Xiguan is the core area of Guangzhou food culture for more than 300 years, and it is also the birthplace of the most authentic Cantonese dim sum. The top ten famous snacks in Guangzhou are all from Xiguan area. When you go to Guangzhou, you have to come to Xiguan for tea and morning tea. Naturally, Xiguan is famous. Every weekend or holiday, Cantonese people will help the old and bring the young, or make an appointment with three or five confidants to gather in the teahouse to "sigh for morning tea". "Sigh" means enjoyment in Cantonese, so it can be seen that drinking morning tea is a pleasant pastime in the eyes of Cantonese people, and it is no different from other entertainment activities in this respect.
Basic information
Chinese name
morning tea
Main ingredients
Black tea and oolong tea .......
one's taste
fragrance
Origin
Guangdong and Jiangsu Yangtai areas
characteristic
Dried silk is cut from dried bean curd. The dried silk cutter first cuts a piece of dried bean curd evenly into about 20 pieces with a knife, then obliquely cuts it into filaments equivalent to match sticks, and then pours it into boiling water for repeated scalding. Because of the alkali, the dried silk is soft and elastic to chew.
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The origin of morning tea
Su Shi Zao cha
Morning tea in Yangtai area can be traced back to the early and middle Qing Dynasty. "Take the first prize and stop the tea before the rain, and try the new tea after the green rain." This is a poem written by Zhu Yuting, a Taizhou poet during the Qing Dynasty. As the poet described, before the mid-Qing Dynasty, the teahouses in Taizhou were only engaged in green tea, during which famous teahouses such as Yuxuan, Lvyulou, Guangshengju and Pinxiang were born. In the late Qing Dynasty, foreign merchants and local people opened teahouses one after another, and the competition among their peers was fierce. In order to attract business, some teahouses sell dried silk, pasta and other snacks in addition to green tea. This innovative business idea has gradually affected the catering industry in Taizhou.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, teahouses such as Fuchun, Hailingchun, Yiyuan, Home for those who live, and Dadong Restaurant came into being. "Zhezheju" is a well-known time-honored shop in Taizhou Teahouse. Its store was originally located near Sunjiaqiao. During the Qing Dynasty, because the morning tea in this house was very delicious, all Taizhou people rushed to Zhezheju to taste the morning tea, so that the business of this teahouse was booming, and it was difficult to sit down late, but there were diners waiting for a place in the shop, which left a two-part allegorical saying in Taizhou local people, that is, "Why are you such a person?" It means that this person is stubborn and inflexible.
"Dadong Restaurant" was founded in the early 1940s. It was opened by a boss surnamed Wu, a native of Dongtai. Boss Wu knew a lot about business. After he opened the shop, he changed the monotonous pattern of morning tea varieties in Taizhou. He made great efforts in the quality and variety of morning tea, and introduced new varieties of morning tea, such as fish noodle soup, boiled shredded pork and steamed dumplings. Although the price was more expensive than other teahouses, it still attracted many diners to try them. With the change of time, most of the time-honored teahouses no longer exist, but there are still many large and small shops dealing in morning tea in Taizhou streets. Among them, Fuchun Hotel, Continental Hotel, Leather Bag Tea House and Zhezheju 10 are the most famous hotels for morning tea. Except Fuchun, several other hotels are now relocated and restored to Taizhou Old Street.
Cantonese morning tea
morning tea
morning tea
Speaking of the origin of Guangdong morning tea, it can be traced back to the reign of Xianfeng Tongzhi. At that time, there was a restaurant named "Yili Pavilion" in Guangzhou. There was a wooden sign with the word "Tea Talk" hanging at the door, which served tea and cakes. The facilities were simple, and only a few wooden tables and benches were used to welcome guests and chat for passers-by. Later, tea houses appeared, and the scale became larger and larger, turning them into teahouses. Since then, it has become a common practice for Cantonese people to have morning tea in teahouses. Until today, the tea in Guangdong morning tea has become a supporting role, but the refreshments are more and more exquisite and diverse. With the rapid development of Guangdong's economy, this traditional culture has not disappeared, but has increasingly become a beautiful landscape in Guangdong's leisure life. There is another kind called "Erli Restaurant" which also serves the same dim sum. The difference lies in the price and equipment. The tea cost in the teahouse is three points and six cents, while the tea cost in Erli Restaurant is only two cents, which is a far cry, 16 times. Some old-fashioned teahouses are graded, and the upstairs is more expensive than the downstairs, because there is air conditioning (or electric fan) upstairs and the place is more spacious. Since it is called "morning tea", tea is naturally an indispensable part of morning tea in Guangdong. Black tea is the main tea for morning tea, so it can warm the stomach and get rid of greasy, which is beneficial to digestion. Commonly used are fermented tea (Anhua black tea, Pu 'er tea, etc.) and oolong tea (Tieguanyin, Dahongpao, etc.), and some people also like to drink chrysanthemum tea, that is, add chrysanthemum to Pu 'er tea to cool it off. Black tea is dark red in color, thick in soup and bitter in taste. Although it is not as good as green tea in vision and taste, it is a perfect match with the rich refreshments in Guangdong morning tea.
