Chapter 56 tea talk

In the past two days, my partners drove north. I live alone in Manchester and need to arrange food and drink by myself, so I remembered the habits of the British in this regard. In terms of food, Italy has good seafood, Germany has good meat, France is all-round, while the UK is a bit flat.It's not that British food is not delicious, the biggest drawback is monotony. I remember that many years ago I gave lectures at the University of Hong Kong and lived in Black College, which is a residence for visiting professors from various countries and has a restaurant.At that time, the University of Hong Kong was completely British, and it happened that the visiting professors in that semester were mainly British professors. I had a taste of British food in that restaurant.

Every time we had a meal, the professors gathered at the same table, exchanged polite greetings, were polite, laughed softly, and the cups were silent. In short, the atmosphere was very good.But I'm tacky after all. From the second meal, I wondered why the dishes were basically repeated. After that, I repeated them every day. By the fourth day, I couldn't keep going. I really want to find a sympathetic person among those professors, but I can’t find any trace of them when I read their faces and eyes every day. They eat so elegantly and happily, eating the same thing every day.I have watched them for a long time, they nodded to me, they still greeted politely, politely, laughed softly, and the cups and cups were silent.

I finally found the management staff and said in the most gentle tone: Why, the dishes for four days haven't changed much? The old manager said to me kindly: Four days?Forty years and not much has changed. The next day I started eating in the student cafeteria. What surprised me was not the dishes, but the acceptance and patience of the British professor, especially the always elegant and happy expression. Because I can see that it has not changed for forty years, it is the result of this expression induction.The managers are afraid that the expression will change, so they use unswerving dishes to ensure the same.

After coming to the UK this time, we have eaten British food several times, and we really can’t say anything, so we still went to find a Chinese restaurant. Why does the UK, which is so meticulous in everything, care so little about such an important food? They care more about drinking. But this is also a matter of three hundred years.Before the mid-seventeenth century, when coffee was not imported from Arabia, and tea was not shipped from China, what did they have to drink?It's pathetic enough when you think about it. According to records, Britain began to import tea from China in the middle of the seventeenth century. The quantity was very small, but a hundred years later, it imported more than 2,000 tons a year. Adding in the 7,000 tons smuggled, the annual consumption reached 10,000 tons.By the nineteenth century, their demand for tea had become so uncontrollable that they had to use opium to balance the inflow and outflow of silver.Later they tried to grow tea in their own territory India and succeeded. Last winter when I went to Darjeeling and Nepal in India, I saw that local tea was sold everywhere. It was the British who started it at that time.

The tea grown by the British in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka is of high quality and mellow taste due to the unique geographical and climate advantages, which I like very much.Most of the tea consumed in Britain every day still comes from there. In contrast, Chinese green tea is fragrant and fresh, and the cup is full of spring after brewing. The disadvantage is that you don't drink much.It is very catchy, but after adding water twice, it will be bland and tasteless. If you change the tea leaves again, the taste will not be as good as before.Things that are too delicate and fresh in the world are always like this, and they should not be repeated in a short time, but the style of drinking tea lies in the continuation.The oolong tea that can be repeated and always has a good taste is Taiwan.Frozen top oolong, there is a weird poetic flavor in the name.However, over the years, I have gradually felt that the production of Taiwanese tea is a bit excessive and the aroma is too strong. I would rather drink the high-quality oolong from Fujian across the Taiwan Strait.

The poetry of drinking tea in China is a product of Chinese culture, whether it is the delicate poetry of green tea or the lingering poetry of oolong, it has a long history.Even if you don't talk about Lu Yu's "Tea Classic", you can always smell the fragrance of tea from ordinary poems.According to a researcher of Chinese tea culture I know, the most delicate part of tea culture is also the most difficult to preserve. It is often destroyed in the chaos of war, and then replanted and baked from the original starting point of quenching thirst. I don’t know how many times it has been broken , Died many times, but because of those poems, the poetry of drinking tea has not stopped, not dead.

Britain has imported Chinese tea, but there is no such thing as the poetry of importing Chinese tea.In other words, they left behind the soul of Chinese tea culture and did not take it away.Therefore, for the same tea, the proper Chinese drinking method is completely different from the proper British drinking method. There are great poets in the UK, but in real life, for example, they don’t pay much attention to poetry in food, which is very different from the French; and the poetic pursuit of the French in food is similar to that of the Chinese in food. completely different. Britain quickly took this drink bought from the far east as a symbol of life in the aristocratic society, and the life of the aristocracy was the object of all walks of life, so Chinese tea completely changed its role and changed its identity there. .

