Brew flowers into tea and gently simmer time; nothing is more romantic than the world's flower teas

On the first day of the holiday, I have no idea whether you're stuck in traffic or stuck in a scenic spot. Today Shaoyao went nowhere, cleaned up the balcony at home, then brewed a cup of flower tea and read a book by the warm evening sunlight.

In the slightly cool early autumn, brew a cup of chrysanthemum tea, and the days drift by just like clouds in the autumn blue sky, slowly and without a trace. At such a time, it would be best of all to have one or two pots of chrysanthemums for company.

A clear autumn afternoon is the best time for flower tea. It's been a long time since I talked with you about flower tea, so today Shaoyao has gathered the flowers of the four seasons to pair with the teas of the four seasons. Whether it's a busy holiday or a leisurely one, when you stop, you always have to drink some tea~

Old Words

 Blue Bird and Poem

Yu Qing 

00:00/04:02

{Miss Shaoyao Vol.896 }

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Flower Teas of the Four Seasons

Flowers and tea have shared an indissoluble bond since ancient times.

Since ancient times, people have befriended tea and kept flowers as companions. Later, the people of the Song Dynasty felt that rather than drinking tea while facing flowers, it was better to add flowers to tea. From then on, a cup of clear water held both the tranquility of tea and the elegance of flowers. Every meeting of flower and tea is a reunion after a long parting.

In order to give tea the fragrance of flowers, the ancients tried every possible method.

Image 1 | You Shi Zhi Shi

Image 2 | Source: Internet

Luo Lin of the Ming Dynasty said in Cha Jie: "A tea garden should not be mixed with inferior trees; only osmanthus, plum, magnolia, yulan magnolia, rose, green pine, emerald bamboo and the like should be planted among them." Planting all kinds of strongly fragrant flowering trees around the tea plants was intended to let the tea plants absorb the floral fragrance through their underground roots, thereby increasing the aroma of the tea.

People also added flowers to tea to boost its fragrance, and even used candied pieces made from rose and peony petals as tea snacks. Later, people learned to scent tea leaves with flowers, so the tea drew out the floral fragrance and the flowers enhanced the tea's flavor, and only then was the perfect union of flower and tea achieved.

Image 1.2 | The Road of Tea · Ma Ling

Flower tea brings together the flavor of tea and the fragrance of flowers. Watch the flower buds in the clear tea liquor float and sink, unfurl, and finally blossom. Take a gentle sip of the tea, and the tea's sweet, crisp freshness and the flowers' vivid fragrance reach straight to the heart and spleen, and the mind is cleansed as well.

Chinese people are quite particular about drinking tea. They want not only to taste the flavor of the tea liquor and let the fragrance of flowers and trees flow in their hearts, but also to achieve harmony between people and the four seasons of heaven and earth. Therefore, when drinking flower tea, people also divide it by season and keep to the proper time.

People add spring orchid, summer lotus, autumn chrysanthemum and winter plum to tea respectively,and in this way, the flavors of the four seasons are all in the tea.

/ Spring /

Orchid in tea, quiet and elegantly refined

The secluded orchid of the empty valley, quiet and elegantly refined, feeds on the rain and dew of the mountains and is nourished by the fragrance of the four seasons. It has long been known as "the finest fragrance under heaven," and the ancients often used it forwhisked tea (grinding tea into fine powder, placing it in a tea bowl, and pouring boiling water over it)。

Pick orchids from mountain streams,

first soak them in lightly salted water,

changing the water continually during this time.

After three or four days, take the orchids out and rinse them clean,

add a small amount when brewing tea,

their fragrance is lofty and distant, leaving scent on the lips and teeth after drinking.

Image 1.2 | Internet

In spring, spring crabapple can also be added to tea. Crabapple is originally unscented, but the Ming Dynasty writer Kong Ershu said in Yun Jiao Guan Ji Tan that the crabapple flowers at Xiangfei Pavilion in Dazu County, Sichuan, had a strikingly different fragrance.

There were those skilled in tea drinking who made a tea mill from the green hemp stone of the Fu River in Chongqing, ground the Xuejin tea produced in Wulong into powder, then mixed it with Dazu crabapple flowers and roasted them together. The crabapple flower tea made this way was exquisitely superb and extraordinary.

Spring returns to the earth and all things revive. After a long winter, people should drive away cold and guard against illness. Orchid added to tea is fresh and pleasant to smell and briskly sweet and mellow to drink. It can drive away cold and remove illness, both helping yang qi to rise and lifting the spirits.

One cup, and spring drowsiness is dispelled.

Image | Big Eyes

/ Summer /

Lotus in tea, chan spirit dispels the summer

In summer, "the lotus emerges from muddy silt yet remains unstained, and is rinsed in clear ripples yet is not coquettish." It drinks the wind and sips the dew, like a wave-treading fairy who eats no cooked food. In the blazing summer, only around its flowers and beneath its leaves is there a circling breeze, placing one in a realm of coolness; under the scorching sun, only it sits upright in the water, making one feel as if seeing a Buddha when the flowers bloom.

On every sweat-drenched afternoon, brewing a cup of lotus tea is both a summer special drink and the only beverage that can calm the mind.

Image | Source: Internet

Six Chapters of a Floating Life says: "When the lotuses first open in the summer months, they close in the evening and open at dawn. Yun would take a little tea leaf in a small gauze bag, place it in the flower's heart, take it out the next morning, and brew it with spring water. Its fragrant charm was especially exquisite." This shows both Yunniang's delicate thoughtfulness and the ingenious way of making lotus tea.

