Essay on the theme of tea-It is not easy for both China people and foreigners to change their inherent ideas and go out of their comfort zones to try new things.
There just happened to be new tea on the market recently. Not long ago, I received Zhu's customized spring tea, so I took it to the office to try it for my colleagues. Several foreigners looked at the whole process of making tea, and looked at the tea buds standing in the teacup, and all sighed. I told them that in China, tea tasting is an important part of tea culture, just like tasting the fragrance in red wine.
However, when I brought them the brewed tea for them to taste, they hesitated to take it and smell it, but they dared not open their mouths to drink. Because in their cognition, tea should be tea powder and tea bag.
The glass of water in front of me is full of mysterious and magical oriental flavor, beautiful, but a little reluctant to swallow it.
I have repeatedly insisted that the pursuit of drinking green tea is freshness, and China people like to entertain their friends with the freshest tea every spring, so-called "new tea friends".
Out of courtesy, they took a few sips and put them aside. After work, everyone's desk is still full of a cup of tea
It is not the first time for me to be frustrated in "promoting" China culture.
I once chatted with my colleagues, and several people praised themselves for their love of Chinese food. I told them that the Chinese food you eat is not real Chinese food, but an improved American Chinese food, which you can't eat at all in China. I'll take you to eat real Chinese food next time.
Looking at their eager faces, I suddenly had motivation. At noon the next day, I took the gang to a very authentic Sichuan restaurant and ordered husband and wife lung slices, white meat with garlic paste, boiled fish, Sichuan-style pork and ants climbing trees.
When the food was served, the expressions on my colleagues' faces gradually became surprised. They carefully raised chopsticks, carefully picked up vegetables and put them in their mouths. Although they always say it's delicious out of politeness, their stomachs won't lie. After eating for half an hour, most of the dishes are still full.
I couldn't bear it, so I had to forgive the left chicken and sesame beef. I couldn't help but laugh and cry when I watched them sweep away the most common dishes in these two American Chinese foods with relief and joy.
In a city like new york, everyone flaunts that they are willing to accept new things. They exaggerate that they love Chinese food, Korean food and Nepalese food-they love food from any country, and using chopsticks is everyone's basic skill. However, many people do this just to satisfy their social vanity. For them, the acceptable Chinese food is limited to the improved American Chinese food that caters to their tastes.
People who have been to America probably know what Chinese food is like in America. There are more than 40,000 Chinese restaurants in America, more than McDonald's, KFC and Burger King combined. Streets and alleys in big cities can be seen almost everywhere. If you drive down the road, even in the most desolate and remote corner, you can see Chinese restaurants standing stubbornly on the roadside like lighthouses. Most of these Chinese restaurants are small family restaurants run by immigrants from China. I searched China restaurants on the map, and there were countless results.
The most famous dish in these China restaurants is the left Tang Zong chicken I mentioned above. The name is actually misinformed. Its real name is Zuo Zongtang Chicken, which means "General Zuo's Chicken". General Zuo was a general in the Qing Dynasty. This dish is made of large pieces of peeled chicken wrapped in flour, fried and poured with thick sweet and sour sauce. It tastes sour and sweet, and it tastes a bit like goo goo meat. In addition, there are sesame chicken and dried tangerine peel chicken, all of which taste similar.
The most common side dish of American Chinese food is broccoli, and the meat is usually chicken and beef, which gives birth to two other American Chinese foods: fried beef with broccoli and fried chicken with broccoli. It is a bit inappropriate to use "stir-fry" here, because the so-called stir-fry is actually nothing more than cooking the meat and pouring some soup. As for broccoli, it follows American habits and is almost raw.
In addition, there are combinations of chicken, beef, shrimp and other vegetables, but nothing more than green peppers, peas and mushrooms. All these dishes taste the same.
Americans don't eat pork very much, so there is almost no pork in restaurants in China, but some restaurants in China serve barbecued pork, which, of course, tastes completely different from barbecued pork in China.
There is also a famous dish, hibiscus egg, which is fried with eggs and vegetables. According to the different tastes of customers, beef, chicken or shrimp will be added and dipped in a thick sauce that I don't know how to cook. The taste of this dish varies from restaurant to restaurant. The main difference is the sauce. Some restaurants make good sauces. Although it tastes strange, it is quite delicious.
There is also sticky egg drop soup, with a lot of starch thickening, and hot and sour soup is also common.
After eating Chinese food, Americans have a very important tradition. When checking out, the clerk will give everyone a signature cake, which is made of eggs and flour and tastes a bit like an omelet. After opening it, there is a small note with inspirational "chicken soup for the soul" and lucky numbers on one side and Chinese words and English explanations on the other. No one knows how the signature cake, which does not exist in China, originated in the United States, but it is certain that the person who came up with this idea decades ago was a genius, because it played an important role in the popularity of early American Chinese food.