The prosperity of Guangdong morning tea is inseparable from Guangdong's prosperous trade and rapid economic development since ancient times. In Guangdong, you can talk about business and exchange information during the morning tea, and you can also get together with friends and talk about things. Businessmen regard the teahouse as an important place for discussion, while ordinary people express their pressure here, in exchange for a half-day leisure. There was a couplet in the "Miaoqixiang" teahouse in old Guangzhou:
"Busy for the sake of fame, busy for profit, busy for leisure, have a cup of tea;
Hard work, hard labor, pleasure in suffering, bring a pot of wine. "
On the third floor of the famous teahouse "Taotaoju" in Guangzhou, there is also a couplet that reads:
"Tao Qian is good at drinking, Yi Ya is good at cooking, and just meet as a gentleman;
Tao Kan cherishes flying, Xia Yu cherishes inches, and the most regrettable thing is the time in the cup. "
I think it should be the psychological portrayal of most Cantonese people when they drink morning tea.
tea and pastries
Su Shi cha Dian
When it comes to the varieties of morning tea in Yangzhou, Taizhou and Yancheng, the "protagonist" is dried silk. Taizhou dried silk was researched and created by Xing Guisen, a famous chef in the middle of Jiangsu Province. Xing Guisen was originally a disciple of Ji San, an imperial chef, who was famous for cooking dried silk. In the Republic of China, Xing Guisen worked as a chef in Wanhua Building, Xicang Street, Taizhou. After painstaking research, he introduced hand-dried silk for the public.
Dried silk is cut from dried bean curd. The dried silk cutter first cuts a piece of dried bean curd evenly into about 20 pieces with a knife, then obliquely cuts it into filaments equivalent to match sticks, and then pours it into boiling water for repeated scalding. Because of the alkali, the dried silk is soft and elastic to chew. Of course, dried silk itself is tasteless, and it all depends on seasonings to reconcile. Soy sauce, water, sugar, salt, adjusted to moderate shade, slightly sweet and umami, this process is called "cooking oil", sesame oil is added, fragrant. Sprinkle shredded ginger, coriander, shredded carrot, peanuts and diced mustard tuber to make light and delicious dried silk. As for boiled dried silk, it is cooked with auxiliary materials such as yaorou, shrimp, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, fungus, vegetables and soup.
When people from Yangzhou, Taizhou and Yancheng eat morning tea, most of them choose "Fuxiang" tea mixed with Anhui Kuizhen, Zhulan and Hangzhou Longjing. After soaking, this tea is clear in color, rich and mellow, and integrates the color of Kuizhen, the fragrance of Zhulan and the taste of Longjing. There is also an allusion to this tea. It is said that in the old days, Taizhou Teahouse drank tea in different grades, gentry and wealthy businessmen drank Longjing, ordinary families drank Kuizhen, and foreigners in Thailand drank Zhulan. All three kinds of tea needed to be paid. On the second day, the teahouse will mix and boil the remaining three kinds of tea powder and provide it to drivers, porters and other low-paid people for free. Once, a relative of a salt merchant accidentally drank this kind of tea and felt very good, so he recommended it to the salt merchant. After drinking it, the salt merchant called this kind of tea with compound fragrance "Fu (Fu) Xiang" tea and recommended it to his friends. As time passed, this kind of "Fu Xiang" tea became the new favorite of people at that time. Nowadays, "Fuxiang" tea has been popularized, and more people have enjoyed the happy time brought by this famous tea.
