" written by the tea sage Lu Yu, he once praised "its excellent taste" and classified it as a vine tea with the characteristics of new shoots.
Moss tea is not a square thing. It was once used as a tribute and sent to the Jinluan Hall for the emperor to enjoy.
Of course, the emperor also used this tea as a good medicine. There is an allusion to this.
According to legend, during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial teacher Chen Zihe returned to his hometown to visit his relatives. When passing through Guizhou, he heard a centenarian talk about a kind of magical tea that can cure all diseases.
At that time, Emperor Guangxu happened to be ill, and the imperial physician's prescriptions were not effective at all. When Chen Zihe returned to Beijing, he specially found this tea to pay tribute to the emperor.
After Guangxu drank it, he felt his throat was refreshed and the aftertaste was sweet, so he often drank it.
In less than half a year, the emperor's symptoms disappeared, and the red acne and dark spots on his face also disappeared, and his skin became smooth and moist.
Overjoyed, Guangxu issued an imperial decree and named the tea "Tianzi Teng Tea".
Today, moss tea has become a rich tea for the people of Shiqian.
In Xinhua Village, the birthplace of moss tea, there is an antique tea market street, which attracts merchants from all over the country and even Southeast Asia to gather here every year to drink tea to discuss business and make friends.
In the moss tea museum in the center of the village, master Wang Fei, the inheritor of moss tea art, also showed me a set of tea sets handed down from his family. Looking closely at the signature, it was actually a gift from Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty.
In the museum, there is another treasure of the town hall.
In 1959, Tan Renyi, then secretary of the Xinhua production brigade, took the moss tea produced in the village to Beijing to participate in the "Heroes Conference", and was awarded the inscription "Tea production has a bright future" written by Premier Zhou.
At that time, after tasting moss tea, Premier Zhou recalled it for a long time and said, "This is not tea."
Hearing this, the people around were astonished, and Tan Renyi was even more on pins and needles. Unexpectedly, the Prime Minister said again, "This is the monosodium glutamate in the tea!"
Everyone burst out laughing.
Tan Renyi brought the Prime Minister's inscription and encouragement back to his hometown, which set off a hot tea production competition in Shiqian for a while.
I bought some moss tea on the streets of Xinhua Village, and the boss said, "You will definitely become addicted to our tea after drinking it."
It's also really strange.
It rained a lot when I came back, and I felt sore all over that night, knowing that I had a cold.
I usually don't drink tea when I have a cold, but that day, thinking of the legend of moss tea, I got up and brewed a pot, and added a few slices of ginger and a little salt.
That night I was sweating profusely, and the cold recovered without treatment.
As for whether drinking moss tea will be addictive?
I don't advertise, I buy and drink by myself, don't blame me if I get addicted.
Ying Zhigang: From Ningbo, Zhejiang.
He has worked in the media for 20 years. He used to be the reporter of People's Daily "China Economic Weekly", the director of the news center of People's Daily Online Sunan Channel, and the editor-in-chief of China Daily Online Jiangsu Channel. Founded Suzhou Bocai Zhongchuang Media Co., Ltd. in 2015.
Travel Experts: Lotto Inspiration Traveler (2018 CCTV Image Spokesperson), Tongcheng Traveler, Lvmama Traveler, Tuniu Big Player, China National Geographic Columnist, etc.
Cultural travel writer: He has published "A Day in the Clouds of Beauty", "The Highest Mission", "Suddenly Nostalgic", "Scattered Tenderness", etc.