Lei Cha
Lei Cha (Pounded Tea)
Dear friends:
Hello, everyone! Just now we visited the Peach Blossom Spring together, admired its landscapes, pavilions, stone inscriptions, and poems, and learned about the past and present of the Peach Blossom Spring, the life of Tao Yuanming, author of "The Story of Peach Blossom Spring," the background of its writing, and the praise and couplets bestowed upon the site by sages through the ages. I believe you have all gained a great deal. After a whole morning of sightseeing, you must be a bit tired. So now, let us go together to taste the famous local specialty of Peach Blossom Spring — Lei Cha.
Dear friends, drinking Lei Cha is a unique custom of the people in the regions of Changde, Hanshou, Dingcheng, Wuling, and Taoyuan. Whether in the scorching heat of midsummer or the bitter cold of deep winter, many local people enjoy a meal of Lei Cha. Especially during the slack farming season, people often trek several miles over mountain paths to visit relatives and friends just to drink Lei Cha. When distinguished guests arrive, a whole table of Lei Cha must be carefully prepared to entertain them properly. Lei Cha has the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying, and drinking it year-round promotes longevity. That is why it is also a first-class beverage for entertaining guests in mountain villages.
Lei Cha is a beverage made from sesame, peanuts, mung beans, raw rice, ginger, and tea leaves, with ginger, raw rice, and raw tea leaves as the basic ingredients. It is therefore also called "Three Raw Soup." To make Lei Cha, the above ingredients are first placed in a specially made grinding mortar and pounded into a paste with a Litsea cubeba wooden stick, then brewed with boiling water.
Making Lei Cha is quite laborious work. The maker must hold the Litsea cubeba stick and repeatedly rotate it in the mortar, grinding until the sesame, peanuts, mung beans, raw rice, ginger, and tea leaves are all pounded into a paste. One cannot simply lift the stick and pound, nor use other tools to grind. Only by pressing down with both hands and slowly, steadily grinding can the fragrant "Lei Cha base" be produced after two to three hours of work. This "Lei Cha base" is the most fundamental ingredient for making Lei Cha.
When drinking Lei Cha, the table is set with plates and dishes of fried rice crust, rice noodle sheets, fried dough twists, fried dough balls, salted vegetable stems, beans, peanuts, melon seeds, chestnuts, sweet potato slices, and more. These snacks and fruits are called "accompaniments" or "table pressers." Sour, sweet, salty, and spicy — all five flavors are present, offering a uniquely delightful taste. People sip Lei Cha, nibble on the accompaniments, and chat and laugh merrily. A folk rhyme goes: "Visit east household, run to west household, drink Lei Cha, share laughter, back and forth we become in-laws." Drinking Lei Cha has become an important way for the people of Changde to make friends and receive guests. The farm women here, through years of labor, have also developed a trick or two. First, the variety of table pressers must be plentiful, and their color, aroma, and taste must all be excellent. Second, the pickled vegetables in jars must be refreshing and properly flavored. Beyond that, each must have its own distinctive character. For example, the pickled shredded radish we just ate is not only golden in color, appropriately salty, crisp and refreshing, but when accompanied by bright red pickled chili peppers, it is both delicious and visually striking with its golden and red hues — a fine condiment indeed. Ordinary pickled radish shreds are short, each a single piece. But the radish shreds here are thin and long — typically several feet, with the longest reaching several meters. This is where the farm women's skill shines: she can peel an entire radish into a single continuous strand, as if unraveling silk from a cocoon. Such ingenuity speaks for itself.
There is also a wonderful legend behind the drinking of Lei Cha.
It is said that during the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xiang Dancheng, the chieftain of the Wuxi Man people, led an uprising and marched eastward on a large scale, attacking cities and seizing counties. For a time, dozens of counties in the Qianzhong Commandery fell, shocking the imperial court. After several failed attempts to suppress the rebellion with heavy troops, in the spring of the 25th year of the Jianwu era (49 AD), the court dispatched the capable and battle-hardened General Fubo, Ma Yuan, on a southern campaign. When Ma Yuan's army reached Wutou Village (in the area of Peach Blossom Spring, Hunan), "it happened to be the height of summer, and Ma Yuan himself fell ill." By the sixth month, Ma Yuan and his soldiers, unaccustomed to the southern heat, had contracted serious illnesses. Soon, plague spread through the military camp, and thousands fell ill. The military doctors could not diagnose the illness, and many local physicians called in were also unable to cure it. As more and more soldiers fell ill, Ma Yuan was so anxious that he went several nights without sleep, frequently leaving the camp to pace back and forth in the mountain forests.
