http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/index/ en alnedra.mofi@gmail.com Copyright 2010 2010-03-20T09:09:13+00:00 http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/lychee_tea/ http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/lychee_tea/#When:01:18:00Z There are four women of ancient China who were reknowned for their beauty. No true likenesses have been preserved and their beauty is recorded only in metaphor. Xī Shī 西施 was so beautiful that fish would forget to swim; Wáng Zhāojūn 王昭君 caused birds to fall out of the sky; the moon would cover her face in cloud when Diāochán 貂蟬 walked by; and flowers would close at the sight of Yáng Guìfēi 楊貴妃. This is recorded in the phrase, 「沉魚落雁，閉月羞花」, which is today used to describe extreme beauty. Yang Guifei (719 to 756 A.D.) was an imperial concubine in the Tang Dynasty, and through her influence, many of her family and favourites obtained preferment to high positions in government. One of her favourites, An Lushan, was promoted to the position of governor of three major frontier provinces in the northeast of China, which allowed him to build a sizeable army and to move outside of Yang Guifei’s sphere of influence. In 755 A.D., An Lushan led a revolt that almost brought an end to the fall of the Tang Dynasty. The Chief Minister of that time was Yáng Guózhōng 楊國忠, a cousin of Yang Guifei, and his gross incompetence resulted in the fall of the capital, Chángān 長安. Yang Guifei was blamed for the rebellion and the imperial bodyguard demanded her execution in exchange for their continued loyalty to the Emperor. Yang Guifei adored lychees 荔枝, which only grow in the south of China. Come the autumn of each year, the Emperor despatched teams of horses and boats to rapidly relay the precious fruit to the capital at enormous expense. This display of extravagance was recorded by the poet Dù Mù 杜牧:「長安回望繡成堆，山頂千門次第開。一騎紅塵妃子笑，無人知是荔枝來。」* It is said (unverifiably) that tribute tea was included as part of this precious cargo and that among this was lychee tea 荔枝紅茶, which was highly favoured by Yang Guifei and the imperial court. The tea is made from a black tea base and flavoured with lychees by mixing the tea leaves and dried fruit together on warmed trays for many days. The fruit are then removed before the dried leaves are packed for sale. The tea is today made in Guangdong 廣東 and Fujian 福建 provinces. Miss Neddy adds: Commonly too, fruit peels of the lychee fruit are dried together with the leaves, rather than the dried fruit. I have seen some descriptions of Lychee Tea which claim they use the juice of the fruit to flavour the tea, but I quite doubt that. The fruit is very juicy, and the juice is extremely sticky due to a high sugar content. Suffusing the tea leaves with the juice would likely leave a congealed mess. *Miss Neddy attempts a rough translation: “Looking back at Chang’an, it seems pile upon pile of embroidery; the palace gates at the mountaintop [of Hua Qing Palace] open in succession. As the lone horserider raises red dust, the concubine smiles; no one knows if the lychees have arrived.” The poem’s title is 过华清宫绝句 Epithet While passing Hua Qing Palace. Tea, Flavoured 2008-03-05T01:18:00+00:00 http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/ginseng_and_tea/ http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/ginseng_and_tea/#When:02:53:00Z Ginseng tea can refer to infusions made from sliced or powdered ginseng, or to tea leaves that are flavoured with ginseng (usually in powder form). Ginseng is popular in China as a sovereign cure for many ills, but even more popular in Korea where ginseng is used more as a cooking ingredient than as a medicine. It is used in soups, stuffed in chickens, made into desserts and mixed with beverages such as tea and coffee, or even just eaten on its own. In traditional Chinese medicine, standard grades of ginseng are mildly cooling, and its effects are highly similar to that of tea. Both tea and ginseng are supposed to relieve irritability, aid in digestion, clear the eyes, soothe headaches, reduce heatiness, promote clear thinking, and reduce fatigue. Both have legends of their divine origins - ginseng as the divine unity of all five elements (earth, fire, water, wood and metal), tea as the eyelids of the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. Personally, I find ginseng tea is more effective than coffee for chasing away fatigue when I am burning the midnight oil. To make your own ginseng tea, mix a small pinch of ginseng powder into your tea leaves before steeping, or stir in the powder after pouring out the tea. I would recommend a strong wulong or black tea to match the ginseng, and not green or white teas. This is for two reasons: Firstly, ginseng is known to be mildly cooling and if mixed with white or green tea (which are cooler than wulong and black) would be too cooling to be beneficial; secondly, green and white tea tend to be milder in fragrance and taste, and would be easily overpowered by the very strong-tasting ginseng. I would recommend a smoky wulong such as the range of Shuìxiān (水仙 or Narcissus) teas, or a black tea such as the Lapsang Souchong (正山小种). Tea, Flavoured 2008-01-16T02:53:00+00:00 http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/flavoured_teas/ http://www.leavesofjade.com/index.php/tea_blog/flavoured_teas/#When:07:15:00Z In the Song Dynasty and before, tea was cooked, not steeped, and often the water used boiling the tea was already infused with various ingredients, such as orange peels, osmanthus blossoms, and even salt. The tea leaves were usually pounded and ground into dust and compressed into dense cakes or bricks, and one would make a paste of the tea dust by pouring in hot water and stirring vigorously with a bamboo whisk. After the Tang Dynasty, tea was more appreciated for its own flavour and so the practice of mixing various ingredients with it faded. In Tibet, Mongolia and certain minority groups through China, tea is still drunk in a similar fashion, either by mixing milk, butter or other ingredients with the tea leaves, but most Chinese would drink tea entirely on its own. However, flower teas and flavoured teas are still fairly popular, by infusing the tea leaves during processing with fragrant flowers such as osmanthus, jasmine or rose, or fragrant fruits such as lychee, plum or orange; such teas are known as “flower teas” (花茶). Pure infusions, without tea leaves, are known in Chinese as “tea which is not tea” (茶非茶）。 Of the flower teas, perhaps the most famous are jasmine and osmanthus teas. Jasmine tea is so prevalant that the term “Fragrant Flakes” (香片) is assigned to jasmine-scented teas. Rose teas are rarer, since it is not a flower native to China, and its scent is overpowering, often to the detriment of the tea it infuses. Lychee black tea, or litchi red tea (荔枝红茶), is also common, although it is not the fruit that is used to infuse the tea leaves, but the drier and more fragrant peel. Lychee, by the way, was a favourite fruit of Yang Gui Fei 杨贵妃, a famous Imperial concubine in the Tang Dynasty, and one of the Four Beauties of Ancient China. “Gui Fei” 贵妃 was a status bestowed on her by the emperor, a rank of concubine not far below that of Empress; her real name was 杨玉环 or Yang Jade Ring, and according to records, she was plump and soft, like a peony in full bloom. (This digression reminds me of another tea, but I will leave that for another day.) If you feel adventurous, you can make your own scented teas, by either obtaining flower infusions and mixing them with tea leaves, or putting flowers and peels into the boiling water you wish to use for steeping tea. However, should you do so, do not use clay teapots, as the scent of the flower or peel will seep into the teapot and your teas in the future will be contaminated with that flavour. It is best to use porcelain or glass teapots for this purpose. Tea, Flavoured 2007-12-05T07:15:00+00:00