The leisurely life of rebirth

In the old days, there was the following poem describing Xiguan during the Ming and Qing Dynasties:

When I went out, I saw that the streets were full of goods, and there were people walking around hawking goods, praying to gods, praying to Buddhas, and doing divination. There were all kinds of things.

From this we can get a glimpse of the prosperity of Xiguan in the past.

This was once the only trading port of the Qing Dynasty, and the Thirteen Banks were as popular as the salt merchants of Lianghuai. In 1822, there was a fire on Thirteen Banks Street, and 40 million taels of silver were lost. It was known in history as "foreign silver melted into water." The ditch was one or two miles long." A fire burned it all! [

After the Opium War, British merchants were allowed to trade with Chinese merchants at various ports. Lingnan lost its advantage in foreign trade, and the glorious era of the Thirteenth Bank came to an end.

While the car was driving, Fang Monan could still see the prosperity of the past. Now it is very quiet and tree-lined. You can see many old people strolling leisurely along the streets, or pulling their grandchildren on their way to the teahouse. On the road.

The car was parked outside a restaurant. The restaurant was 4 stories high, with red walls, green tiles, and carved beams and painted beams in the style of the Republic of China. It was full of Lingnan architectural style.

"Let's go! This Taotaoju is a well-known time-honored brand. It was established during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty. It has a history of a hundred years. The implication of its signboard is that you can enjoy tea here and enjoy Taotao. The prices here are very affordable and the food is good." Yan Guangxing As he walked, he said, "It is said that the three characters "Taotaoju" were written by Kang Youwei, using the "Shimen Inscription" stele method. When Kang Youwei was teaching at Wanmu Thatched Cottage in Guangzhou, he often went to a teahouse to drink tea. The plaque "Taotaoju" was inscribed on the teahouse. After the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898, the "Kang Party" was traced. The owner of Taotaoju removed Kang Youwei's name from the signboard for fear of being implicated, and "Taotaoju" became an unknown place. It’s a brand name. As for whether it’s true or false, only God knows.”

Fang Monan and the others walked into the teahouse and were greeted by a spacious and bright living room with elegant furnishings and antique flavor. The building was a three-story reinforced concrete structure with a hexagonal pavilion on top, and the selected colorful paintings and gray decorations were very Lingnan style. The interior is equipped with card seats in the main room, Grand View Garden, Lianxi Qingshe, Bagua graphics and other card seats, which are unique. In order to add the elegance of the literati, the indoor walls are hung with famous calligraphy and painting, poems and couplets, especially the colorful glass screen with poems and paintings engraved on it. For tea drinkers to enjoy.

"I reserved a seat because I wanted to truly understand the life here. I don't mind if the lobby doesn't mind!" Yan Guangxing said sideways. With his only understanding of Fang Monan, he couldn't go wrong by choosing the lobby.

"The hall is bright and spacious." Fang Monan said with a smile, "You can better observe all kinds of life."

Drinking morning tea is the most common thing in life here. No matter what day, wherever morning tea is served in hotels or teahouses, the living room will be full and the room will be full of noise. Sitting around, if you want to whisper something, it must be There was no way it could be heard.

People in Yangcheng drink morning tea in several bands. No matter how many bands there are, there are very few young people. They generally will not come here to dine. They are more willing to pursue what they call fashionable and trendy "foreign things". In a few years, young people who are tired of foreign gadgets will "return to their original nature" and become interested in traditional domestic crafts again. Thirty years have passed in Hedong, and thirty years have passed in Hexi. The so-called wind and water have taken turns, and this is probably the case. The so-called trend is originally It just keeps spinning, jumping from one circle to another.

When Fang Monan and the others came in, they happened to catch up with the first wave of old people leaving, and some finished their morning tea and continued chatting.

Most of these old people are retired. After exercising, a few old people gathered together to drink tea. They simply ordered two items in a cup and two items in a cup at affordable prices.

", one cup refers to tea, two refers to snacks. And one pot is the cheapest: "Pu'er" or "oolong tea" and occasionally a "fried rice noodles", or an additional "barbecued pork bun", a few

We eat together as an elderly person. It can be regarded as a breakfast.

They can sit there for an hour or two, talking about everyday things. "What's the price of the side dishes?" "What's going on with the wife in that family?" "What's happening in this family's family, what's happening in that family's business," etc.

.Their main topics are commonplace trivial matters.

There were seats in the hall, and Fang Monan and the others sat close to each other, so they had a clear view of the entire hall.

Fang Monan and the others had just sat down when the waiter came to ask them to order tea and pastries.

Yan Guangxing came right out of his mouth, "Pig brain fish soup, colorful shrimps, stir-fried meat crabs with ginger and green onion, West Lake chrysanthemum fish, hand-shredded salt-baked chicken, sliced-skin hanging duck, green shrimp tubes, crispy shrimps with phoenix fruit, and Pipa shrimp fans."

, as well as crab roe siomai, crispy egg tarts, braised chicken and abalone wings, and thin-skinned shrimp dumplings. "They are all signature dishes here. "Tea, good tea, oolong tea, Tieguanyin. Remember that the water for making tea must be Baiyun Mountain Jiulong Spring

of water.”

"Okay, please wait a moment." Although the waiter was surprised, he still smiled and left. This tea guest obviously knows his business and can eat well. He ordered a lot.

