Yesterday was the seventh day of the first month of the Year of the Dragon, and in the old Shanghai teahouse in Jing'an District, Ms. Lu, a tea guest, was dressed in an elegant cheongsam and ordered a special ingots tea to taste this unique New Year's flavor. Yuanbao tea, because the shape of green olives resembles ingots and get the name, blue and white cover bowl, glowing with light green tea soup, steaming, round and rolling, two pointed green olives just like ingots.
Every year during the Spring Festival, ingots tea is highly sought after and has become a popular product in teahouses. When the waiter made tea, he congratulated again and again: "Send ingots, good luck." When Ms. Lu uncovered the tea lid of the blue and white bowl, the waiter shouted: "Depot Fortune, Fortune, Wishing you prosperity, peace and well-being." "Ingots tea is drunk in the mouth, full of fragrance, so that the tea guests are happy and feel a strong festive atmosphere.
Ingot tea became a folk tea.
Yuanbao tea has a deep historical origin, and the poet Lu You of the Southern Song Dynasty once wrote a poem: The cold spring changes itself for calamus water, and the live fire is idle to fry olive tea. Among them, "olive tea", that is, ingots tea.
Zhang Jianming, the representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage project Yuanbao tea, told reporters that Shanghai was known as "the first port in the south of the Yangtze River" because of the Qinglong Port with developed shipping in the Tang and Song dynasties, and was also known as "Xiaosu and Hangzhou" at that time. The protagonist of ingots tea, olives, is transported from Fujian to Qinglong Port, and then transferred to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi and other Jiangnan regions.
The Southern Song Dynasty moved the capital south to Hangzhou, and the tea culture in the south of the Yangtze River was also relatively strong, making Shanghai the intersection of the material and culture of ingots, and also making Shanghai the center of breeding and developing ingots.
In Shanghai, many foods are known as auspicious names during the Spring Festival, such as egg dumplings are called "ingots", meatballs mean "reunion", green vegetables are called "Anlu vegetables", and soybean sprouts are "ruyi dishes". Olives, also known as "Dafu Guo" and "Yuanbao" in Shanghainese, symbolize auspiciousness and happiness.
During the Chinese New Year, the restaurant will serve ingots tea before serving food to express the blessings of the New Year to the guests. In the theater, the audience also enjoyed the wonderful opera performance while tasting ingots tea. Yuanbao tea has been quietly integrated into the life of Shanghainese people and has become a unique folk tea culture.
Zhang Jianming introduced that since its initial opening in 1999, the old Shanghai teahouse has provided ingots tea for tea customers in the old city. After the old Shanghai teahouse was relocated to Jing'an District, as a traditional folk project, the ingots of the old Shanghai teahouse were listed as the fourth batch of district-level intangible cultural heritage items at the beginning of last year.
Facilitate communication between people.
In addition to begging for praise, in the Spring Festival, ingots tea is a good way of communication between people.
In the family, when the younger generation greets the elders, they will make a cup of ingots tea to show their respect; During the New Year, we should also make ingots tea to welcome the new year. People feel that after making ingots tea and putting refreshments, they can talk about family affairs, expectations, and feelings, so that they can be happy together. Zhang Jianming said.
In order to promote ingots tea and traditional culture, Zhang Jianming also organized many activities. He promoted the culture of filial piety through the Yuanbao Tea activity in the school, encouraging children to make a cup of Yuanbao tea for their parents during the Spring Festival to express their filial piety. Parents can also give back to their children with a word or a small gift to enhance the relationship between parents and children.
In order to celebrate the Chinese New Year, the old Shanghai teahouse has launched a special 20 version of ingots tea. **Yuanbao tea has been upgraded in terms of tea sets, and the shape and pattern of the teacup with flowers are selected as peonies, which means "flowers bloom and are rich". In addition, they also designed a blind box version of Yuanbao tea, which contains a variety of auspicious cards, including blessings such as "Wishing you prosperity" and "early birth of a noble son".
In order to make it easier for tea guests to carry and give to relatives and friends, the old Shanghai teahouse also launched an ingot tea gift box, which includes a beautiful "special bowl for ingot tea", five small boxes of ingot tea and a bag of pastries. Tea guests can give this gift box full of New Year's flavor and blessings to their relatives and friends to share the joy and beauty of the New Year.
Author: Zhang Xiaoming.
Text: Reporter Zhang Xiaoming Photo: Oriental IC Editor: Fu Lu.
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