A harbor that embraces the world and connects the rainbow of the worldCantonese people have all kinds of liquids flowing in their blood, sugar water, soup, tea, ......One of the most important is tea. Cantonese tea drinking culture, that is, a series of cultures with morning tea as the core in the Cantonese cultural district, is different from Chaoshan Gongfu tea, which is mainly based on tea tasting, and Lao Cantonese tea is also called "sigh tea" ("sigh" means enjoyment in Cantonese), and attaches more importance to dim sum, dishes and porridge. Lao Guang often said that "one cup of two pieces" is enough to sigh the world. "One cup" refers to a pot of tea, and the more authentic ones include chrysanthemum tea, Pu'er tea, Tieguanyin, etc.; "Two pieces" refers to two pieces of dim sum, the most common of which include the "Four Heavenly Kings" – shrimp dumplings, steamed siu mai, barbecued pork buns, and egg tarts.
As a world-renowned provincial intangible cultural heritage born in Guangzhou, prevailing in the Greater Bay Area and overseas Cantonese cultural areas, Cantonese tea drinking culture gathers cultural forms such as drinking culture (tea culture), food culture (dim sum culture), and life customs (etiquette culture, mentality culture), which not only embodies Chinese food culture, but also is an important business card of Lingnan culture, with rich cultural heritage and strong cultural vitality, and is an important window for the world to understand China, the Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou and Lingnan culture.
The philosophy of life of the strivers
Located in Guangdong Province, the largest economy in the country, Cantonese people not only know how to do their best to actively struggle, but also know how to enjoy leisure in their busy spare time; Not only are they willing to make great achievements, but they are also willing to establish an emotional bond with the city. The Guangfu area is narrow and densely populated, the contradictions in population, resources and environment are large, and the unique natural and human environment forces Guangfu to compete and work hard to create its own world. Whether it is to ask for the means of subsistence from the sea, or to travel abroad in large numbers to make a living, the Cantonese people have an extraordinary adventurous spirit, eager to explore, realize their ambitions, and remember the direction they came from, and do not want to get lost in the vast sea.
After being tired for a while, Lao Guang likes to make an appointment with three or five friends, or bring a large family to drink tea in the teahouse, enjoy food and companionship. Although it is called Drinking Tea, tea is not the main character, and the real highlight is dim sum. Since the development of Cantonese dim sum, there have been at least 1,000 varieties, which can be divided into six categories: meat steaming, desserts, xiaolongchang, large-basket steaming, porridge, and frying. For Cantonese people, morning tea not only fills the stomach of Cantonese people, but also holds people's hearts like a thin thread, so that Cantonese people can occasionally slow down while struggling forward, stop for a moment for family and friends, beautiful scenery and food, and enjoy the moment. Cantonese people will love and sweat poured into the land, casting the city's civilization process, the city also feeds the people of Canton with food, giving people a sense of spiritual belonging, therefore, morning tea is the emotional bond between people, but also the same frequency resonance of the city spirit.
This spirit coincides with the concept of a relaxation and a degree of advance and retreat advocated by the ancient Chinese, and what Cantonese people advocate is not a completely flat life mode, let alone the burden of escaping reality, but a moment of relaxation after the struggle, which is a dynamic natural balance.
Last year, a "three o'clock, drink tea first" short** exploded on Facebook, a foreign uncle held a camera and a bag of milk tea** spoke a mouthful of authentic Cantonese, showing his declaration of touching fish: "Hey, it's past three o'clock, what else do you do, drink tea first, what's the use of doing so much, anyway, the boss won't feel sorry for you!" It instantly resonated with migrant workers and quickly spread throughout the Internet. In recent years, anxiety such as "involution" and "internal friction" has struck one after another, becoming the key words of the times, so "lying flat" and "rotten" have become the self-deprecation and helplessness on the lips of many young people. This foreign uncle's manifesto of fishing is a typical example of this attitude to life.
The people of Canton will never fall into the two extreme states of continuous desperate and completely lying flat. They have their own happy secrets, they should work hard, they should live leisure, work hard, drink tea hard, work hard, enjoy life, it is their philosophy of life.
In the old days, Guangzhou's "Miao Qixiang" teahouse had a couplet: "Busy for fame, busy for profit, busy and busy, drink a cup of tea; Work hard, work hard, make fun in suffering, bring a pot of wine. "Modern society is like a fast-running machine around the clock, everyone is a screw in the machine, driven to operate non-stop, not only physically tired, but also mentally tired in the bizarre. The teahouse is a place of rest for the soul of Cantonese people, so that they can heal their tired hearts with delicious food and tea in their busy time, replenish their spiritual energy, and have the strength to continue to move forward after the body and mind have been fully recuperated. Cantonese people grasp the heat of life in this relaxed and slow rhythm, and the wind and fire are calm and calm, one is the other, and the life is endless.