"What's so special about this water?" Fang Monan asked with raised eyebrows.

The waiter brought the tea first and poured it for Fang Monan and the others one by one. Yan Guangxing picked up the tea cup and took a sip. The tea entered his stomach along the esophagus, and he felt that all the cells in his body felt much more comfortable. "Good tea needs good water to brew." Tao Tao

When the residence was founded, more than a dozen young monks were hired to fetch water from Jiulong Spring in Baiyun Mountain to make tea. The young monks started working in the early morning every day, and their walking routes and resting places were relatively fixed. Their buckets were covered with locks and seams.

Wearing "Jiulongquan" water sandpaper strips and carrying small flags on the shoulders, they swagger through the market to attract the attention of passers-by.

Taotaoju is equipped with a large tank to store water. The tea seats in the main hall are 5 cents per person and 15 cents per person in the small hall. There is a lit small red clay stove next to the entrance of the small hall, and a bamboo fence is placed next to it to burn miscellaneous food.

The half-cut olive seeds are used as charcoal, and the Kowloon spring water is boiling in the earthenware tea pot. There is a dedicated person waiting on the side, which is very particular."[

"Haha...spread the word." Fang Monan said with a smile, don't underestimate the wisdom of the ancients.

Soon the dishes ordered by Yan Guangxing arrived one by one. Yan Guangxing greeted Fang Monan and the others, "We are all our own people, so don't be polite."

Fang Monan and Chang Jiuchun certainly won't be polite. The Bird's Nest Crispy Egg Tart, with several layers of golden and crispy egg tart shells filled with tender yellow and transparent bird's nests, will whet your appetite at first sight, not to mention

When you enter the mouth, the sweetness and softness of the bird's nest and the pink and crispy pastry are perfectly combined, making it so delicious that you can't stop eating it.

Rice rolls are a must-have for morning tea. Rice paste is placed in a special multi-layered steamer or on a cloth and steamed into thin sheets one by one. Meats, fish fillets, shrimps, etc. are placed on them respectively. Steamed and rolled into long strips, cut into pieces and served on a plate.

The most famous rice roll is Soy Sauce Royal Beef Sausage, which is stuffed with beef, mushrooms, ginger juice, etc., with raw oil, lard, light soy sauce, MSG and other sauce condiments, lightly soaked with rice roll, not only

It looks good, tastes thin, tough, fragrant and has a very good taste.

Fang Monan was in the morning tea hall of the tea house, watching others eating and drinking leisurely, while listening to other people's careful conversations, talking about trivial matters, and they either shared their joy or cried about their annoyance.

Before you know it, you will be full of tea and rice. This kind of morning tea seems particularly leisurely and is a scene of local life.

Fang Monan took a look and found that most of them were the whole family sitting around a table for breakfast, being restrained and enjoying family happiness. Some were doing it for leisure. Most of the leisure people were retired elderly people from the neighborhood. They were usually the first to arrive and leave.

Go at the latest, and you can sit there from the time the teahouse opens in the morning until the morning tea is "closed". The environment does not have to be a star rating, just go to the nearby affordable small teahouse on the street, and everyone can have a good time. "Invite morning tea" is also a common practice here.

a common way of socializing.

The long-lasting prosperity of morning tea here is inseparable from the prosperous trade and rapid economic development here since ancient times. Here, during morning tea, you can talk about business, exchange information, and also meet friends and chat. Businessmen put

The teahouse is regarded as a place for negotiation, where ordinary people can relieve their stress and have a half-day of leisure.

Fang Monan and the others ate very slowly, truly experiencing the tea custom of "having a cup in hand and chatting for half a day". They also observed life by the way.

Fang Monan squinted his eyes, rubbed his tea cup, and looked at the tea guests coming and going. After the first wave of old people left, about ten o'clock, the tea house soon welcomed the second wave of people in small boats.

Cars drove over one after another, and most of the people getting out of the cars were rich women in their thirties and forties. The first batch of people who had become rich first filed in.

"Pfft..." Fang Monan laughed, looking at their most fashionable outfits and smiling.

They were dressed very conspicuously, and as soon as they entered the hall, they were absolutely eye-catching. They were all covered in paint, and they wore the earliest international brand-name fashions to enter the mainland. Their bodies were so jeweled that they could blind people's eyes and hands.

They were carrying fashionable bags. After they woke up, they invited several women of the same status to have tea in high-end hotels and restaurants. They didn’t sit in the lobby, they went upstairs to the best restaurants.

Private rooms or booths. They don't really come here to drink tea and fill their bellies. They come here to find a place where they can chat. They can sit down for hours because they have plenty of time.

"What are you laughing at?" Yan Guangxing asked funny, and then followed Fang Monan's gaze to the door of the hall. "Oh! So it's them."

"How do you know him?" Fang Monan asked with raised eyebrows.

"I know some of their husbands, and some of their husbands are private entrepreneurs with names in the province." Yan Guangxing drank the tea in the cup and continued, "When they were young, they almost worked hard with their men, but now

!I became a rich wife and started to enjoy life. Alas! In fact, some of it was a helpless move." He said as if with emotion.

"Why are you such a gossip, eavesdropping on other people's conversations?" Fang Monan joked with a smile. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to () to subscribe and give rewards. Your support is my greatest

motivation.)