A Bud N One Leaf

8 June - The 1st statutory Duanwu holiday

A Bud N One Leaf — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:35:29 +0800

Last Sunday was the 1st statutory Duanwu holiday, combined with a weekends, so I could have a 3 days break-away. During this festival, I usually eat Zongzi, which is made by mix glutinous rice with different seasonings or fillings and then wrapped by special bamboo leave called Ruoye in Chinese.

Ruoye
Depends on different ingredients used, Zongzi can be served either sweet or salty. In Shanghai, the most common types are:

Pure Rice Zongzi, which use only glutinous rice, in most time, the rice was pre-soaked with baking soda solution， as it was believed that sodium bicarbonate contained in the soda solution could help with digestion; most people eat pure rice zongzi by dipping it in fine sugar or syrup, while there are few who like the alkali taste and serve without sugar.

Red bean paste Zongzi, that's my favorite sweet Zongzi, red bean paste are stuffed inside pre-soaked rice.

Meat Zongzi, my number one choice. Really miss my granny's zongzi, much better than any brand I could find in the market. Meat are cut into cubes about 2-3 cm, pre-soaked with seasonings made by soya sauce, wine, and bouillon, then mix pre-soaked rice with soya sauce to taste. Generously tucks seasoned meats inside the salty rice. While at Singapore, their meat zongzi has more ingredients, in addition to meat, chestnut, dried black mushroom and dried shrimps are added, taste not bad, yet I still prefer the taste of my childhood. Food is the thing that easily trigger such nostalgic moments.

In early time, besides eating Zongzi on Duanwu, we also ate salted egg. My granny used to make yummy meat zongzi and salted eggs, the later need to be soaked in salted water for weeks before the festival, such home made salted eggs were more tasty, as it was never so salty like the ones we bought from supermarkets.

On the day of Duanwu, each child would be asked to pick a blue-green shell salted egg (boiled), and put it into a small red string bag that he/she would carry on the day. Another ornament for the day is scented sachets, normally made into a heart shape stuffed with cotton and fragrant herbs.

Folklores believe that on the day of Duanwu, poisonous creatures, the fiend of diseases and evil spirits are revived, kids are their most vulnerable targets; So little ones need to carry a salted egg and a herbal sachet that would bring good luck and dispel evil creatures and spirits.

A tiger shape scent sachet I bought this year
There are other measures need to be followed to protect the whole household:
Firstly, hanging sweet flag (calamus) leaves and a special wormwood branches (called as Aiye in Chinese) on main door. My grandpa once told me that in the night, the sweet flag leaves would turned into a sword and the Aiye would became a tiger, and would kill any vicious creatures that intended to sneak in.

Secondly, smudging a dried herb in the house before or during noon time on the day of Duanwu. The special herb could be purchased from any Chinese Herbal Medicine shop. When smoking the house, doors and windows need to to closed and everyone should move out to avoid the heavy smoke. I was once a stubborn kid who fancied about purifying myself with the smoke, and insisted to stay in doors during the smudging. This made me a little eccentric in the eyes of my neighbors and pleased my childish vanity.

Last but not least, drinking orpiment wine at lunchtime, legends said orpiment could drive away insects and serpents, just put a pinch of orpiment into liquor would have the effect. This practice was stopped when we realized that orpiment was a poisonous mineral that could not only kill insects and serpents but mammals like us if over-dozed.

Puerh Tea at the Shanghai Tea Expo

A Bud N One Leaf — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:55:10 +0800

In this year's Shanghai Tea Expo, Puerh tea became the most outstanding feature. Many exhibitors dressed in charming ethnic attires of their region. Ethnicity had became an attractive eye-catcher and selling point.

The tea is a real sleeper, which was once the synonym of a low quality tea, and later being discovered as a specialty tea that could enhance through time under good storage. Currently around 80% of Yunnan province's fresh tea leaves are made into this type of tea. Quite a number of recent years' puerh were entered into tea merchants, collectors or brokers warehouse, instead of consumers cups. Now with price dropped to a more realistic level, producers are trying to engage more consumers to the unique tea.

The taste of Puerh is either you love it or hate it, many of my tea class students found it taste more like herbal medicine instead of tea, while a few thought its earthy and nutty taste is acceptable. It's just like the old phrase: one man's meal is another man's poison.