In fact, this plague was simply caused by the miasma of the great forest. At that time, the Yuan River basin was densely forested, blocking out the sky. General Ma Yuan and his soldiers were all northerners. When they came south from the north to Peach Blossom Spring in spring, it was already the height of summer heat. The thick fallen leaves and other organic matter in the great forest, after fermenting at high temperatures, released large amounts of toxic gases. Unaccustomed to the southern heat and unfamiliar with local conditions, they inhaled these harmful gases and consequently fell ill in large numbers. General Ma Yuan himself also suffered greatly from the heat and sent soldiers to carve out stone chambers for relief. Today, passing through the rear gate cave of Peach Blossom Spring and boating upstream, one can see two summer-retreat stone chambers carved by Ma Yuan on the green mountain. According to "Records of Peach Blossom Spring": "The Wuling Man bandits invaded Linyuan. Ma Yuan advanced to Mount Huto, occupying the high ground and guarding the strategic pass. It happened to be the height of summer, and Ma Yuan himself fell ill, so he carved stone chambers to escape the heat." The "Jiuyu Zhi" also records General Fubo carving stone chambers on the green mountain to escape the summer heat.
At that time, the territory of the Wuxi Man people was in the region west of present-day Huaihua in western Hunan, spanning the Hunan-Guizhou-Sichuan border area. Ma Yuan's march to Wutou Village was along the only route to western Hunan — the Peach Blossom Spring area. It was the height of summer, with oppressive heat. He himself, unaccustomed to the southern climate, had fallen seriously ill, and so had to station his troops at Taoyuan, ordering soldiers to carve caves in the green mountain cliffs to escape the heat and recover.
Because he loved the people as his own children and his army committed not the slightest offense, even forbidding soldiers from drawing water from the villagers' wells and requiring them to fetch it from distant streams, he was deeply loved by the people. After General Ma Yuan left Wutou Village, the local people named the stone cave where he had stayed "Fubo Cave," the stream from which he had drawn water "Mawang Stream," and built a temple above Fubo Cave called "Fubo Temple."
Legend has it that one early morning, an old woman suddenly appeared from the winding mountain path and went straight to the military camp to see General Ma Yuan. She asked him: "General, your brows are knit all day long. What troubles you so?" General Ma Yuan told her truthfully about the plague in the army. After hearing this, the old woman said: "I have a simple remedy. You can prepare it accordingly and have your soldiers drink it, and it will surely cure their illness." Having said this, she transformed into a wisp of blue smoke and disappeared into the vast wilderness.
General Ma Yuan, overjoyed that an immortal had come to help, accepted the prescription, bowed deeply three times toward the east, and examined it. It contained the recipe and preparation method for Lei Cha. Ma Yuan ordered the army to follow it, and the next day half the soldiers recovered. By the third day, all the soldiers had regained their health. In fact, the remedy was quite simple — it was just that the physicians had not understood the real situation. Ginger and Litsea cubeba can relieve external symptoms, while mung beans and tea leaves have the function of clearing heat and detoxifying. Thus Lei Cha was able to cure the plague in Ma Yuan's army. From then on, the custom of drinking Lei Cha was passed down in this region.
There are many rituals associated with drinking Lei Cha. With ordinary tea, one first sets out the teacups and then invites the guests. But with Lei Cha, guests are first seated, and only then is a small bowl placed before each person. Into the bowl is placed the pounded "Three Raw Soup base," and then a kettle of boiling water is poured over it. The kettle must be held high and the water poured quickly, so that the base is naturally and evenly mixed in the bowl. Steam rises in the bowl, releasing a distinctive fragrance. Lei Cha brewed this way with plain boiling water is called "clear water Lei Cha." There is another type called "thick Lei Cha." To make it, rice flour is dissolved in cold water, then cooked over low heat into a paste, to which the Lei Cha base is added. After mixing well and bringing to a brief boil, it is ready to eat. Although the two types differ in preparation, they use the same ingredients and therefore have the same effects.
Whether clear water Lei Cha or thick Lei Cha, it must be drunk hot and sipped slowly and savoringly. Lei Cha is slightly spicy with a hint of saltiness. Sipping it carefully, one gradually discovers its subtle flavors. After two bowls, one's muscles and bones feel relaxed and the mind becomes refreshed.
When drinking Lei Cha here, if your bowl is not full, the warm host will quickly fill it to the brim. While you drink, the host will also spread the table with fried soybeans, peanuts, corn, sweet potato slices, puffed rice, rice cakes, and various pickled vegetables... All of these are collectively called "table pressers." People sip Lei Cha and savor the delicacies, and in such a beautiful environment, they find contentment in a simple life, joyful in the moment.
Therefore, drinking Lei Cha over the long term can cure illness if you are sick and prevent illness if you are well, helping to prolong life. Today, everyone has tasted Lei Cha here. May you all enjoy longevity, health, and well-being.
Strangely enough, because Lei Cha has all these benefits and is such an excellent beverage, some people have obtained the recipe and tried to transplant it elsewhere for business. But no matter how hard they tried, no matter what methods they devised, they could never reproduce the same taste. Perhaps this confirms the saying: "Whatever exists is reasonable." The reason Lei Cha has endured in the Changde region for thousands of years without decline is that it has soil suited to its existence, a culture of its own, and a special environment in which it thrives. This is precisely the fundamental reason why the culture of a people and a place can be passed down through the long river of human history.