Chapter 260: Hollyhock, leisure time for making tea
In the afternoon, Wang Chen and the other three slept until they woke up naturally. Finally, no one was around to disturb them last night, so they were allowed to sleep until then. The post man in the post office saw Wang Chen stretching open the door and appearing upstairs. in the corridor above,
Then he went up to the second floor and asked with a smile and clasped his fists: "Dear guests, would you like to prepare lunch for us now? It's already past breakfast time."
Wang Chen thought for a moment and said, "You can ask someone to prepare meals for four people, and I'll wake them up."
The postman clasped his fists and said, "I'll let the kitchen prepare it right now, and let someone get some hot water for us to wash up."
Wang Shen said: "I'm tired." Then he looked at the people eating in the hall downstairs at the railing on the second floor for a while. He felt that it was not very interesting, so he went back to the house and sat up, opened the window, and looked at the garden in the backyard. go,
After a cup of tea, he got up again and went to wake them up one by one. At this time, several postmen had already filed upstairs carrying hot water, willow branches for mouthwash, white cloth towels and other items, and placed them in the room. , let them wash up, and after everyone had cleaned up, Wang Shen and others walked slowly downstairs,
They found a clean table in the hall and sat down. After a while, a postman brought them steaming food from the kitchen. Wang Chen glanced at the food on the nearby table.
He lowered his head and looked at the dishes in front of the four people on the table in front of him. He felt that there was not much difference, so he started to greet a few people and start feasting. Anyway, the food they had in prison these days was much worse than what they had here. There is nothing to worry about for the time being.
After lunch, everyone walked through a winding corridor and sat in a small pavilion in the garden. A pot of tea was boiled in a clay stove in front of them. There were several ponds in the garden. In the middle of summer, The lotus flowers are blooming enthusiastically, as if they want to attract people's attention, and there are many fish swimming under the lotus leaves.
On the wall near the post tube, there are some green plants and flowers that are common in homes in summer, such as bamboo, hollyhocks, crape myrtle, bougainvillea, etc., which attract a lot of bees, but no one has the time to care about them. , in the afternoon, there were only a few "idlers" like them in the huge post house.
The other people were all busy on their own, either cleaning up the bowls, chopsticks and soup stains on the table in the hall, or busy welcoming people to and from them. After all, this was the post house in the capital of Shu, and its flow of people was not that of other states and counties. The inns are comparable,
There were also Shu officials who came to the capital for business. After lunch, they quickly wiped the oil stains on their mouths with a kerchief, straightened their official robes, and then left the post house to find the corresponding government office to handle business. They were the only ones there. Four demoted officials without any official positions are waiting here for appointment.
Hollyhock is an important traditional flower in China. It has tall and tall plants, rich flower shapes and gorgeous colors. It has a long history and many names. It is native to southwest China.
Since the Han Dynasty, there have been many documentary records about hollyhocks. The earliest one comes from "Erya", and its annotation is "่บบ, Rongkui". In Shu, the flowers can bloom all year round and bloom undefeated. Later generations once wrote a poem about hollyhocks:
The tree on the south side of Jianmen moves towards Huixian Pavilion.
The flowers in Jinshui are bright and the leaves in Minshan are green.
Wenjun was ashamed to give birth. The goddess let Pingting go.
The color is red and purple, and the fragrance flows into the embroidery.
Bougainvillea has thick stems, drooping branches, hairless or sparsely pilose; axillary spines, 5-15 mm long. Leaves are papery, ovate or ovate-lanceolate. It likes a warm and humid climate, is not cold-tolerant, and likes sufficient light.
Half an hour later, the tea had been brewed. Wang Chen poured a cup of tea into a pottery bowl in front of several people and let them drink. Although Guo Xiu didn't speak today, he couldn't bear the hot weather and was a little talkative. My tongue was dry, so I picked up the pottery bowl and started drinking.
