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Introduction Lei Cha Chapter 18

Introduction Lei Cha Chapter 18

Nanguancheng was later Hepo Town, Jiexi County, Jieyang City, Guangdong Province, and Leicha is still the staple food in that area. Jiexi Lei tea has a variety of tastes such as salty, fragrant, sweet, bitter, sweet, etc. It feels refreshing in the throat and refreshing, with a unique charm.

The Hakka people in Jiexi are known to have the custom of making lei tea. In summer and autumn, the weather is extremely hot. After working hard, people often don’t want to eat, and often take lei tea as their lunch. At noon, when guests come to visit, the host’s family must cook and entertain them. Before the girl gets married, all neighbors who accept wedding candy will also cook a bowl of incense tea and invite the bride to eat to express their congratulations. In addition, when the sick at home is recovering, they will also cook some to invite friends who have taken care of the sick to eat to express their gratitude. .

It’s not complicated to make

The production of Jiexi Lei tea is not complicated. The main ingredient is rice or popcorn, but the ingredients are complicated. Put peanuts, sesame seeds, tea leaves, Jinbuhuan or bitter-spicy cores in a beating bowl, beat them into a paste with a tea stick, rinse with boiling water, and then fry some dried radishes, cabbage, green onions, shallots, soybeans, Vegetables, etc. Or add some lean shredded pork, shrimp rice, squid, etc., and finally mix cooked white rice (or popcorn). Such Lei Cha tastes sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty, which is very appetizing and flavorful. Especially on the seventh day of the first lunar month every year, every household eats Leicha. Because it uses seven kinds of vegetables on the seventh day of the first lunar month, it is called “seven kinds of vegetable tea”.

long history

Jiexi Lei tea has a relatively long history. Lu Yu’s Book of Tea, Volume 3, “I heard that there was a poor Shu woman in the south who sold tea porridge.” Combined with the legend of Hepo’s place name, this Shu woman may refer to He Po. Lu Yu is from the Tang Dynasty and has a history of more than a thousand years. What he calls tea porridge is to grind tea leaves into fine rice, add rice flour, oil and salt, and make tea balls or tea cakes. Onion, ginger, pepper, cinnamon and other seasonings are boiled with water and boiled into a large pot of tea porridge for everyone to eat. This is the original Lei Cha.

wonderful legend

Jiexi Lei Cha has its wonderful legend. Jiexi Leicha is a traditional name in the Jiexi area of ​​Jieyang, Guangdong. Regarding the origin of Leicha, the current saying is that it is a street snack sold by He Po, an old woman in Nanguancheng, Hepo Town, Jiexi County, Jieyang City, Guangdong Province. At that time, Nanguan City was the only way to do business in Chaoshan and Huizhou, and He Po’s Leicha solved the fatigue of the merchants, so it became famous.

According to legend, in the Northern Song Dynasty, Pan Renmei went south to conquer the Southern Han Dynasty on the order of Song Taizong, and sent a small team to attack Guangzhou via Jiexi. When they arrived at Hepo, because most of the soldiers were from the north, and the weather was hot and the water and soil were unacceptable, the soldiers were vomiting and diarrhoea.

Hearing the news, Mrs. He came and taught her a secret recipe, using “Sansheng Tang” to drink Lei tea to cure the disease. According to her needs, she ordered some people to pick tea leaves, some to dig for ginger, some to grind rice, and some to go for a bowl and a stick. After all these things are done, a large amount of Leicha will soon be made. Because of the use of a beating bowl, it is called “leicha”. Mrs. He said that each of the fallen soldiers would drink a large bowl of scalding tea, and then sleep with their heads covered.

Woke up the next day, everyone was sweating profusely and sneezing. Strangely enough, the patients recovered. Later, some of the troops who conquered the south stayed in the fields, so Lei tea was handed down not only in Jiexi County, but also in places where Hakka people lived in northern Guangdong, western Hunan, and southern Gansu, and became a major feature of southern food and folk customs.

Classification

Jiexi Lei tea is very distinctive and diverse. It can be mainly divided into the following types of tea, namely “clean tea”, “vegetable tea”, “rice tea”, “rice bone tea” and “glutinous rice tea”. During the period, there are “Micheng Tea”, which is matched with the snack “Micheng”, “Seven Vegetable Tea” on the seventh day of the first month, and “Fifteen Vegetable Tea” on the Yuanxiao Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month.