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Introduction Lei Cha Chapter 21

Introduction Lei Cha Chapter 21

Introduction Anhua Leicha

Anhua Leicha is a traditional local name in Hunan Province, belonging to Hunan cuisine. The snack originated in the Han Dynasty and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and it has spread in Anhua area to the north of central Hunan. Its color, taste, efficacy, production methods, and tea drinking customs all make people passing by here feel the simple and rich Leicha culture in the mountains and villages. As the saying goes, every five miles is a sound, and every ten miles is a vulgar. Although Anhua County and Taojiang County are closely related, they also like to drink Lei tea, but the production method and taste of their Lei tea are completely different.

Anhua County is more than 200 kilometers away from Changsha, the provincial capital. Lei tea with unique flavor is a famous local product in Anhua Mountains, and it can be called a local unique. In 1985, Japanese friends made a special trip here to investigate the origin and production of tea seeds, and brought them back to Japan for widespread dissemination.

like fragrant porridge

Leicha in Anhua County is thick like porridge, salty in the fragrance, and hard in the thin. In layman’s terms, it is like a fragrant porridge. In each bowl of Lei Cha, there is something to chew and something to drink. If you drink a bowl, you won’t feel hungry even if you don’t eat for one meal. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to go to Anhua County in Hunan Province, and someone invites you to drink Lei Cha, you’d better go there on an empty stomach.

Anhua’s Leicha is very particular about the production, and the raw materials are also varied. In addition to tea leaves, there are also fried sesame seeds, peanuts, soybeans, corn, rice, mung beans, pumpkin seeds, as well as ginger, salt and pepper. The main raw materials are rice and tea leaves. The locals grind the fried rice into powder with a stone mill for later use, and then grind the tea leaves, ginger and sesame into a paste with a mortar, and pour them into the boiling water in the pot together with the raw materials that have been ground into powder, and cook them together. When it becomes a paste, it becomes Leicha.

Treat guests with tea

Whenever a guest comes to visit, the hospitable host will pick up a bamboo spoon or a wooden spoon, blah blah blah, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The fragrant heat made the guests drool. After receiving the first bowl of Lei tea, guests who don’t understand the mountain rules in the mountains can’t wait to drink it. However, as soon as the guest drinks a little, the sharp-eyed hostess will pick up the spoon and refill it for you. Therefore, there is no end to the drink. According to local customs, if you don’t want to drink the bowl after drinking it, don’t drink the bowl of tea in your hand, let it stay in the bowl, and wait until you leave the host’s house. He drank again in one breath, and said goodbye.

The habit of placing a “dish”

Drinking Anhua Lei tea, as well as the habit of placing “dishes”. Anhua “dish” and Taohuajiang “dish” are basically the same. On the quaint Baxian table, eight “dishes” are usually placed, with dry and fragrant shell peanuts; burnt fragrant fried sweet potato chips; sturdy pumpkin seeds; crispy Qiaoguo slices and purple oats …all are home-made, appetizing and delicious green foods.

Why put eight plates? The locals say two meanings: one is that eight people sit at a table, which means that everyone has a share; the other is that the eight characters are auspicious numbers, and the locals believe in the creed of “eight on the table, there is wealth”.

In addition to holding large-scale tea parties on festive days such as weddings, funerals, and marriages, Anhua people also drink tea with their family members every day on weekdays, which is generally used for lunch.

Because people in Anhua drink Lei tea all year round, and the tea is thicker, it requires a lot of raw materials, and it is laborious and time-consuming to process. Therefore, processing Lei tea is one of the main tasks of housewives in Anhua area.

The ingredients used in Leicha production are very particular. When making Leicha, farmers use their own high-quality tea leaves, add rice, beans, peanuts, sesame, licorice, chrysanthemum, mugwort and other Chinese herbal medicines in a certain proportion, and put them into pottery clay. A bowl (also called a beating bowl) is a round-headed wooden stick (also called a beating stick) made of tea branches, which is finely ground with a little water, ground into a mud-like shape, and then poured into a tea bowl for use.

In Anhua, most rural farmers make and drink lei tea, which is related to traditional Chinese medicine treatment methods. In the folk, Lei Cha is called “medicinal tea”. In addition, the Anhua area is located in a remote mountainous area. In the past, it was a poor place. People could not afford to take care of the disease. , so until now people still use this to prevent and cure diseases. Many elderly people rarely get sick when they are eighty or ninety years old because they drink this tea from childhood. The longevity of the elderly in Anhua’s rural areas is higher than that in other places. It cannot but be said that it is related to the long-term drinking of Lei tea.

There are many varieties of Anhua Lei tea. Divided by region, there are nearly ten categories such as Meicheng Leicha, Dafu Leicha, Houxiang Leicha, etc.; By season, each season is almost different from month to month; By taste, there are sweet Leicha, Salty Leicha; According to the function, there are thirst-quenching, anti-inflammatory, heatstroke prevention, cold-resistant, hunger-satisfying, and craving-relieving… With the progress of the times, there are also various types of bagged Lei tea and iced Lei tea cooled by refrigerators.

In recent years, Anhua Leicha has gradually moved out of the farmhouse and developed towards the market. Not only the tea and tea stalls in Leicha field are scattered in every corner of the urban and rural areas, but some tourist attractions simply develop Leicha as a tourist and entertainment project, attracting many overseas tourists such as Singapore and Japan to visit. The most notable thing is that the emerging Leicha workshops combine the original Leicha technology with modern production methods, so that more people can taste this pure natural green drink.