Although they are just prisoners today and have no power for the time being. They even lost their freedom a few days ago, but it is still okay to ask the post house to provide some tea cakes, onions, ginger and other seasonings.
When did China start drinking tea? Everyone has different opinions, and there is no consensus. Generally speaking, it can be said that it started in the Han Dynasty. The germination of the simplified word "tea" from "tea" also began in the Han Dynasty. In ancient Han seals, some "tea" The character has been reduced by one stroke and has become the shape of the character "tea".
Not only the glyph, but also the pronunciation of "tea" has been established in the Western Han Dynasty, and the germination of tea culture has gradually taken shape.
At the end of the Warring States Period, the trend of drinking tea rose across the country. By the Western Han Dynasty, the atmosphere of tea drinking was strong. Tea began to become an elegant pastime with the popularity of the court and officials. Wang Bao's "Tong Yue" has "Martial Arts" The record of "Yang buying tea".
According to historical records, tea was spread abroad in the Western Han Dynasty. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he sent envoys to the Indochina Peninsula. Among the items they brought with them were tea leaves in addition to gold and brocade.
Tea culture is very important in Chinese people's lives. It is recorded in "Shen Nong's Materia Medica": "Shen Nong tasted hundreds of herbs and encountered seventy-two poisons every day, and he got tea to cure them."
In the history of Chinese cultural development, the origin of everything related to agriculture and plants is usually attributed to Shennong. Therefore, the legend of Shennong and tea is widely circulated among the people.
According to legend, the ancient tribal leader Shennong invented slash-and-burn farming, taught people to reclaim wasteland and plant food crops, and tasted herbs and used them to treat diseases, making the tribe increasingly powerful.
Once, he was boiling water in a cauldron (an ancient cooking utensil) in the wild, and a few leaves fell into the pot inadvertently. As a result, the boiled water was slightly yellow in color, sweet in the mouth, quenching thirst, and refreshing. The toxins accumulated in Shennong's body after tasting all kinds of herbs were also dissolved. The experienced Shennong immediately realized that this was the magical effect brought by tea, so he called on the people to grow tea and drink tea.
When King Wu defeated Zhou, tea was used as a tribute. In the late period of the primitive commune, tea became an item of goods exchange.
During the Warring States Period, tea had reached a certain scale, and there are records of tea in the "Book of Songs" of the Pre-Qin Dynasty. For example, "Who said tea (tea is tea) is bitter, but it is as sweet as water chestnuts", "I am a farmer who picks tea and firewood and eats it", etc.
In the Han Dynasty, tea has become a special tonic for Buddhist "zazen". Firstly, it can refresh the mind; secondly, it can help digestion when the stomach is full; thirdly, it can eliminate worldly thoughts.
During the Three Kingdoms period, the tea ceremony developed further on the basis of the Qin and Han Dynasties. "Guangya" records: "Tea was picked in Jingba and made into cakes. The cakes were made with rice paste. If you drink it, roast it first to make it red, then pound it into powder and put it on porcelain." If you pour it over with soup, it will wake you up after drinking it and make you sleepless."
It records the methods of making and drinking tea at that time: processing the picked tea leaves, roasting them with fire until the color turns red, grinding the roasted tea leaves into fine powder with a tea mill, adding ointment to make tea Cake, put it into porcelain and store it. When drinking, wait for the water to boil, grind the tea cake into tea powder and pour it into the pot, add onions, ginger and other seasonings, and then drink it. Nowadays, tea is made. The prototype of.
During the Three Kingdoms period, tea drinking has entered a period of development and promotion. With the increasing spread of the national tea industry, along the Huaihe River Basin, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and central China, the drinking method has also evolved from cooking to mixing.
Wang Chen also poured himself a bowl and tasted it: "The tea produced in Shu is good. Compared with the tea produced in Chaling of Wu State, Guoshan Cuoshan each has its own taste. They are both good teas!"
At this time, Jiang Wei had also left the palace gate and was heading towards the post house...