I like to drink this tea in late afternoon as matured puerh are lesser stimulatory than other types of tea. And in summer, I'll make a blends of Puerh and chrysanthemum infusion to drive away heat.

back to blog with a handsome picture

A Bud N One Leaf — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:20:45 +0800

Haven't update my blog since January. The beginning of this year was quite busy.

Yesterday I went to Song Yuan Tea garden for a interview about tea. After finish my work, I went out in the the main hall, and happened to see a tea ceremony performed by a pair of foreign students. The pair was very nice looking, a newspaper photographer was busily taking pictures. I also shoot a few, here is my favorite one.

Olympic 5 rings and Chinese tea rituals

A Bud N One Leaf — Wed, 9 Jan 2008 12:14:36 +0800

A new tea ceremony show is inspired by the 5 ring flag of the Olympic game. In the show, representative types of Chinese tea were selected to reflect all the colors on the 5 ring flag.

Tea masters first perform a white tea ceremony indicating the white color background of the flag, followed by brewing 5 different gourmet teas simultaneously on round podiums that indicate the colors of 5 rings. Each ring can be associated with a relevant Chinese classification of tea: Yellow tea, Green tea, Red tea, Black tea, and Blue (also called Indigo tea, or oolong tea)
Above are the scene of brewing the 5 ring tea. the representative tea chosen for the show are Dragon Well, Yunan Black, Puerh, Iron Goddess and Huoshan Yellow Tea.

Comments (0) | Permlink | Tag (There is sth about China Tea) | Posted by Helen at 12:02

Happy New Year

A Bud N One Leaf — Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:19:49 +0800

                                H appiness depends upon your outlook on life.
                                A ttitude is just as important as ability.
                              P assion find yours this year!
                                P ositive thoughts make everything easier.
                                Y ou are unique, with special gifts, use them.

                                N ew beginnings with a new year.
                                E nthusiasm a true secret of success.
                                W ishes may they turn into goals.

                                Y ears go by too quickly, enjoy them.
                                E nergy may you have lots of it.
                                A ppreciation of life, don't take it for granted.
                                R elax take the time to relax in this coming year.

A Happy 2008
best wishes from
A Bud N One Leaf

History of Tea Ritual

A Bud N One Leaf — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:33:32 +0800

Brewing tea is an art in Asia, the earliest record of tea ritual or tea ceremony could be traced back to China’s Tang Dynasty (618 – 907AD). Tea ritual/ceremony was aesthetic and spiritual form of enjoying tea and the sensation it brought. In LuYu’s famous tea monograph “Tea Classic”, the Chinese Tea Saint elaborated tea rituals in a comprehensive coverage, with unique requirements upon venue, decoration, tools, etiquette, procedure and practices, etc.

In earlier times, tea rituals were often performed during banquets, 3 types of tea banquets were most famous:

Court Tea Banquet – hold by the emperor or the loyal families, it was a great honor to be invited. Delicacies were served in containers made of gold, jade, and other expensive materials; dancers and musicians played during the feast.

Monastery Tea Banquet – hold in monasteries, with the most fresh vegetarian foods and specialty tea made by the monks.

Scholar Tea Banquet – A scholars’ party boasts of the presence of gourmet foods and drinks, celebrity courtesans, and of course, gourmet tea.

Nobleman Han Xi Zai's evening banquet (part)

In 1259, A Japanese monk came to JinShan Monastery in Zhejiang, China to study Monastery Tea Banquet, later he went back to Japan with what he had learned. This became the start of Japanese Tea Ceremony, it also explains why Japanese tea rituals have the obvious influence of Zen Buddhism. In the 16^th century, Japanese Tea Ceremony was fully established both in theories and practices by a famous monk Sen no Rikyu, who was a also tea master.

Comments | Permalink | Tag (Tea Etiquette N Ritual) | Posted by Helen at 12:21

A spicy cuppa to warm up

A Bud N One Leaf — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:46:19 +0800

I love December, it’s cold but not freezing, sky looks higher, streets seems wider, sunshine is warmer… Showered in the warm afternoon sun, drowsiness slowly creeping up, lets make a good cup of spicy black tea to cheer up.