These small Chinese restaurants have nothing to do with each other, but each one looks very similar. Just like a chain restaurant, almost all of them have the same storefront, the same style of light box signs, and the repetition rate of store names is high.
The menus all look the same.
Even the take-away boxes are almost identical, which is often seen in American dramas.
In a sense, tens of thousands of Chinese restaurants in the United States are the American version of Shaxian snacks-low-end, low-priced, with many shops and unified style, all singing a loyal hymn.
The American Shaxian snack with high acceptance is fast food, not the orthodoxy of Chinese cuisine. Tea plays an important role in China's food culture, but its acceptance in the United States is not high. However, I will not be disappointed to see the bamboo leaves left by my colleagues that have hardly moved. It is a common phenomenon that many people find it difficult to adjust, not to mention the collision of two food cultures. What is truly distinctive is individuality, and what is extravagant takes time, such as new tea only once a year.
Therefore, I would rather this cup of early spring green tea, with its tall and straight tea buds and mysterious and smooth oriental green, make foreigners curious, hesitant, and even temporarily "disgusted", than turn it into a lump of tea powder and tea bag to quickly cater to foreigners' habits, lose its original vitality, and then compete with other' tea bags'.
My wife has always had a soft spot for tea, and my biggest hobby in my life is drinking tea and tasting it. The teacup won't leave your hand all year round. As long as you are free, make a cup of hot tea, watch the green tea float up and down in the cup, and watch the wisps of tea smoke rise slowly from the cup, emitting a faint Qing Xiang, which smells fascinating. Whether traveling or on business, my lover always goes to the tea market, selects some fine teas from the tea shops, and gives them to friends and relatives to share with them. There are Pu 'er tea, Biluochun tea, Longjing tea, Tieguanyin tea and Xinyang Maojian tea. In order to drink tea, the expenses at home have increased a lot, so I have been nagging him: Do you love tea so much? Is tea that good? But at this time, he can always tell me a lot of benefits of drinking tea, what kind of tea can preserve health, prevent old age and get rid of diseases; Drinking tea can cultivate self-cultivation and cultivate sentiment; The most precious thing is that women can drink tea in beauty beauty and stay young forever. I was speechless by him at that time.
My wife is an extremely introverted person. She doesn't like to talk at ordinary times, but whenever tea is mentioned, the conversation gate suddenly opens and she talks endlessly. Whenever guests come, he always takes out the best tea at home to entertain them, and talks with them about the benefits of drinking tea, drinking scented tea in spring, green tea in summer, green tea in autumn, black tea in winter, spring, summer, autumn and winter, and watching the weather. On weekdays, he also told me from time to time that since autumn, the sky is high and the clouds are light, the golden wind is bleak, the flowers and trees are withered, and the climate is dry, which is prone to symptoms such as "getting angry", dry skin, dry nose, sore throat and headache. This is caused by the weather changing from hot season to cold season. Let me drink more green tea and balance the qi and blood metabolism in the machine. He also told me that the weather is getting warmer in spring and flowers are in full bloom. Drinking jasmine, honeysuckle, roses, chrysanthemums and other scented teas is not only beneficial to beauty, but also beneficial to health. In summer, the weather is hot and the heat is pressing, so drink more green tea, and so on. The nuances are real. Your lover's concern and consideration are just like the sweetness and mellow of tea, which makes people happy and intoxicated. Under his encouragement and spur, I never drank water or tea again. For beauty, for health, for the love of my lover, I involuntarily took a sip of the cup. Suddenly, the bitter tea juice changed from bitter to sweet. Gradually, I fell in love with drinking tea, learned the skills and methods of making tea, and got a deeper understanding of the nature, connotation and essence of tea, as well as the tea culture and history of China.
People have character, and tea has a tea ceremony. As early as the Tang Dynasty, there was a tea ceremony. China tea ceremony pursues elegance and broadmindedness, and tea ceremony is humanistic. The core of its * * * is a word "and". In today's society, harmonious development and peace are the eternal themes of human development. Tea is like character, and tea tastes life. In the process of tea tasting, people carefully taste the bitterness of tea. I realized how to see the splendor of the rainbow, how to understand the true meaning of life, how to enjoy a happy life without experiencing the baptism of wind and rain, and how to enjoy a bitter and sweet life without experiencing setbacks and hardships. Life is like tea. In this chaotic era, one person tastes tea, two people taste tea, which means "getting interesting", and everyone gathers products, which means "getting wisdom", so as to cultivate personality, cultivate self-cultivation, be indifferent to ambition, be quiet and far-reaching, not be happy with things, not be sad for themselves, and always keep the natural color of tea-like fragrance and sweetness, thus gradually calming the impetuous heart.
Now, I also like drinking tea and tasting tea, seeking a kind of comfort and tranquility in the process of drinking tea and tasting tea. In our spare time, my wife and I sat in a rocking chair by the window, making a pot of hot tea, smelling the fragrance of tea, tasting the sweetness of tea, recalling the past life and imagining the future life, so that the character, spirit and culture of tea can accompany us all the way forward!
