For those who have a passion for tea, drinking tea is an ordinary refreshment and an elegant pleasure. Vietnamese people have many different types of tea blended with different flavors, but the most typical is Lotus Tea, famous for its elegance.
Vietnamese people often say that having good tea must have a good friend because if you want to relax and talk with your best friend, you need to sit somewhere with a pot of fragrant, delicious tea. Since ancient times, enjoying lotus tea has been an elegant pleasure reserved only for princes and noble families. The right way to drink lotus tea is to sit on a wood table under the eaves in the middle of a lotus pond where the scent of lotus blooms and friends chat and talk.
The lotus is a beautiful flower and the national flower of the Vietnamese people, symbolizing simplicity, elegance, and purity. Since ancient times, lotus tea has been a superior product to the king. Artisans have chosen lotus flowers to marinate tea because of its holiness, righteousness, and many human philosophies and profound meanings. It is a light drink that contains deep affection.
It takes 1,000 fresh lotus flowers to marinate 1kg of Lotus Tea. When sunset falls, people choose the lotus flowers still opening their buds and put in them small teabags. Early the next day, when the dawn had not yet reached them, people rowed out to retrieve the tea bags. The tea is very fragrant with the natural scent of heaven and earth throughout the long night. This fragrant lotus tea crystallized the soul and essence of this classy flower a long time ago.
Among countless other types of tea, such as chrysanthemum tea, apricot blossom tea, etc., lotus tea is still a preferred choice. Marinating lotus tea is difficult, but the more difficult thing is how to enjoy lotus tea to feel the essence of the teacup. Enjoying an authentic cup of lotus tea, people need to be sophisticated and delicate in making this elegant pleasure unique and full of flavor.
After pouring the tea into a cup, the drinkers must cherish the teacup, press both hands to the cup to feel the radiating warmth, then slowly bring it up to his nose to smell and feel the aroma. Then slowly sip to feel the acrid taste on the tip of the tongue and the sweetness in the throat. Enjoying lotus tea needs meticulous attention to detail. No one drinks lotus tea when the tea is cold, and no one finishes it while the tea is still hot. That ways of drinking lotus tea have lost the frugality of the teacup, making the delicateness and scent of the lotus not linger.
The right time to drink tea may be in the early morning, when the mist is still fanciful, sitting next to a cup of tea to enjoy, the drinker feels suddenly excited and full of life. It can also be a quiet afternoon, when the sunset gradually disappears behind the night; looking at the whole sky after a long day ends, drinking a few sips of tea feels serene, pleasant, comfortable. Or maybe it was an entire moon night, drinking tea while reciting poetry, which was what poets of the old days did, feeling that life was light and peaceful, indescribably pleasant.
Enjoying tea is like that. The bitter taste of tea is the bitter taste of the experience, the taste of memory. Because calmly going through the bitterness, people can fully absorb the last sweet aftertaste to remember forever. When drinking tea, people and tea are as intimate as a rustic spiritual harmony, yet highly connected and delicate.
Although there are enough new and expensive drinks in this era, the Vietnamese still respect and preserve the tea as a cultural beauty. The custom of drinking tea in Vietnam dates back more than a thousand years. Over time combined with human sophistication, Vietnamese tea has become a traditional cultural feature, elevated to a superior art level. Drinking a cup of lotus tea is like a way to feel the world’s philosophy, helping people wash away dust, making the soul light, noble, and free from the world. Enjoying the taste of a cup of tea, people’s souls seem to be soaring, gently drifting, like a fairy who is watching the world.
Holding a cup of lotus tea in your hand, take small sips and slowly feel the spreading warmth. The clear yellow-green color, along with the strong taste of tea aroma mixed with the gentle, pure fragrance of the lotus flower, makes your soul calm, quiet.
In the hustle and bustle of modern times, people want to find the taste of a cup of tea, like finding the pure and simple beauty in each person’s heart. Sipping fragrant tea, refreshing people closer to each other, it is true that the rich identity that has existed for thousands of years radiates fragrance in the harmony of nature and heaven and earth.