Ingredients:

8 grams of black tea
1 cinnamon stick, broken to pieces
5 pieces of ginger slice
2 whole star anises
500ml water
Sugar to taste
Condensed milk (optional)

Put cinnamon stick, ginger and star anise into boiling water; simmer for 5-6 minutes. Strain and quickly pour over black tea, steep for 3-5 minutes, pour into tea cups, add sugar to taste. Could also add condensed milk to make a creamy cup.

Comments | Permalink | Tag (Black Tea) | Posted by Helen at 21:57

A jealous wife's sarcasm

A Bud N One Leaf — Tue, 4 Dec 2007 09:45:18 +0800

When Chinese talk about basic groceries or things needed in order to live, they would often use the proverb “the Seven Necessities”, which refers to firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea. This proverb has the same meaning as “Bread and Butter” in English.

The earliest mentioning of such words was in a Yuan Dynasty play (Yuan Dynasty, 1206-1368, a empire started by Genghis Khan), in which a dialogue saying, “Get up in the morning, open the door first, and think about the seven necessities, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea”. So the proverb could also been said as “Open Door Seven Necessities”.

From this proverb we could understand that tea was a popular drink in old China. In the past, tea was consumed as a daily drink, when people talked about poverty, they would say such thing as “the household even couldn’t afford tea, and have to drink plain water.” A host/hostess would apology to his/her guests if they could not serve tea to them.

In Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a man married a concubine despite his wife’s objection. - In old China, men were allowed to marry concubines without the consent from his wife. Those married concubines have lesser legal rights and lower social status, and so does their children. Those women were called “Qie” in Chinese, while the wife was called “Qi”- Back to our story, the angry wife wrote a poem upon his husbands’ marriage with the “Qie” as a wedding gift.

“Congratulation on your getting a new bride
I will wash my hands off household works
Pass to her all those open door necessities
Firewood, Rice, Oil, Salt, Sauce and Tea”

In this poem, when the wife talked about passing those open door necessities to the concubine, she purposefully left out the item "Vinegar". In Chinese, the connotation of jealousy is “drinking vinegar”, she subtly expressed her jealous by indicating that she kept the vinegar for her own consumption.

Comments | Permalink | Tag (There is sth about China Tea) | Posted by Helen at 09:50

A wooden tea cozy

A Bud N One Leaf — Tue, 4 Dec 2007 09:55:06 +0800

How to keep a pot of tea warm in the Qing Dynasty? Stood on a fire? Covered with quilt? Or use some kinds of tea cozy? All might be possible.

Above is a Qing Dynasty wooden tea cozy, painted in the auspicious red with prosperous golden relief. A pot could be cozily sat inside with its spout fitted into a neatly carved opening. In real cold weather, small pieces of quilts would be tucked in between the cozy and the pot.

Comments | Permalink | Tag (There is sth about China Tea) | Posted by Helen at 12:20

Rock Tea

A Bud N One Leaf — Tue, 4 Dec 2007 13:18:39 +0800

Rock Tea, or Wuyi Rock Tea, as the name indicates, grows in gaps of the rocky mountain area of Wuyi, Fujian. It is a representative type of oolong from Northern Fujian. The tea looks sturdy and dark, with roasted flavor, rich taste and a subtle fruity sweetness.

To many tea connoisseurs, Rock Tea hold the same esteem as Iron Goddess from Southern Fujian. Basically, rock tea is more full-bodied, while iron goddess is more fragrant.

            Rock Tea (left)              Iron Goddess (right)


I like to pair Canton-style mooncake with the Rock Tea, the subtle fruitiness of the tea merges well with the sweet lotus/coconut paste of mooncake, and its charcoal chocolate taste washes away excessive oil and sweetness of mooncake.

Mooncake - the moon is full, the family gather around...

Rock tea has many sub-varieties, the most famous one is the Great Red Robe. It is the first tea which being listed in the National inventory of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage".

There are only 4 bushes of the original Great Red Robe tree remaining in the cliff of Wuyi moutain, which are now under strict protection and become a tourist attraction. All other Red Robe trees in tea gardens are reproductions of the four.

Great Red Robe

Thanks to modern reproduction technique, these descendants are almost identical clones of the mother bushes, which enabled me to taste my Great Red Robe without the guilty of exploit the precious ancient bushes.

         The Four - original Great Red Robe Tea

Comments | Permalink | Tag (Oolong Tea) | Posted by Helen at 16:31