Pasta is the "finale" in Yangtai Salt Morning Tea. Including fish soup noodles, fresh meat wonton, dry mixed noodles, boiled noodles, fried noodles and many other varieties, of which 1942 Panama International Expo won the most popular fish soup noodles. The fish soup on fish soup noodles is very elegant. The bones of wild eel, small crucian carp and big pig are stir-fried with onion and ginger, and then slowly boiled by fire. After the noodles are cooked, put them into the fresh and thick fish soup, sprinkle some small peppers and garlic leaves, and the attractive fish flavor will come to the nose. With fresh and smooth noodles, drinking mellow fish soup, the refreshing taste lingers in my heart for a long time. The old diners in Taizhou commented that it is "thick in the mouth and moist in the stomach". Like Cantonese-style morning tea, there are many kinds of snacks in Taizhou morning tea, such as crab roe soup bag, diced pork with bamboo shoots, shredded radish bag, diced pork bag, mushrooms and vegetables bag, dried vegetables bag, steamed dumplings with shrimps, glutinous rice shaomai, thousand-layer oil cake, etc. The pastry skin is made of high-quality wheat flour, and the stuffing is made with fresh vegetables, meat and aquatic products, and it is steamed now by hand, so the snacks with thin skin and full stuffing taste soft and fine. If you want to taste every snack, you can also choose a variety of snacks with the same cage.
Cantonese tea
The status of refreshments in Guangdong morning tea is also very important. There are two kinds of refreshments: dry refreshments include jiaozi, dried fruits, steamed stuffed buns and crisp cakes, while wet refreshments include porridge, meat, turtle paste and bean curd. Among them, the dry point is the most exquisite and sells well. For example, two or three fresh shrimps are wrapped in translucent crystal dumpling skin, which is the signature shrimp dumpling that every tea house must make. Before lifting the chopsticks, you can see a little reddish in the crystal. After you bite it gently, the flexibility of the crystal dumpling Pete and the natural sweetness and crispness of the shrimps blend into a delicious taste, which makes people memorable. Another example is the special crispy egg tarts of bird's nest in some high-end teahouses. Several layers of golden crispy egg tarts are filled with tender yellow and silky bird's nest, which has aroused people's appetite at first sight, not to mention the perfect combination of sweet and soft bird's nest and crispy powder after entrance, which makes people want to stop eating. And all kinds of porridge, such as the first porridge, preserved egg lean meat porridge, raw rolled fish porridge, etc., are all made of soft and smooth porridge bottom, with different kinds of meat and fish eggs, supplemented by crispy shrimp slices and green chopped green onion, sprinkled with a spoonful of pepper, and tasted sweet and delicious.
Having said that, the spectators may have been unable to hold back and want to taste the delicious Guangdong morning tea. But wait a minute, how much do you know about the etiquette of Guangdong morning tea? Cantonese people have a few small manners when drinking morning tea, such as opening the lid when there is no water in the teapot to show the need to refill water, tapping the desktop with the index finger and middle finger of the right hand to show gratitude when others pour tea for themselves, and shouting "pay the bill" to the waiter after drinking morning tea. How did such etiquette come into being?
Let me tell you some allusions about these etiquette. The allusion to "burying" actually means to pile up the bills, that is, to settle the accounts. The "hand-knocking ceremony" when pouring tea comes from the allusion of Ganlong's southern tour: it is said that when Ganlong poured tea for his entourage in the teahouse, his entourage kowtowed with his hands bent to represent his identity, which was handed down, and now it has spread from the morning tea table in Guangzhou to all parts of the country: opening the lid and refilling the water also came from one place. During the dinner, the waiter was called to refill the water. As a result, as soon as the other party opened the lid of the teapot, the wealthy businessman insisted that there was a canary in the pot and started a lawsuit with the teahouse. As a result, the teahouse lost the lawsuit. Since then, the owner of the teahouse has stipulated that guests must open the lid of the teapot themselves if they want to refill the water. Although it is only a legend, the two sides exchanged ideas through a small action, and it is a manifestation of civilization without shouting.
steamed vermicelli roll
Rice rolls, also known as Juan Fen and Zhu rice rolls (because it looks like pig intestines), was created by Pantang Hexian Pavilion in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period and is now available in snack bars, teahouses, restaurants and hotels. It is to steam rice slurry into thin skin one by one in a special multi-layer steamer or cloth, put meat, fish fillets, shrimps, etc., steam it, roll it into long strips, and cut it into plates. The raw materials are called beef sausage, pork sausage, fish fillet sausage and shrimp sausage; Without stuffing, it is called sausage; Adding sugar to rice slurry is called sweet sausage.
