Creative Christmas and New Year Drinks – “Dragon and Tiger Fight” – Tea and White Spirit

Wenzhuo Liu

The Christmas and New Year holidays are coming. I believe many people will go to all kinds of parties and celebrations. Here recommends interesting and creative tea and wine blending drinks, which have both traditions to tell guests and winter health care effects. The Naxi ethnic minorities in Yunnan like to drink a kind of tea and white spirit drink called Dragon and Tiger Fight. The blue flames in the tea cup are like roaring tigers, while the hot tea is poured into the cup like a swimming dragon. This lively drink is very suitable for winter holidays, it can also cure and relieve cold symptoms. However, traditional drinks can also be improved to be closer to modern people’s eating and drinking habits. Traditional pottery can be replaced with glass wine glasses, combined with cool cocktail technology, to make holiday drinks more eye-catching.

Blended tea has a very long history in China, but in different periods, the name contains different contents and forms of expression. It can be traced back to the cake tea and tea porridge in the Three Kingdoms period (220-280). When tea was introduced to other countries, many blended tea were also derived, such as British black tea with milk and sugar, green tea with mint and lemon in Asia and Africa. In China’s traditional tea culture, green tea, black tea, oolong tea, black tea and other teas can be used as the basis for blending tea, with a wide range of accessories, including fruits, grains, herbs and even spices. These accessories not only enhance the flavor and taste of tea, but also have certain health care functions, which are popular with the public. Traditional blended tea has obvious regional characteristics. Ethnic groups in some Asian regions, such as Mongolia, China Xinjiang, Russia, etc., drink milk tea, ethnic minorities in Tibet, Qinghai, Yunnan, Sichuan province and other regions in China drink butter tea, and mountain people in Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi and other regions drink Lei tea.

The Naxi ethnic minorities live in the high and cold mountain areas of the northwest plateau of Yunnan Province. They have a long history of tea drinking, and several different tea drinking customs are spread. The most mysterious one is the Dragon and Tiger Fight, it is made in a strange way. First, boil the water with a kettle. At the same time, choose another small pottery pot, put a proper amount of tea, usually brick tea, and bake the tea with the pot. In order to avoid scorching the tea, need to constantly rotate the pottery pot to make the tea heated evenly. When the tea leaves give off the burning smell, pour boiling water into the pot and boil for 3-5 minutes. At the same time, prepare tea cups, put each half a cup of white spirit (mainly distilled from sorghum or maize), and then flush the boiled tea into the cups. At this time, the tea cup will make a sound of “pa pa”, which is regarded by Naxi people as a sign of good luck. The louder the voice, the happier the people present.

If the white spirit is not hot enough, or to increase the ornamental value, Naxi can also light half of the cup of spirit with fire. The cup will immediately ignite a faint blue flame, like a roaring tiger, and the tea poured in is like a dragon. Chili or pepper can also be added to the spirit to make it taste more unique. Naxi believes that the Dragon and Tiger Fight is still a good medicine for colds, so they advocate drinking it while it is hot. Drinking tea in this way is very delicious, refreshing and thirst quenching! However, the Naxi people believe that when brewing Dragon and Tiger Fight tea, only tea can be poured into white spirit, and spirit must not be poured into tea.

According to traditional methods, can choose brick tea that has been fermented or naturally aged. Aged white tea is also a good choice, it has the effects of dispelling wind, dispersing cold and enriching blood and qi. After tea and spirit blend, the antioxidant activity of tea polyphenols in the alcohol phase is higher than that in the water phase, so their functions are more synergistic. Pour the tea soup into the red wine glass, put the sugar soaked with white spirit in advance on the coffee spoon, put it on the mouth of the wine cup, pour in some spirit and ignite it. After the sugar is burned, put the spoon into the tea soup and stir it evenly before drinking. The white spirit can not only add chili and pepper, but also add some cinnamon powder to taste more festive at Christmas.


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