Hunan Folk Festival: Grain Rain Tea Festival

"Poetry is written in the plum blossom month, and tea is fried in Gu Yuchun." Tea farmers in China call the spring tea harvested in Grain Rain season Grain Rain tea, praising it for its many health care functions, such as clearing away fire and diseases, strengthening and protecting teeth, and sterilizing. It is a good tea among tea lovers. There is a Grain Rain Tea Festival in Hunan, so let the 24 solar terms introduce this tea-related festival to you.

Grain Rain Tea Festival is a traditional folk festival in Hunan. Hunan has always been rich in tea, and Junshan Yinzhen, Guzhang Maojian and other teas have long enjoyed a good reputation. Because the tea picked before in Grain Rain is the most fragrant, local people will taste new tea at Grain Rain Festival, which has become a folk tea festival in Hunan, called Grain Rain Tea Festival.

Tea tasting habits vary from place to place in Hunan. In Changsha area, some people pay attention to brewing green tea with boiled water from crab eyes and taste its pure fragrance; Some people like to drink scented tea, and jasmine, chrysanthemum and other spices are added to the tea; In eastern Hunan, people like to put some fried sesame seeds or soybeans in green tea, which is called "sesame bean tea"; In cold areas, people like to put some ginger, pepper and salt in tea to warm the stomach and dispel the cold. This is the so-called "ginger and salt tea".

In western Hunan and southern Hunan, people like to cook tea with oil and brew fried peanuts and corn. Known as "Camellia oleifera"; In Changde and Yiyang, people pay attention to eating "smashing tea". The production method is to put the soaked white rice, sesame seeds, peanuts, ginger and tea into a ceramic "mashing bowl" and mash it with special hawthorn wood. When eating, the tea pulp is brewed in a bowl. The brewing process of "broken tea" is very particular. The temperature of the water must be just right, and the action of rushing into the tea bowl must be agile and skilled, so that the tea rushed out is white with green, fragrant and delicious, with endless aftertaste and unique flavor.