In Hongkong, Guangdong and other places, rice rolls is often seasoned with soy sauce or hot sauce with peanut oil. In Singapore and Malaysia, more sesame seeds and sweet sauce are added, which may be unfamiliar to diners in Guangdong and Hong Kong, but it has good local characteristics.
Boat porridge
After the end of Han Dynasty, Guangzhou became a big trading port. Tang Xianzu, a famous playwright in the Ming Dynasty, once described the busy scene and majestic momentum of Guangzhou Port with the words "There are thousands of wells on the riverside and thousands of ships on the site". Under this historical background, boat porridge, a special porridge, came out in Lizhiwan, Xiguan, Guangzhou. At that time, the rivers in the western suburbs of Guangzhou were flowing freely, and Li was red and green, which was rated as one of the eight scenic spots in Yangcheng-"Li Yu Sing". Many scholars go boating, and the boaters cook porridge on the dinghy and sell it to tourists. This kind of porridge is made of fresh fish fillets, fried vermicelli, jellyfish skin and peanut kernels. It is very fresh in taste, beautiful in scenery, light in boat, cool in wind and water, and very poetic.
shrimp dumpling
Shrimp dumplings, with fresh shrimps as stuffing, are a veritable shrimp jiaozi. Shrimp dumplings can be described as the first brother of Guangdong morning tea, and every tea house is the first to promote its own homemade shrimp dumplings. It is said that the idea of shrimp dumplings originated from the owner of a small teahouse in rural Henan, Guangzhou. Because the teahouse is located in a water town, fishermen often sell fish and shrimp on the river, so the boss buys live shrimp and makes shrimp dumplings with pork and bamboo shoots as stuffing, which is famous for its delicacy in Guangzhou.
A delicious shrimp dumpling, it must be crystal clear, refreshing and non-sticky. The stuffing inside must be the original fresh shrimp, and at the same time, this fresh shrimp is also particular: it can't be chilled shrimp, in case it feels watered when it is imported. Finally, we need to pay attention to the ingredients of pork. When the pork is wrapped with fresh shrimp, we should put a proper amount of it, so as not to usurp the host's role.
shaomai
Shaomai, a famous traditional snack. Also known as steamed dumplings, Xiaomi, Shaomai, Shaomei, Roasted Plum, and Ghost Pengtou, it describes the shape that the top is fluffy and folded like a flower, and it is a kind of pasta snack wrapped in hot noodles and steamed in a cage. In Guangdong morning tea, Shao Shao is the second brother in the menu, just below shrimp dumplings. Guangdong Shao Shao Shao, mainly dry steaming Shao Shao, fresh shrimp Shao, crab meat Shao, pork liver Shao, beef Shao and ribs Shao.
Among them, in the 1930s, dry steaming and cooking became popular all over Guangdong, and in the past 20 years, it spread all over large and medium-sized cities in Guangxi, becoming a must-have product in Lingnan teahouse and restaurant tea market. Dry steaming is made of egg liquid, water and flour as skin, pork, shrimp and mushrooms as stuffing, kneaded into pomegranate flower shape and steamed. Its color is light yellow, crab yellow is bright, its skin is soft, its meat is refreshing, it contains a little juice, and it is delicious and fragrant.
Steamed Spare Ribs in Black Bean Sauce
Steamed spareribs with black bean sauce, a classic Guangdong morning tea snack, is made by frying cleaned spareribs, chopped green onion and other ingredients in a pot, taking them out, mixing them well with the seasoning in the format, adding ingredients such as taro, pumpkin, or white radish, and finally mixing them with black bean and steaming them in a steamer until the aroma is sprayed, which really makes people salivate.
For a good steamed pork ribs with soy sauce, the ribs must be steamed away from the bone, not stuffed with teeth but with chewing heads. The flavor of fermented soybean juice should be completely blended with the flavor of pork ribs, and if chewed in the mouth, a strange flavor will last forever. It is worth mentioning that the ingredients, if you add taro, you have to fry it with the bottom; If it is a pumpkin, it needs to be cooked very soft and smooth, and it is best to sand it; If it is white radish, it is soft and can't be scattered. These ingredients absorb the gravy of ribs and are absolutely unforgettable to eat.
Steamed chicken feet
According to statistics, steamed chicken feet have been one of the most sold snacks in restaurants and tea markets in China and Japan for many years. This is enough to show that the Guangdong people's love for chicken feet is sincere. The chicken feet are fried and steamed, and they are full and soft. When they are sucked, they will be deboned. Together with the sauce mixed with various flavors, they will suddenly taste fragrant and even chew.