There are many autumn grasses in the south of the West Palace, and the fallen leaves are full of red and do not sweep. The desolation depicted in this kind of poetry was not deeply appreciated until I entered the Saikyo University.

Luoyang is the imperial capital since ancient times, and it is also the capital of the dynasty, the spring is sweet and fertile, the wind is harmonious, and the Qingming is beautiful. Inheriting the Han and Tang Dynasty clothes and customs, the scholars and doctors of the national dynasty also prefer this place, often at home to manage the garden pond, build a pavilion, plant plants and trees, think that it is good to visit the year. Therefore, the sergeant and doctor of Luoyang City face each other in the garden, the flowers and trees are flourishing, and the reputation is all over the world.

However, the emperor's chances of taking advantage of Luoyang were not as many as those of the scholars, and he often only went to the tombs of the emperors when he visited them, and stayed for only two or three days, so the Xijing Palace Castle was far less valued than that of Tokyo Ouchi. The palace room that has continued to this day in the Sui and Tang dynasties has been damaged a lot, and the emperor of the dynasty has no intention of overhauling, and most of the officials and ministers who manage and maintain the inner hall repair the east wall and make up the west wall repair the method, often demolish the old house and repair two rooms for a new house, and now the scale of the palace has been greatly reduced, and it is no longer the prosperity of the previous dynasty.

There are many ruins, and this place has also become a paradise for wild grass and crows to breed. When I arrived, it was dusk, a hunched old chamberlain led me to the palace where I would live for a long time, and when I opened the courtyard door, I heard the sound of birds flapping and flapping their wings, and the alarmed black-feathered jays flew up to the branches of the fallen leaves, and watched us step on a thick layer of dead leaves, and they quickly regained their calm expressions, turned their heads coldly and proudly, and sang to the west wind with their monotonous and justifiable "quack" sound.

As I listened to the sound of the crow, the old chamberlain took out a key and shuddered to unlock the door of a palace room. After pushing the door, he first waved the dust whisk and swept away the spider silk hanging from the beam, and then motioned for me to go in, saying, "This is it." ”

It took me three days to clean it up into a place to live. A few days later, a new attendant came to me, and when he saw this, he smiled: "It's so clean, and it's still in the way of Tokyo, you must still want to go back." ”

Later, I noticed that the chamberlains here were very different from those in Tokyo, decadent and lazy, their dwellings and the courtyards of their offices were disorganized, and they lacked the motivation to clean up, and even when they worked, they only swung their brooms twice in the presence of the governor.

"Why do you sweep so clean? Anyway, the sky is high and the emperor is far away, and the officials can't see it. They said.

Most of them are eunuchs who have committed crimes, and they no longer hope to return to Tokyo, and their lives are like Miyagi, which becomes more and more barren as the years go by, and it seems that the meaning of life is just to put aside the broom, squint their eyes, and lie lazy in the sunny courtyard.

I didn't spend much time chatting with them, even though they were interested in my past experiences. In their eyes, I was probably reticent, and spent my days sweeping the courtyards with a broom, which could never be cleaned, as my present position requires.

One day in the first month of the sixth year of Jiayou, I was sweeping the floor in front of the main hall as usual, when someone approached, and a corner of the green shirt came into my eyes.

I looked up, fearing that the dust would stain his clothes, and I was about to confess to him, but when I raised my eyes and saw his face, I was stunned for a moment.

He smiled softly and called my name, "Waiji." ”

I was surprised and delighted, my hand loosened, the broom fell to the ground, and I gave him a deep bow: "Mr. Zhang." ”

Zhang Maoze's specific position now is under the jurisdiction of the soldiers and horses on Yongxing Road, and he is in charge of the government order of the forbidden brigade stationing, guarding, and training in Chang'an, Jingzhao Prefecture. He told me that this time, as an envoy of Yongxing Road, he still returned to Chang'an after the New Year, passing through Xijing, and knew that I was here now, so he came to see me.

I invited him into my house and wanted to go out to prepare some food and drink, but he stopped me: "I have never drunk alcohol, and I don't like meat and fish. I happen to have a cake here with a small dragon group given by the queen this year, and we meet today, how about replacing wine with tea? ”

I knew that he didn't like anything but tea, so I agreed, and immediately found a tea set to boil water and order tea.

Mr. Zhang took out the Xiaolongtuan tea from the luggage he carried, and took a set of tea utensils, silver soup bottles, tea mills, teaspoons, and Goose Creek painted silk tea cups and Jian'an black glazed rabbit tea cups, all of which are the best tea ordering utensils respected by the world.

"These are also given by the Queen?" I asked him, pointing to the tea set.

He bowed his head and said, "This is from the official family." ”

I was surprised, and immediately said with a smile: "Presumably, Mr. will return to Beijing just around the corner." ”

He could only smile: "It's early." ”

He didn't say more, and I didn't continue to ask, and the next moment I just watched in silence as he scraped off the anointing oil on Xiaolongtuan's tea, wrapped it in a piece of clean paper and pounded it, then took out an appropriate amount and put it on the boat-shaped silver tea mill, and began to grind it with one of the wheels.

