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Introduction to Anhua Lei Cha

Anhua Leicha is a traditional local name in Hunan Province, which belongs to Hunan cuisine. The snack originated in the Han Dynasty and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and has been handed down in the Anhua area north of central Hunan. Its color, taste, efficacy, production method, and tea drinking customs, etc., all make people passing by here feel the simple and rich Leicha culture of the mountain village. As the saying goes, five miles one tone, ten miles one vulgar. Although Anhua County and Taojiang County are closely related, they also like to drink Lei Cha, but the production method and taste of Lei Cha are completely different.

Anhua County is more than 200 kilometers away from the provincial capital Changsha. It is a county-level city where 26 ethnic groups, including Han, Tujia, Miao, and Mongolian, live together. The unique flavor of Lei Cha is a famous local product in Anhua Mountains, and it can be called a unique local product. In 1985, Japanese friends made a special trip here to investigate the origin and production process of tea species, and brought them back to Japan to spread them widely.

Like savory porridge

The Lei Cha in Anhua County is as thick as porridge, salty in the fragrance, hard in the rare, and in layman’s terms, it’s like a fragrant porridge. In each bowl of Lei Cha, there is something to chew and something to drink. After drinking a bowl, even if you don’t eat for one meal, you won’t feel hungry. 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 with an empty stomach.

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

Treat guests with tea

Whenever a guest comes to visit, the hospitable host will take a bamboo spoon or a wooden spoon, fill a large bowl for the guest, and hand it to the guest with both hands respectfully. The fragrant hot air makes the guests salivate. Guests who don’t understand the mountain rules can’t wait to drink the first bowl of Lei Cha. However, as soon as the guests drink a little, the hostess with sharp eyes and quick hands will pick up the spoon and refill it for you. Therefore, there is no end to drinking. According to the local customs, if you don’t want to drink after drinking the bowl in your hand, then don’t drink the bowl of Lei Cha in your hand, let it stay in the bowl, and wait until you leave the host’s house. Drink it in one gulp, and say goodbye.

The habit of placing “plates”

Drinking Anhua Lei Cha also has the habit of placing “saucers”. Anhua “dish” and Taohuajiang “dish” are basically the same. Eight “plates” are usually placed on the antique table of the Eight Immortals, including withered peanuts in shells; burnt fried sweet potato chips; …are some homemade, appetizing and delicious green food.

Why put eight plates? The locals have two meanings: one is that eight people sit at a table, which means that everyone has a share; the other is that the horoscope is an auspicious number.

In addition to holding large-scale Lei Cha parties on festive days such as weddings and funerals, Anhua people also drink Lei Cha every day when they are together with their families, which is usually used as lunch.

Because people in Anhua drink Lei Cha all the year round, and the tea water is thick, a lot of raw materials are needed, and the processing is laborious and time-consuming. Therefore, processing Lei Cha is one of the main tasks of housewives in Anhua.

The materials used to make Lei Cha are very particular. When making Lei Cha, the farmer always chooses the best tea leaves produced by himself, and adds rice, beans, peanuts, sesame, licorice, chrysanthemum, mugwort leaves and other Chinese herbal medicines in a certain proportion, and puts them into the pottery soil. Bowl (also known as Leibo), a round-headed wooden stick (also known as Leibo) made of tea sticks, which is finely ground with a little water, ground into mud, and then poured into the tea bowl for later use.

In Anhua, most rural farmers make and drink Lei Cha, which is related to traditional Chinese medicine treatment methods. In the folks, Leicha is called “medicinal tea”. In addition, Anhua area is located in a remote mountainous area. It used to be a poor place. People looked down on diseases, so they picked some appropriate herbs to drink in Leicha, which can quench their thirst and cure diseases without spending money. , so until now people still use it to prevent and cure diseases. Many elderly people seldom get sick until they are eighty or ninety years old because they drink this tea since childhood. The longevity of elderly people in rural areas of Anhua is higher than that of other places, which cannot but be related to long-term drinking of Lei Cha.

There are many varieties of Lei Cha in Anhua. According to regions, there are nearly ten categories such as Meicheng Leicha, Dafu Leicha, and Houxiang Leicha; according to seasons, each season is almost different; according to taste, there are sweet Leicha and salty Leicha; In terms of functions, there are thirst quenching, anti-inflammatory, heatstroke prevention, cold resistance, hunger, and gluttony relief… With the progress of the times, there are also various bagged Lei Cha and ice Lei Cha cooled by refrigerators.

In recent years, Anhua Leicha has begun to gradually go out of the farm and develop into the market. Not only are Lei Cha refreshments and tea stalls everywhere in every corner of the city and country, but some tourist attractions simply develop Lei Cha as a sightseeing and entertainment project, attracting many overseas tourists from Singapore and Japan. The most notable thing is that the emerging Lei Cha workshop combines the original Lei Cha technology with modern production methods, so that more people can taste this pure natural green drink.