Lotus tea

 

I went on a business trip to a district in the north of Ha Nam province, and heard about “Old Man Dong Van” - an old man who lived near Dong Van train station, who had a famous lotus-scented tea. I didn’t know him, and actually didn’t have any interest in learning about him, because at that time I wasn’t a tea fanatic. But I met one of his three sons, a literature teacher at a nearby high school. We met and greeted each other briefly… Later, I heard that none of the three sons followed in his footsteps, but his grandson followed in his footsteps in an excellent way. Now, when it comes to lotus tea, few people don’t know the lotus tea brand of Mr. Truong An in Dong Van, including Vietnamese people abroad.

Scenting lotus tea as mentioned in the first part of this article, is just a quick pickling, not really a great deal. And that pickling method only satisfies the individual's taste for tea. To make lotus tea that is both plentiful, has a rich and long-lasting flavor, like the grandson of "Old Man Dong Van" is doing, lotus flowers must be picked, and the lotus rice separated to pickle the tea. Lotus rice is the ivory-white grains at the tip of the lotus pistil. Each kilogram of tea must be pickled five or seven times, each time requiring 200 grams of lotus rice. In short, it takes the amount of lotus rice from about 1,500 (one thousand five hundred) lotus flowers to produce 1 kilogram of finished lotus tea.

The “knowledge” I’ve gleaned here and there about lotus tea, that’s all. When I reached the age of liking to drink tea, I couldn’t do without a teapot every day. Suddenly, I was given lotus tea, the lotus flowers inside were brewing tea, sent from Hanoi to the South for me, with a reminder: put it in the freezer for later use. The amount of tea in each flower can be enough to make several pots (depending on your preference for strong or light tea). The first time I nervously poured the tea from the pot into a cup of lotus tea, tried to sip it, and almost exclaimed out loud: My God! How could there be such wonderful tea? The flavor of the cup of tea was truly special and unprecedented. I remembered the teacup that Mr. Nguyen Tuan described in his writing, remembered the reputation of “Old Man Dong Van” and immediately understood the pinnacle of sophistication in the culture of making and enjoying tea of ​​the elders. That culture could be elevated to a kind of tea-tea religion.

Occasionally, I wandered through Facebook and got to know an old man from Hanoi. He must be about ten years older than me, but after chatting online for a while, I found many things I shared. I was even more surprised when I realized that we had been “neighbors” through many stages of our lives: he was stationed in my hometown during the war, my office was next to his in Hanoi, and we had eaten together for many years in a communal kitchen filled with the strong smell of charcoal stoves… Once I saw him boasting about picking lotus from West Lake to make tea, so I happily chatted with him about lotus tea. Lotus from Dong Tri pond, Thuy Su (Quang Ba village) on the edge of West Lake, is the truly precious lotus, with many petals (hundred leaves), and fragrant. When the lotus blooms, commercial tea makers go hunting for flowers, the price of a lotus flower elsewhere is about ten thousand, but the price of lotus from West Lake is two or three times higher. We promised each other many times that when I have a chance to go to Hanoi, I will come and chat with my old friend, reminisce about "old times" and drink a cup of lotus tea brewed by him.

Suddenly, on his Facebook page, there were a few lines from his son, informing friends near and far: "my father" had passed away.

Oh no! I quickly texted him: your father told me that whenever he had free time, he wrote down many stories about his youth, when he was a soldier, when he was discharged and became a cadre… Keep them, don’t lose them. Your brother texted back: I couldn’t find any of your father’s papers or records, I only found in the freezer some lotus flowers that he had kept for tea since the previous lotus season…

I read the message and was silent for a long time.

A pot of tea for a meeting day, how much human love is there, oh lotus?

CHAPTER

 

Source: https://baobariavungtau.com.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/202502/tra-sen-1035561/