Longfeng Tuan Tea is Jianzhou Phoenix Mountain Beiyuan Tribute Tea, tea cake is printed with dragon and phoenix patterns, big dragon, phoenix Tuan tea one pound and one cake, this kind of small dragon group tea is Cai Xiang when he was appointed as the Fujian Road transfer envoy to choose Beiyuan tea fine person made, one pound of ten cakes, and a year of tribute is only ten catties. The brown is milky white, this is rolled open, the jade dust is flying, the tea fragrance is overflowing, and the mouth has not yet felt refreshing.

When Mr. Zhang saw that I couldn't take his eyes off it, he smiled and asked me, "How are you doing in ordering tea now?" ”

I bowed my head and said, "It's hard to look at Mr. Xiang's back." ”

He looked at the remaining unused pieces of tea cakes and said, "You come too, let's fight." ”

On a whim, I didn't refuse, but also took some tea cubes and grinded them, and then the two of us each boiled water on the tea stove and waited for the soup to prepare for the tea fight.

When waiting for the soup, we all use the tea Luo to sift the milled tea finely, a little while, hear the sound of the soup bottle like pine wind and juniper rain, then lift the soup bottle one by one, and then copy into the tea powder, inject a little hot water to adjust to the extreme, so that the tea paste is like melting glue, and then lift the bottle, I hold a bamboo tea whisk, Mr. Zhang holds a silver spoon, each in the soup at the same time to their own cup ring back blow.

We move similarly, and the time it takes for each session to complete is not far apart. During this time, I peeked at Mr. Zhang's actions several times, but he kept his eyes down on his own business and did not pay attention to me once.

Tea leaves can be foam, and there is a little rice flour in the tea building, the milk mist is surging under the blow, overflowing, floating a stack of white foam milk flowers, Zhou Hui condenses and does not move, which is called "biting the cup" in the tea art. The victory or defeat of the tea fight lies in the length of time the milk flower bites the cup, and at the same time, after a while after the blow, whoever dissipates the milk flower in the cup first, revealing the water marks, is considered to lose.

Almost at the same time, we stopped the brushing action, put down the tea set in our hands, and placed the tea cup on the tray, side by side, waiting for the results of the fight.

The tea cup I use is a small open circle foot of the shadow blue lotus pattern cup, the tire is thin and moist, containing white tea overflowing with milk flowers, such as lotus leaves holding plain snow, and Mr. Zhang uses the rabbit hair carcass is thick, at first glance it looks unpretentious, but under a closer look, it can be seen that the black and cyan glaze of the tea cup is distributed with radial silver-white flow lines, slender as silver rabbit hair, exquisite and indescribable, and the tea cup and the tea color are contrasted, one black and one white, more can glow the tea.

At the beginning, the shape of the milky flowers in our cup is similar, but after a while, we can see that the milky flowers in the shadow green cup are still thinner, and the melting speed is slightly faster, the fine foam continues to break, and the layers of fading down, and finally the middle circle of water marks is revealed. And the milk flower bite in the rabbit is still the same, and there is no water color appearing.

I immediately bowed and smiled, "I'm ashamed, Mr. Huaiji loses a water." ”

Mr. Zhang also looked at me with a smile and asked, "We used the same tea and water this time, do you know where you lost?" ”

I thought about it, shook my head, and said, "Please sir." ”

Mr. Zhang then said one by one: "First of all, you are not meticulous enough when you take the tea, and the number of sieves is not as much as mine, and the tea powder used for ordering tea must be extremely fine to enter the soup lightly, so that the milk flower can absorb the tea powder; Secondly, if you don't pour enough soup into the teapot and don't let the teacup heat through, it will affect the floating of the tea powder and make it stand for a long time. Again, you are in a hurry to adjust the ointment and pour the soup after you boil the pot, resulting in the overripe water of the tea, and if it is overripe, the tea will sink, so you should wait for a while, and wait for the water in the bottle to stop boiling before starting to order tea; Moreover, you inject too much soup, so that the tea is less and the soup is more, and the cloud feet are easy to disperse. Finally, when you blow the gesture is too violent, the speed is not reached, should be injected into the side of the cup, let the hot water flow into the cup along the wall of the cup, at first stir the tea paste should not be too urgent, slowly stir, gradually add the blow, fingers around the wrist, up and down thoroughly, in order to make the color of the tea soup gradually open, the milk flower beads fall, long standing. ”

I was greatly impressed and thanked him, and he smiled slightly, as if casually, and said: "A big mistake is always made up of a series of small mistakes." ”

I lowered my eyes and savored his words, and only after a long time did I ask him again: "Mr. didn't look at me when he ordered tea, how do you know that my tea is not fine, the simmering cup is not enough, and the blow is too strong?" ”

"These things don't necessarily have to be stared at you to know." "If you look at the results, you can see the process at a glance," he said. ”