With tea as the theme, I like to taste a pot of fragrant tea in a quiet night, accompanied by strong tea fragrance, and sort out my confused thoughts. Quietly looking at a leaf, rolling and precipitating in the cup again and again, a glass of water from strong to weak, and tasting a pot of tea from fragrant to weak.
Bai Luomei said: "Drinking tea is tasteless, listening to songs without rhyme, reading books without words, and loving someone unintentionally." Light time, a cup of tea, chess, poetry and painting, let the dull days be leisurely and elegant in the fragrance.
Throughout the ages, the seasons change, and bloom flowers fall. In the cycle of time, the colors of the past have long been lost. Only a wisp of tea fragrance floated across the bright moon in Qin dynasty, still safely in a glass of water.
A cup of tea, regardless of the nobility, celebrities and dignitaries, rural Ye Fu, can hold a cup of fragrant teas in their spare time, watch the bloom flowers fall in front of the court, enjoy the clouds and talk about the past and the present. Fine and slow kungfu tea, swearing and drinking big bowls of tea all make elegant days faint with fragrance.
The fate of tea and water, neither early nor late, seems to be a thousand-year invitation. Tea is the most beautiful scenery of water, and water is the return of tea. When we meet, we don't need to talk about flowers and moons, and we don't need to talk about the joy of reunion after a long separation. It's just a subtle interdependence. Tea releases the most beautiful fragrance in life for water. Water with tea is sweet and bitter, and we will never give up.
Meeting and knowing each other in life may be an agreement in a previous life, and the reunion of two people is for the oath of seal cutting on Sansheng stone. In the sea of people, an eyebrow meets an eye, and the heart is in harmony. I didn't meet and hate each other, and I didn't miss it. It happened that I was there when you came. Simple meeting, simple getting along, seeing through the wind and rain together, bathing in vicissitudes of life.
A cup of tea is bitter when it is strong and tasteless when it is weak. A cup with the right color can always make people memorable. Accompanied by a favorite person, holding a lamp in the breeze, looking up at or inviting the west wing of the bright moon, there is no music, no wealth, and relative silence. Take a sip of fragrant tea in your hand, taste the opportunity of tea and water, and share weal and woe.
The life of tea is full of ups and downs. It experienced the attack of wind and rain, accepted the pain of separation when picking, and released its fragrance in a cup of boiling water after high temperature baking and sun drying. The lingering fragrance adds charm to Tang poetry and Song poetry, and also adds fragrance to spring flowers and autumn moons.
In the spring, summer, autumn and winter, bloom is in full swing, and it is inevitable to stumble when trudging through the world of mortals, and it is inevitable to leave when we meet all the way, and success or failure of honor or disgrace is also common. Only with a simple and elegant heart, look down on the glitz in the world, smile at the ups and downs, whether it is new clothes or death, we must face it calmly and calmly.
A journey of scenery, a journey of life, and every journey of life, fate has arranged different scenery and opportunities for us. The road of life will not always be sunny, nor will it always be full of spring. No matter what kind of encounters and hardships, I believe that fate has made the best arrangements for our growth.
Tea has always had an appointment with Zen. Zen temple, a quiet place, can't hold wine and meat, but it has a soft spot for tea. Pilgrims and travelers who worship the Buddha can get a bowl of green tea in the meditation hall of the temple. Burning incense, the sound of wooden fish, piety and kindness, spotless before the Buddha, drinking a cup of light vegetarian tea, cultivating the mind and nourishing the nature, and striving for peace with the world.
Fireworks people, ordinary people, life is as light as tea, and there is sweetness in bitterness. On a quiet day, I was safe and sound in a pot of tea. Going out early and returning late, I will make a pot of tea, enjoy my children's affection on my knees and show my filial piety to Gaotang. You don't need delicacies, it's gorgeous, and happiness is already full of eyebrows.
Holding a cup of tea, whether it is a friend who has never turned against me or a chance meeting, there are tea, water, a coffee table, several benches, worldly affairs, short-lived parents and past grievances, all of which are fragrant between your lips and teeth.
In the late Qing Dynasty, Pu Songling entertained guests with a cup of tea at a busy intersection, and all the past and future events came in a cup of tea. Perhaps those monsters, foxes and fairies all found the fragrance of tea, and in the dead of night, they escaped into Mr. Pu's cup in the moonlight breeze. It was a legendary story from a strange studio.
In my spare time, drinking a cup of tea has nothing to do with romance and fame. In the dense fragrance of tea, taste the past, let the gains and losses of grievances roll with the tea, return to dullness, savor a cup of fragrant tea carefully, and finally understand that prosperity is like a dream and finally return to calm, and let life exude its own fragrance with a cup of tea.