Fuding white tea is good medicine for curing urban ills
We have grown so accustomed to everything around us that neighbors whose doors face each other in a residential compound may still not know each other's names to this day. We never see people in this building carrying their rice bowls and wandering from door to door for a chat. (ps: [Xihe Jun] When I was little, we always carried our bowls out to the street to eat, and all the neighbors did the same, one bowl per person, sitting, squatting or standing, eating and chatting.)
The city is an ecology utterly different from the countryside. Everyone wraps a thick mask around their heart. Many so-called acquaintances are nothing more than politeness over the phone, arms draped around each other at the drinking table, or likes and comments on WeChat Moments. (It feels like no matter how many likes you give or how many comments you leave, it still cannot deepen a bond the way sitting down and talking face to face can, even if only for a few minutes.)
The estrangement is planted in the heart.
Modern civilization creates prosperity on one side while breeding loneliness on the other.
On streets thronged with traffic, at neon-lit midnight, in brilliantly lit bars, the deeper the night, the more passionate the city. Amid all this splendor, it is hard to hide the loneliness and estrangement in the mind.
On a noisy night, loneliness stands out even more
In the countryside, the common people's way of hosting guests is to bring them into the home and treat them to good tea and good liquor, fearing they might be neglected. But in the city, we would never bring unfamiliar friends home as guests. There is too much privacy, because there is too much caution; there is too much vigilance, because we have been hurt too many times: a fall into the pit, a gain in your wit.
For unfamiliar friends, where do we go to chat?
This is why tea shops (tea houses, tea buildings) are densely scattered along the streets and alleys of Fuding city in Fujian Province, the hometown of Chinese white tea. It is quiet there. You can drink alone at your own pace, spend a quiet afternoon with a book you like, or gather with a few friends over a plate of peanuts, a plate of pumpkin seeds, a plate of miancha cake and a pot of aged white tea, and talk the whole evening away.
Go to a tea shop or tea bar, feel the subtle changes in taste of every infusion, open your heart and talk about shared topics, tear off the veil, and speak frankly from the bottom of your heart.
Men, women, the elderly, young people, leaders, colleagues, countless households: every type has a different flavor, every infusion has its own charm, and everyone can find their own sense of belonging.
Drink too much Fuding white tea and you will become addicted. Once it is fully woven into a person's life and very being, you feel a sense of loss without tea.
Because of tea, this scalding, soft, flowing liquid, reinforced concrete is no longer so stiff and cold. The tea trickling into the body moistens body and mind, adding a touch of poetry and picturesqueness to life.
The city chills people's hearts, yet a cup of tea brings people closer.
On a quiet night, take a glass cup you love, put in a few Baihao Yinzhen leaves, and watch the leaves slowly rise as boiling water is poured in. Before long, the silvery white tender buds unfold one after another and fill the whole cup. When the leaves have all settled to the bottom, it is exactly the moment to taste the tea. The tea liquor enters the mouth, fragrance lingers on the teeth and cheeks, it flows smoothly down the throat, and the sweet aroma seeps into the heart, leaving an endless aftertaste. Tangled thoughts and knotted feelings, soaked through by the tea, slowly grow moist, slowly relax, drift and float in the warmth, and the hesitant heart finally releases once again in the fragrance of tea.
You are welcome to leave a comment and share the methods you think can deepen bonds between friends!