Image 1.2 | Hua Zuo

In fact, as early as the Ming Dynasty, Yun Lin Yi Shi recorded the lotus tea made by the Yuan Dynasty figure Ni Yunlin: "In the pond, choose lotus buds that have just slightly split open, pry them open with a finger, fill them with tea, tie them securely with hemp thread, leave them overnight, and the next morning pick them together with the flower, wrap the tea in paper and sun-dry it."

To make lotus tea, you must hurry before sunrise in summer. Gently pry open the half-open lotus petals still holding dew, place a small pinch of tea leaves in the flower's heart, then tie the lotus up with fine hemp rope so the flower does not open.

After a day of sun exposure, pick the lotus the next morning. By then the tea leaves have fully absorbed the clear fragrance of the flower's dew overnight. Pour them out, and after roasting them dry, they become top-grade lotus tea.

Image | Source: Internet

Compendium of Materia Medica records that lotus tea can "calm the heart and soothe the spirit, beautify the face and lighten the body." In the blazing summer, when one sweats a great deal, the body must be replenished with plenty of water. At such a time, brewing a cup of lotus tea, bitter and cold in nature, clear, fresh and refreshing, both clears summer heat and relieves fever, and promotes fluid production and quenches thirst, while the restless heart is also soothed.

One cup, and one enters the realm of chan.

Image | Source: Internet

/ Chrysanthemum /

Chrysanthemum in tea, sincere concern

In the golden autumn season, when the hundred flowers withdraw, only the chrysanthemum remains purely beautiful in its yellow. Its petals unfurl layer upon layer in the sunlight, soothing the heart like the warm autumn sun.

It is said that people easily feel sorrow in autumn, with endless longing, anda cup of chrysanthemum tea with the savor of autumn can precisely dispel a thousand sorrows; chrysanthemum fragrance entering the embrace is like warm sun in the heart,and drinking chrysanthemum tea while climbing high on Double Ninth Festival can also send longing afar.

Image | An Bei 871

To make chrysanthemum tea, one must, in the golden autumn season,

when the chrysanthemums are about to bloom,

seal the buds with melted wax,

so they do not open.

When the flowering season is about to pass,

pick the chrysanthemum buds,

then use boiling water to melt the wax on the buds.

Using these chrysanthemum buds that never opened to make tea

gives a rich, intense fragrance that is deep and lasting, making it a rare and precious wonder.

Image | Su Wang

Autumn is bleak and the air is dry. Autumn dryness makes the skin, nose and throat dry and uncomfortable. At such a time, brewing a cup of chrysanthemum tea, bright and lustrous in color and richly fragrant in substance, neither cold nor hot, when drunk can moisturize the skin and remove dryness, promote fluid and moisten the lungs. The knots in the heart are instantly released. Taking advantage of the cool breeze, one can admire the fine autumn scenery. Who says autumn days cannot surpass spring mornings? "A crane in the clear sky soars above the clouds, drawing poetic feeling up to the blue empyrean."

One cup, and sorrow is dispelled.

Image | Source: Internet

/ Winter /

Plum blossom in tea, elegant and warm

In the severe cold of winter,the plum blooms before all other flowers, bringing spring to the world alone.

Since ancient times, literati and refined scholars have loved its noble purity and unyielding spirit. People evenadd plum blossoms to tea, soak them in boiling water, add an appropriate amount of honey, to promote fluid and quench thirst, clear heat and moisten dryness.On days when heavy snow falls and there is no need to open the door, one embraces the elegance and warmth of winter.

In winter, pick half-open plum blossoms,

place the whole flowers in a container,

sprinkle salt powder in the same proportion over the flowers,

without touching them with the hands.

Image | o Lao Yao o

Image | Source: Internet

Seal the container tightly with thick paper,

and store it in a cool, dry place.

The following year, take out the plum blossoms that have been dried by salt,

switch to soaking them in honey,

and add one or two blossoms when brewing tea for incomparable fragrance.

In winter, when the north wind is biting and the earth is frozen, the human body is in a state of contraction, metabolism slows, and one is prone to "cold illnesses." At such a time, boiling snow to make a cup of plum blossom tea can add heat and warmth and relieve the "frozen" state. If a few plum petals are scattered into the tea, the tea liquor is emerald green and the plum petals are like snow; the floral fragrance and tea qi are clear and richly fragrant, filling the whole room with fragrant mist, and it is also extremely charming.

One cup, and one embraces warmth.

Image 1.2 | Source: Internet

Before tea met flowers, tea was only tea, and flowers were only flowers. Because of the romance of Chinese people,flowers were added to tea, and from then on the tea steeped a summer, cradled an autumn, concealed a winter, and nurtured a spring.

Only after adding flowers to tea in all four seasons do we realize

that what we taste is not only tea and flowers, but the morning dew among the flowers,

the faint smoke at the tips of the leaves, the gentle breeze on the river,

the slanting light of the setting sun, the moonlight like water,

all things in nature, and also the vicissitudes of the years,

and even more, a heart that sits and enjoys the four seasons.

END

About the Author

Wu Dao: Make objects have the beauty to delight people, and people have the heart to cherish objects. Every morning at 8:00, use words to tell of a beautiful way of life and gather for you fine artisan goods from around the world. Here, find the refined life you want. Weibo @Wu Dao

Some images in this article are from Visual China, and copyright has been purchased.