Mashed Tea

    Taojiang County and Anhua County in Yiyang City, people are accustomed to drinking the mashed tea very long ago. Almost every family have the small earthenware basin and shelf and stick for mashing tea (oil-tea wood of 1.67m long). When making the mashed tea, first smash the tealeaves, put the sesame, ginger and pignut into the tealeaves, then mash them into paste. After that, pour the boiled water with white sugar into the tea, and then visitor can drink the tea that similar with the soymilk or milky juice and taste good and cool and glycol. It is suitable for drinking in four seasons, especially in summer.
　　When guests come, the host or hostess will contain the mashed tea in a big bowl. As long as the guests want to drink, they are served to drink at any moment. The more the guests drink, the more happy the host or hostess is. however the treatment just for familiar guests. For the rare visitor, the host and hostess will treat the guests with mashed tea and self-made tea pastries such as sweet potato chips, fried soybeans, fried peel, puffed rice, sour sword bean and radish with pepper. Since 1980s, drinking mashed tea in summer has become popular among other town of the region, furthermore, there are some self-employed people who began to engage on the mashed tea business.