The exquisite life of ordinary people
It is said to be morning tea, but it is not confined to the morning. The largest restaurant in Guangzhou generally has three tea markets in the morning, afternoon and evening, with the most customers in the morning and evening, and the large restaurant can accommodate hundreds of people to dine and drink tea at the same time, which can be called a scene in Guangzhou. The guests who eat morning tea are often divided into different batches, the earliest group is the elderly who get up early, then the office workers, and then the late people who solve the problem with morning tea and afternoon tea, morning tea and afternoon tea continue to night tea, and the morning tea of Cantonese people has become an all-weather dining option. The flexible tea time allows you to queue up early just like your grandparents and grandparents, just to pick a seat of your choice, and also allows you to walk into the teahouse in the afternoon. Dim sum is divided into "small", "medium", "large" and "super", etc., and the amount of dim sum can not only be flexible in time, but also the amount of dim sum can meet the different needs of diners. The guests who go to drink tea can sit for three or four hours, in addition to satisfying the appetite, because the tea house environment is comfortable and pleasant, the way of serving food is simple and convenient, and it has also become a good place for the old people to string relatives, meet friends, talk about business, and engage in public relations.
Walking into the teahouse, sitting in the accompaniment of Cantonese opera or Cantonese opera, the regular customers know the types of dim sum by heart, and unhurriedly tick the must-order items on the menu; Newcomers excitedly tick off their boxes from the dazzling menu. For Cantonese people, another valuable thing about Cantonese morning tea is that drinking tea represents a delicate life that ordinary people can also achieve. Whether you are a rich boss or a toiling public who is running around for life all day long, you can find your own enjoyment in drinking tea.
In the past, the "Yili Pavilion" was originally a leisure place for the poor, and it was not until the Guangxu period that some high-grade teahouses slowly began to appear in Guangzhou, and the main people who came to consume were literati and ink writers, rich gentry and magnates and other upper-class people. But even so, morning tea has not become the preserve of the rich, and the peddlers and pawns can happily enjoy the morning tea that they can afford within their own economic range. Because of this, there is an idle sentence: "If you have money, you go upstairs, but you don't have money to go down" (Cantonese, meaning squatting). This kind of inclusiveness makes Cantonese tea drinking a down-to-earth culture, which is full of fireworks in the market, looking at every guest, whether you are an ordinary person or a dignitary, you have to "arrange a fund" when you are late.
Fresh, fragrant, sweet and glutinous, steamed, stir-fried and stewed, rich tea ingredients and production methods show the all-encompassing characteristics of Cantonese cuisine, although the taste is light but full of flavor, unlike other cuisines that are spicy or sweet or heavy oil have strong exclusivity, so they can be accepted by people everywhere. The inclusiveness of morning tea snacks is not only reflected in the variety, but also in the way it is made. The teahouse retains most of the traditional cooking methods that have been handed down for a long time, and also absorbs the skills of overseas dim sum, and continues to innovate on the basis of inheritance. For example, the Cantonese egg tart combines Cantonese egg stew and Western dessert skills to provide diners with a combination of Chinese and Western, ordinary and exquisite dessert food. "The cortex is filled with yellow soup, which is like a bird's nest egg breaking pulp. Show people in front of the mirror like a mirror, ordinary food is indeed unique", Cantonese point master He Shihuang once wrote a poem for Cantonese egg tarts, see poems such as tarts, a thin skin and thick filling of golden egg tarts such as in the present.
After tasting dim sum, a cup of refreshing tea will relieve diners and bring a refreshing fragrance. Diners chat, drink tea and taste refreshments, the warm and fragrant tea soup and steaming refreshments calm the impetuous hearts, and also let people use food to shorten the distance between each other. In the teahouse, people can temporarily withdraw themselves from this fast-paced and information overloaded era, and the biggest thing in front of them is to concentrate on enjoying food and company time.
**There are poems of "drinking tea in Guangdong has not forgotten", Cantonese tea drinking is eclectic, fragrant inside and outside, this culture is the epitome of urban civilization, but also the embodiment of the humanistic spirit of Canton, Cantonese people accelerate the process of urban civilization at the same time, always leave a warmth. In the face of all kinds of changes and iterations of the times, we can still feel at ease and calm down.
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HuaxiaIssue 233
Editor-in-Chief: Liu Disheng, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Zhong Minyi, Assistant Editor-in-Chief, Zhao Yanghuan, Submission Email: gdqlhx@163com address: 6th Floor, Guangdong Overseas Chinese Federation Building, No. 140-148, Tiyu East Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou.