In the middle of summer, every household has people carrying bamboo baskets, walking through the mountains and forests, picking a large number of turtledove leaves like picking mulberry leaves. After the leaves are taken home, they are washed with water first, and then the leaves are kneaded, or they can be ground in a very small stone mill to make leaf juice, and then filtered with fine gauze, and a bowl of verdant green slurry is packed into a porcelain bowl, and an appropriate amount of firewood ash or alkaline water made of plant ash, after that, the emerald green "god tofu" is made.

It is best to eat "god tofu" with cold salad. Generally, just mix it with a little sour water from kimchi, farmhouse bean paste, salt, etc. "God Tofu" is slippery in the mouth, cool, tender and delicious. It has the functions of clearing heat and defeating fire, quenching thirst and refreshing taste. In particular, its pure natural green appearance, jade-like attractive color, and strange taste have been favored by the people of Huolongping.

When Tian Limai was young, he often made his own god tofu with his sister Tian Liyu. Shen tofu and mountain spring water have almost become the best food and drink for Huolongping people to cool off.

"Mr. Jiang, Wang Yin'e, I invite you to taste the god tofu!" Tian Limai said.

"Okay, then let's really have a taste!" Jiang Wenwen said.

The three of them walked into the store, chose a small table and sat down, and Tian Limai ordered three servings of divine tofu. Everyone in the store looked at Tian Limai and the three of them, the men were tall and handsome, and the two girls were extremely beautiful, as if a cool spring breeze was blowing in the shop!

Tian Limai smiled and whispered: "I followed you two beauties, it's really stained, you two have not found it, the people in the store are watching you!" ”

Wang Yin'e smiled and whispered: "Tian Limai, I don't think it's what you said, it's those beauties who are targeting you!" ”

Three servings of divine tofu came, one small plate per person. Jiang Wenwen and Wang Yin'e tried it and thought it was delicious, and the two praised it in unison.

After eating the god tofu and leaving the shop, Jiang Wenwen said: "Tian Limai, this god tofu is really magical, slippery, cool and silky, with the feeling of jelly, however, this god tofu is pure natural and a wild woody plant." If you buy this kind of god tofu outside, it will definitely sell well. ”

"Mr. Jiang, you don't know, the storage period of this kind of divine tofu is only twelve hours, and once the twelve hours are over, it will basically turn into water." Tian Limai said.

"Then this god tofu is really godly, it seems that people outside the mountain don't have this kind of mouthful, if you want to eat it, you can only come to Huolongping!" Jiang Wenwen said with a sigh.

The three of them walked around the street again, and saw many souvenir shops, including red-clothed millet peanuts, Laoyin tea shops, etc., Wang Yin'e saw Laoyin tea shops, and asked: "Tian Limai, I see that there are people buying Laoyin tea everywhere on this street, what kind of tea is this Laoyin tea?" ”

"This Laoyin tea is also made of a wild tree leaves, and the tree is called Laoyin Tea Tree by our locals, and the Laoyin Tea Tree is big enough to be surrounded by two or three people, and the circle is more than four feet. After we locals pick the leaves, we make them into Laoyin tea by hand like making tea leaves, and after drying or drying, you can brew and drink! Tian Limai explained.

"Then what are the benefits of drinking this Lao Yin tea?" Wang Yin'e asked again.

Tian Limai said: "Drinking Laoyin tea is a major habit of Huolongping people, especially in summer, it is said that the "Compendium of Materia Medica" has records of cough, expectorant, asthma, heat and thirst. A few years ago, the government also sent this eagle tea to the tea inspection center for inspection, eagle tea contains more aromatic oils, because it contains polyphenolic compounds, fragrant when brewing, thick taste, shallow and sweet after astringency. It is also rich in amino acids, mineral elements, vitamin C, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, flavonoid ketones, polyphenols and other substances, which contain high zinc, high iron and high chromium, which is conducive to improving the function of the hematopoietic system. Eagle tea also contains other trace elements such as rubidium, phosphorus, etc., which have health effects on cranial nerves and cardiovascular disease. The finished tea soup is golden yellow with red, with a strong aromatic oil flavor of Lauraceae plants, especially suitable for summer drinking, and has a variety of effects such as quenching thirst and heatstroke, eliminating food and swelling, detoxifying and reducing swelling, refreshing and benefiting wisdom, brightening the eyes and strengthening the stomach, dispersing stasis and relieving pain, stopping diarrhea, stopping hiccups, etc. This is the statement on those materials, in short, there is one, Eagle Tea is a unique tea product of our Huolongping folk, and some old people also say, 'The food of fishy meat, this tea does not disappear'. ”

"Tian Limai, have you ever picked this Laoyin tea when you were a child?" Jiang Wenwen asked.

Tian Limai said with a smile: "I must have picked it." All of us on the four stations like Eagle Tea, which is clean in taste, fresh in color, soft in fragrance, thirst-quenching, tired, and suitable for all ages. During the tea picking season, pick more adult tea trees of more than five meters, set up a wooden ladder to climb the tree, and ride on the branch to pick the new shoots. The tea tree is young and the tea taste is insufficient, and it is weak after two waters, so they like to climb the big tree to pick it. After all, wooden ladders are limited in length. In this way, we learn to climb trees like monkeys from an early age. Speaking of climbing trees, my hands and feet are still itchy, picking eagle tea, picking fruits, poking chestnuts, beating walnuts, digging birds' nests...... Tree climbing is a recognized skill among our children, and it is a compulsory subject for boys. A tree five to ten meters high, clasped firmly with both hands, clamped with the soles of both feet, and with a full breath, a few handfuls can climb up the tree. More than 10 meters tall trees, because they are too high, you have to rest for a while in the middle of climbing, and you have to rely on your thighs and hands to coil the tree body during the break, so that the soles of your feet and palms can rest. Some of our children are very powerful, no matter how tall the tree is, you can climb the tree in one breath, there are not many people with this ability in our children, and people with this ability will attract people to watch every time they climb the tree, so that adults and children are amazed. As for me, I am not a top climber, but I am also a first-class level, except for the big trees that I can't hold with my hands together, I can climb them, but I don't have the ability to climb the treetops in one breath. ”

"Tian Limai, you are not a top master in tree climbing, so don't talk about it, or talk about your picking Lao Yin tea!?" Wang Yin'e said.

"No, Wang Yin'e, there is also a kind of top master who climbs trees, I want to tell you about it!" Tian Limai said.

"And the best masters? Tian Limai, the top master of tree climbing is already so powerful, I can imagine that he hugged the tree with both hands, and 'rubbed' the ground and jumped up the tree. Wang Yin'e said with a smile.

"Those top masters are specialized in climbing big trees and tall trees, and even if those trees are more than ten meters high, most of the trunks from the bottom to the top are scars and forked trees, and the people who climb the trees can only hold half of the tree body and climb up, we call it climbing 'half of the tree', and the people who climb 'half of the tree' are the top masters." Tian Limai said.

Tian Limai paused and then said: "Speaking of picking Laoyin tea when I was a child, there are many stories, there is a small Laoyin tea forest on our family's self-kept mountain, all of which are seven or eight meters high old trees, climbing trees and picking tea is a very pleasant thing for me, and I rush to go every time." My dad always followed me and never let me go alone. When I had climbed the tree, I untied the brown rope that hung around my waist, tied one end to the branch, and threw the other end down the tree. My dad tied the basket with the fresh leaves, and then pulled the basket up the tree and fastened it to the branches. Once that's all done, I get down to business: picking fresh leaves. Then I was like a naughty little monkey, picking the tender buds and leaves one by one, and stomping on the branches, shaking the tree to tremble, and my father looked up at me under the tree and shouted, 'Mai'er, be careful!'.

"When I have filled the basket, I will put the fresh leaves of the basket on the ground, and if I only pick one basket that day, my task will be completed. I slid down the trunk of the tree and fell to the ground, often causing my dad to pretend to be angry and start beating me, I swooped up to another tree, and my dad quickly said: Mai'er, stop playing with the skin, let's go home, your mother is still waiting.

"Back at home, my dad handed over the freshly picked leaves of Lao Yin tea to my mother, and my mother began to put the freshly picked Lao Yin tea leaves in a pot by traditional kneading, after kneading, spread on a clean mat, put in the sun to dry slowly, of course, if it is rainy, only slowly dry on the fire. The dried Laoyin tea leaves are wrapped tightly in brown skin, and one by one they hang under the eaves outside the window, together with dried chili peppers, dried cowpeas, dried salt vegetables, dried red vines, dried radish, etc., which have become a scenery on every house in our four houses. In the summer, the weather is hot, my mother makes a big teapot of Lao Yin tea every day to cool down, as soon as I come home from school, I drink a teapot of red Lao Yin tea like a cow, and the feeling in my heart is really refreshing. ”

After Tian Limai finished speaking, Jiang Wenwen asked: "Tian Limai, since you said that Lao Yin tea is so popular with you people in Huolongping, why doesn't anyone open a teahouse that drinks Lao Yin tea?" Jiang Wenwen asked.

"Mr. Jiang, you asked this question well, I used to ask others, and later I learned that there was also someone who opened a Laoyin teahouse on this Huolongping Street, but the business was very bleak, except for some people who went to taste at the beginning of the opening, no one patronized it anymore, due to the price, the people who came to the street in the countryside to catch the market will not go. Some people say that literati love to taste tea, I am not a literati, let alone taste tea, there is no good tea to light, real tea tasteless elegance, and there is no Zen such as the old Zen master in the monk's temple in the past to 'eat tea'. I sometimes go to other places, unconsciously go to the tea stalls, just to see if there is Lao Yin tea in our Huolongping on those tea stalls, and it is really rare to see Lao Yin tea.

Later, I went home and told my grandfather about the fact that I rarely saw Lao Yin tea outside, and my grandfather said that those city people disdain to drink Lao Yin tea, because it is a folk thing, an out-and-out bottom drink, and it cannot be elegant. Grandpa said, if our old yin tea had been loved by the emperor, it might have been a different scene. Later, I learned that there are many mysteries and natural wonders on the 30th parallel of the earth, and whether this Laoyin tea counts, with this understanding, I think Laoyin tea may be considered good because of this. The most good is the eagle "insect tea" along the river in northern Qianbei, put the eagle tea in a dark and breathable vessel, let a small insect eat and drink in the tea leaves, and then collect the feces of the small insects, a little screening, can be made into the "insect tea" with a stronger aromatic oil flavor than the stems and leaves of the lauraceae family.

People who can drink tea are tea drinkers, not tea drinkers. I'm a layman at the tea ceremony, so I can only drink it, not taste it. A friend came from afar and sent Tieguanyin, and I couldn't drink it. My wife laughed and said that I was "Zhu Bajie eating ginseng fruit". My friend Tang Mou, who is addicted to alcohol, must drink every day, just drank wine during dinner, and then poured himself a drink while playing mahjong. He had said that it would take several truckloads of the liquor he had drunk for decades to be poured together. His favorite wine is the inexpensive Lao Baigan, and he is not addicted to drinking Wuliangye and Moutai occasionally. My tea drinking is similar to Tang's drinking, and I don't know the goods.

My father can be said to be a tea can, and before liberation, businessmen liked to sit in the teahouse. There is a large teahouse in the rice pavilion on Minsheng Road, with dozens of square tables, and hundreds of businessmen crowd in and out, which is very lively. My father was doing business in Mi Tingzi back then, and as soon as he entered the teahouse, he didn't need to be greeted, and the cousin would bring tea. They drink Gaiwan Tuo tea from time to time. When I was in middle school during the winter and summer vacations, my father also took me to a teahouse. My father taught me my first lesson in drinking tea here. The first time I drank Tuocha, I felt bitter and astringent, and I was not interested. After liberation, I participated in work, and drinking tea was indispensable for work and meetings, and gradually understood a little knowledge that drinking tea is beneficial to health.

For me, drinking Laoyin tea is earlier than drinking Tuo tea. I remember when I was in elementary school, I did my homework on the only writing desk at home after school. There was a large biscuit cone on the left side of the desk, and when I opened the biscuit cone, I saw that there were no biscuits in it, but some "leaves", and the "leaves" were crawling with insects, and there were insect feces under the "leaves", and I was startled. At this time, my mother said that this was Lao Yin tea, and the feces of the insects were called insect sha, and drinking it could clear away the heat and relieve the heat. On dog days, my mother made Lao Yin tea for me to drink. When she saw that I had a bad appetite, she used Lao Yin tea to make me rice, and added a plate of pickles such as pickled radish, which was very delicious. As the saying goes, "It's not good to look like it's dressed up, and it's not as delicious as chazuke." I got a taste of the unique flavor of Laoyin Chazuke.

In the past, Laoyin tea was sold on the streets of Chongqing. The lady who sells tea puts a large clay pot on the side of the street, and several teacups are placed on the lid of the jar, and the cups are filled with red Laoyin tea, and the words "drink even if you pay a penny" are written next to it to attract customers. In the early '70s, my wife and I went out to play on Sundays. At that time, we had little income, and we had to raise children, so we were very frugal. Go to Dadukou and Yangjiaping to play until noon, eat a bowl of sour and spicy noodles for a few dimes when you are hungry, and drink a cup of Laoyin tea for a penny when you are thirsty. That Laoyin tea is neither hot nor hot, and drinking a large cup in one breath can quench your thirst the most. I really want to drink it. Now there is not much Lao Yin tea sold on the market, and drinking cola and soda is no longer as happy as drinking Lao Yin tea back then. Laoyin tea is a low-grade tea family. The cheap and high-quality Laoyin tea has its own preciousness, so it still reminds me of its good memories from time to time. (To be continued.) )