Back then, when the British nobles invited people to drink tea, it was all in charge of the hostess, which was an opportunity for the hostess to show her status, power, wealth and elegance.She mysteriously took out the box, and there was only one key to open the box, which was in her hands alone, so she opened it in public, which aroused everyone's amazement.The cups and cups were already ready, and the servants were called to serve the water.But the servants can only carry the water, and everything related to tea must be handled by the hostess herself.Chinese brewed tea sometimes puts the tea leaves in the teapot, and sometimes puts the tea leaves in each person's teacup, so that the guests can appreciate the freshness of the green buds and brown leaves floating in the water.At that time, teapots were all used in Britain. Water was added again and again, poured again and again, thanks again and again, and nods of praise in earnest. Finally, the poured tea was completely colorless and tasteless.

It's not over yet.The hostess opened the lid of the teapot, carefully picked out the cleaned tea leaves with a beautiful metal clip, and distributed them to every guest evenly.As if they had found a treasure, the guests treasured the tea dregs on the bread slices, smeared a little butter and ate them. English says tea dregs is better than Chinese, it is called tea left over, but the word left over in English happens to be the same as leaf, so a few years ago, the door sign on Shanghai Street mistranslated tea shop as tea dregs shop, and the British saw it I'm a little surprised, because even they don't eat tea dregs bread anymore.

If Lu Yu and the others saw them drinking tea like this, they would be dumbfounded.Neither quenching the thirst of the lower class of China, nor the poetry of the upper class of China, it became an exaggerated ceremony to show dignity, and even the tea dregs were sent to heaven.Although it is noble, the culture and nationality of tea has changed, so they are greedy for convenience and go to their territories of India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka to grow tea. After tea was widely accepted in Britain, it gradually became a daily life style, and it was no longer a noble-style deep-seated secret.So far, the daily consumption of tea by the British is still the highest in the world, and it is impossible to imagine how the British would live without tea.

Chinese cultural people must not take advantage of this phenomenon to prove that Chinese culture has conquered Europe. As I said before, they have stripped away Chinese poetry and Chinese culture by drinking tea, so the reason for not leaving each day must be found elsewhere. .In my opinion, the basic reason is relatively primitive. It is because tea provides a slight stimulation that is not harmful to health and demeanor, and accepting this stimulation becomes an excuse to relax for a while, so there is a life that takes tea as the rhythm every day. Rhythm. That being the case, the British generally don't drink too strong tea, and it is rare to hear that they get drunk after drinking tea, but this is common in China, especially among those who like to drink oolong and Pu'er.Indifferent to a fixed rhythm every day, this is exactly the expression of their lack of poetry in diet. Making cultural comparisons through tea can generate a lot of interesting ideas, but the most difficult problem for me is this: the British imported tea from China for more than 300 years, but it constituted the most popular way of life, while the Chinese The history of tea drinking is too long, and it is still completely casual. There are still a large number of people who have no relationship with tea. Why is this? It's hard to find someone in the UK who doesn't drink tea at all, but it's everywhere in China.My friend in Taiwan, Mr. Yindi, sits next to such a good Taiwanese tea and just drinks coffee.One day, if the soft music in the coffee shop does not match the taste of the coffee, his ears are as sharp as sharp thorns, he can hear it immediately, and he is restless, he must negotiate with the manager.That time he knew that I love tea and went to the tea shop to buy good tea without telling me. The surprised description he gave me when he came back made me know that it was the first time for him to come into contact with tea so closely.Looking at this older Chinese poet, I couldn't believe it.Another special case is Mr. Qiu Zhijun, my companion who visited Europe with me this time.Just take a sip of that light tea in the dining room before dinner, and with just one sip, he can be so excited that his blood is throbbing all night, without any sleepiness, until the sun rises in the east. I am laughing as I write this, because I think of another interesting thing related to tea.Sichuan is the center of Chinese tea culture. I have a friend there who does social affairs related to tea every day. He has many friends and is well-informed, but his wife knows nothing about tea.On the day of the Spring Festival, four friends made an appointment to pay New Year's greetings. They brewed four cups of tea to entertain them. The friends left without drinking, and the host went out to see the guests off.When his wife was tidying up the living room, she felt sorry for the four cups of good tea that she hadn't had, so she drank them all with high neck.But when I drank it, I remembered that my husband said that the taste of this tea would not be tasted until the third cup, so I followed the same practice and drank twelve cups.According to what the host told me later, it was only a short while after seeing the guests home, but the wife's eyes were shining and she couldn't move.I laughed at his exaggeration, but his wife told me seriously: This is the first and last time I drink tea. The British are free in thinking but not free in ecology. They say that drinking afternoon tea will be popularized by the whole people. At the same time, there are few exceptions. , The most popular thing also has a large number of people who don't participate in it and don't know it.