Harry Potter’s Morning Light

   Chapter 2181 Flower War (eighty-nine)

  Wuyi Mountain is located at the junction of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces. The day before Nick and local officials accompanied him to visit a monastery deep in the mountains. Incense has been burning in the monastery for hundreds of years.

  The Minjiang River divides the 120-mile mountain range in this area into two parts. Yishan is located on the north bank of the river, and Wushan is located on the south bank of the river. The mountains on both sides are covered with tea gardens. It is not the Buddha or the Dragon King that is enshrined in the temple, but the tea god. The quality of plucked head tea is the best. The Jingzhe in the twenty-four solar terms every year is set as the day of sacrificing tea and calling the mountain. That day not only worships the tea god, but also means that it is possible to go into the mountain to pick tea.

Shouting to the mountain is held at night. Thousands of people shout "Grudge, Sprouting". The sound resounds through the valley and echoes endlessly. Unfortunately, Nick had missed the solar term when he went there and did not see the spectacular scene. .

Tea was originally taken from the tender buds of tea trees, probably because tea picking was affected by the special climatic conditions here, and the tea trees grew very well here. The weather in the first few days was not bad. It was full of green eyes, and later it often encountered rain and thunder, and the mist made the mountain shape become shadowy, and the peaks were like waves rolling in the sea. Passing by many villages along the river, the villagers dressed in scorpions shouted to them, Nick several times wanted the boat to stop in front of a certain village and take a look at the villages on the shore.

   The ritual of sacrificing tea is the reverence and worship of the natural force. In the "Shen Nong's Materia Medica", it is said that "Shen Nong tasted a hundred herbs, and encountered seventy-two poisons every day, and he solved it with tea". The local people generally believe that tea has magical effects, especially the Dahongpao mother tree that grows on the mountainside. People believe that it has absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. status, and people also made up a myth to it, giving it the image of a tea tree fairy.

  Yang Taibai was the one who invented the tea-making process, and he was also enshrined in the Tea Temple. As for whether this person exists or not, there is still no consensus. In addition to good tea as a raw material, tea production also needs "the blessing of the ancestors". Good tea not only requires a good harvest in good weather, but also burns offerings in the process of worshipping the tea gods, combining salt, tea leaves and rice grains camphor bark to achieve the effect of expelling evil spirits.

  Xingcun Town is the distribution center of Wuyi rock tea and the largest tea market in the county, and their destination is there. However, because of the rain for three days in a row, the surrounding scenery became gray, causing the navigator to make a mistake. They lost their way at least ten times, and each time they got lost at the fork of the Minjiang River. The direct current of the Minjiang River is about the same width as the main stream, and it is easy to get lost. They drive into a seemingly wide river, but after traveling for two or three miles, the river divides into a new fork. Shallow, and finally turned into a stream.

  They had to go back the same way after many wrong journeys. However, it is difficult to sail on some sections of the river. Sometimes it is necessary to ask the local villagers to help them and use ropes to push the boat out of the river.

   After experiencing a lot of unfortunate things and wasting a lot of time, they came to the black tea producing area after many heavy rains. Originally Nick thought it was funny for the British to use the tea leaves in their cups for divination, but when you get to the place where the black tea comes from, you will understand why the British believe in the magical properties of tea as much as the Wuyishan people.

Animism believes that everything has a spirit, and the superiority of human imagination will have a feeling of emptiness, which makes people vaguely see wonderful things, such as some kind of animal or a person hidden in the dense fog, but In fact, what we see is only a simple material in nature - stone.

After getting off the boat, Nick and the others rented two sliding rods. The sliding rods were also made of bamboo. However, unlike the sedan chairs used by Guangzhou people, a short rod was tied across the top of the two long bamboo rods. Carrying the slider over your shoulder, the slider itself is very light. After negotiating the price of renting the sliders, one ride on the sliders is half a silver dollar per day, but even if the price is negotiated, the coolies carrying the sliders will still go back and make various unreasonable requests to increase the price.

   This is definitely an Italian-style brazen approach. Without the help of Captain Yao, Nick really doesn't know how to deal with these sticks to protect his money bag.

   "Haha." Georgiana laughed.

   Bonaparte looked gloomy, and after a moment he said, "Who keeps asking for a delay in withdrawing from Malta?"

   So she stopped smiling.

   "Is this 'Italian shameless practice'?" he asked again.

  Georgianna turned her eyes back to the book.

  This area has a large population, the land is barren, there is almost no farmland, and there is no good harvest by means of farming techniques and field work. There is no rice here, so the locals have to plant some sweet potatoes, and in some places, plants such as sugar cane, strawberry, cypress, laurel, etc. Even on sandy soil, at least one pine tree should be planted, even if the pine tree does not grow well. Well, it will at least yield wood and resin.

In order to obtain a good harvest, the farmers did everything possible. In order to prevent the wind from blowing the rice down, they bundled a few rice grains and made the rice straws support each other. And bundle the sugarcane leaves together, as if covering the sugarcane with a natural rain cover.

   But these measures are not worth mentioning when compared with the careful care of tea trees by tea farmers. The tea tree can grow very tall, but tea farmers will prune it regularly, limiting its growth height to about 5 feet, and pruning the tea tree frequently. The main trunk of the tea tree will grow many dense side branches.

   There are also small tea tree seedlings in the gardens of Guangdong, which are completely different from the sturdy tea trees planted with penguins in Wuyi Mountain. As for which soil is more suitable for the growth of tea trees, it is difficult for experts who are good at observing tea trees to come up with a consensus. Father Li Ming believes that tea trees feel that tea trees are suitable for growing in gravel, while Father Duhed believes that gravel-free and sandy soils are better. Suitable for the growth of tea trees, a Roman priest concluded that tea trees are suitable for planting on high ground, the land should be kept moist, but not muddy soil, sandy soil will not hinder the growth of tea trees, but gravel soil will cause damage to tea trees, because Tea trees are not drought tolerant.

  The leaves of tea leaves growing in the shade grow slowly. When rolling the tea leaves, you will find that the juice of the leaves is not full or rich, far less than the leaves of tea leaves in the sun.

  The work of picking tea is a careful and time-consuming work, because the leaves have to be picked one by one, and a small stalk is deliberately left at the petiole to facilitate the germination of new leaves. The tea farmers pick tea leaves very fast. An average tea farmer can pick 12 pounds of tea leaves every day. Their hands are flying around on the tea tree. It's like the sound of the leaves blowing in the breeze, and there is basically no other sound. This work is a bit monotonous.

Perhaps it is because of this that they will sing during the picking process, and then it will become a game called "anti-song". The singing will spread far away, maybe from Wushan to Yishan, or from Yishan to Wushan. .

When he came to the first village to rely on, Nick became the target of everyone's attention. He was regarded as some kind of hairy animal that was half human and half cat. Some people were curious to look at it, others were amazed, and some whispered. , all kinds of speculations are overwhelming.

   Now Nick knows why the residents of the coastal villages are waving at him.

Curious people and people who don't believe in this matter ran up to him and asked him to show them the "paws" without hesitation, and even asked him to roll up his sleeves to show them. Exclamations and laughter.

  The officer drove them away, explaining to Nick to ignore the country folks.

  After the tea picking, the tea farmers hand over the tea to the tea maker. The tea-making process varies greatly, depending on whether it is black tea or green tea. In addition to the fermentation process, the difference between black tea and green tea lies in the speed and degree of drying. Europeans have a certain prejudice against green tea. They think that the tea is stained with toxic green oxides because of the use of copper pots during the frying process. This is an abuse of logic, because Nick saw with his own eyes that the tea workers used iron Large pots for roasting black and green teas.

  Whether it is roasting Pekoe, picking Hojicha, or Tunxi tea and pearl tea, iron containers are used. Stir-fried tea is entirely by hand, only two kilograms are fried at a time, and the tea-fried workers have to stir by hand until the hands cannot stand the hot iron container, and the tea leaves crackle in the hot iron container during the process of frying, seeping out A juice that can cause damage to the skin, so frying tea is a lot of hard work.

Another interesting thing is that the names of tea leaves have meanings. Some names refer to the arduous process of tea making. For example, kung fu tea means a lot of effort. , is made from the ground of Xichun tea. Xichun tea ranks third among green teas. Experts believe that the top two quality teas are imperial tea and Usnea tea. Usnea is the origin of this green tea. These three green teas are all produced in Jiangnan and Zhejiang Provinces.

   These latter types of tea are also made in the same way as fried Wuyi tea, but with more delicate techniques, finer frying and longer time. After the first few tricks, the tea leaves are stored in airtight jars for at least five or six months before being roasted. The tea leaves are then colored with spin green and calcium sulfate, indigo is used for coloring, and calcium sulfate is used to fix the color.

No western traveler has ever seen the tea roasting method, which has always been a state secret, but the claims that green tea is poisonous are all heard by travelers who have been there before. Some people also say that the Chinese trained monkeys to pick tea. , also leaving the work to virgins.

The first argument is self-defeating because there are no monkeys in the area. The second argument is that Nick cannot refute. It is certain that some jobs require a lot of help. Some tea-pickers start to help when they grow taller than the tea tree. The kneading process is also Relatively simple, women and children can do it.

The kneaded tea leaves will ooze dark green juice, and then go through the tea making process again: sorting, winnowing, and baking. Heat, they don't wear gloves, the hard work is usually done by men.

   Now is the time to put a stop to nonsense and other outlandish claims.

   "Do you remember that glass of absinthe?" said Bonaparte with a smile. "The green ones are poisonous."

  Georgianna couldn't believe it, she thought it was the water quality and taste that only drank black tea instead of green tea.

   "Training monkeys to pick tea?"

   "How is this possible," she said in disbelief.

   If you want to refute the rumor, you also need Nick's book to spread in Europe, is this possible? She glanced at the dictator who restricted "freedom of speech" and felt hopeless.

But Georgiana was interested in the Wuyi Mountain described by Nick. She remembered seeing a photo of Zhang Tao and Ma Qingchen in front of an ethereal mountain. She thought that place was Zhangjiajie, or "Penglai". Now it may also be Wuyi Mountain.

  I'm so sorry, Sybil, I shouldn't have laughed at your tea divination class.

   She thought helplessly, and turned to another page. On this page, an old man was drawn with a compass in his hand, looking up at the sky. What is he doing?

   (end of this chapter)