There is an ancient village called Chajiugou Village in Xingtai, Hebei Province, which has a history of several hundred years. According to legend, villagers in ancient villages immigrated from Yang Fan Village in Shaanxi Province in the late Ming Dynasty.

What makes me curious is that the name of this village is Chajiugou. What does it have to do with tea? A few years ago, on a weekend in autumn, I went to Gucha Village with some tea friends. I didn't know until I arrived in the village that the ancestors of the villagers had moved here at that time. There was a big stone at the entrance of the village, which looked like a tea mortar, and "mortar" was homophonic with "old", so people named the village after it. Chajiugou Village is built next to Baiyun Mountain. Surrounded by mountains on three sides, the south is open. A jade belt river flows from west to east. The mountains and rivers complement each other and set each other off into interest. There are dense vegetation on the hillside, including chestnuts, walnuts, persimmons, peaches and apricots, as well as evergreen conifers, shady trees, flowers, rabbits and apricots. There are nearly nine kilometers of rivers winding through the village. The river is as clear as jade, the river twists and turns, and the beach is continuous.

The ancestors of the Song Dynasty built a bridge on the river, with bluestone slabs as streets, flood discharge and drainage under the bridge, and houses were built on both sides of the river ditch according to the mountain situation. Reasonable layout, patchwork. The village is dominated by quadrangles, and the houses are framed by wood and stone, and a two-story bluestone building is built. However, the quadrangles here are slightly different from the traditional quadrangles in the north. The courtyard wall of Chajiugou Village is not only square, but curved.

Han Shaogong once said in the article "The Regret of Balcony" that "architecture is the externalization and materialization of people's hearts". From the characteristics of architecture, we can see the wisdom and habits of the ancients. This courtyard in Chajiugou Village reflects the simplicity and kindness of the villagers.

In the past, the older generation needed an agricultural vehicle called a cart for farming. People who work every day often push trolleys through the streets. In order to facilitate others to walk in front of their homes, they built the walls of their homes into a circle, forming a harmonious atmosphere of mutual courtesy, symbolizing the harmonious coexistence between neighbors. In addition, Chajiugou is a small basin located on the mountain, with a small area and insufficient space in the village. In order to meet the living and housing needs of the whole village, the driveway was originally left very narrow. But for the convenience of everyone and future generations, people built their own walls into a circle, each giving up one foot, forming the alley that everyone sees now, showing the mutual humility between neighbors to the fullest, and the good rural style has continued to this day.

The paths in the village are all paved with ancient bluestone slabs, and there are small slate roads between the buildings on both sides. Houses are connected, one family cooks, and the whole street is fragrant; Everyone nearby knows whose baby fell, knocked out his tooth and hit the bowl. Walking on such a stone road, you can always feel the inside story and taste of history. Whether it is the mottled time mark on the stone wall of the tall gatehouse built in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, or the traces of life on the stone mortar, stone mill and millstone left over from the same period, people can't help but see the vicissitudes of the past time and history.

There is a tea mortar in front of almost every household in the village. In fact, there are no tea trees and teas in the village. It is impossible to prove whether this mortar is used to pound tea, but villagers have been using it to make a kind of food called bean foam since ancient times. In the past, the villagers in Chajiugou village generally liked to drink bean foam soup, which can be said to be a daily routine of every household. The so-called bean foam soup is to wash the soybeans, pour them into a stone mortar and pound them into pieces with a round stone hammer. In the process of mashing beans, add a small amount of water to mash soybeans into foam, just like unfiltered soybean milk. When finished, pour it into the rice porridge pot and simmer for about an hour. Since it has nothing to do with tea, why do you have to give it a name related to tea?

I think, in ancient times, tea was not too much and not too expensive. This is a luxury drink that only wealthy businessmen and dignitaries can enjoy. For ordinary farmers, if they can't afford tea, they call other foods tea, which just expresses their pursuit and yearning for tea, a luxury in the north.

Just like Lincheng and Zanhuang, which are not far from Chajiugou Village, there is a kind of food called tea noodles. Tea noodles actually have nothing to do with tea. The so-called tea noodle is to wash the millet with clear water, dry it until it is semi-dry, and then grind it into flour with appropriate thickness in the mill; After grinding the flour, put it in a large iron pot and fry it for a long time. After the tea noodles are fried, it's not over. Add auxiliary materials, usually fried sesame seeds and peanuts. After mashing, add them into the fried tea noodles and stir well. In the past, ordinary people were not rich, and only on holidays could they eat this delicious tea noodles.

I think whether it's tea noodles or tea mortar in Chajiugou village, these names are full of the yearning of the working people for a better life in the past. Just like the bitter buckwheat tea in Yanmen area of northern China, it is not a conventional tea, but a kind of food that can be eaten and drunk after brewing, which can quench thirst and satisfy hunger. But people still call it tea.

In ancient times, tea was not grown in the north of China, especially in the north of the Yellow River. Tea in the north is shipped all the way from the south, so tea in the north is a high-end consumer product, which is expensive and cannot enter the homes of ordinary people. However, after the opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in Sui Dynasty, tea was able to enter the northern market smoothly along the waterway. Therefore, there are many places where tea is processed in the north. Bianjing in the Northern Song Dynasty, now Kaifeng, was located on the main road of land and water transportation, between the tea producing area and the consumption area, and was the largest tea distribution center in China at that time. The tea economy is unprecedentedly prosperous, and the content of tea culture is also very rich. Zhang Zeduan's "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" and Song Huizong's "Daguan Tea Theory" provide more detailed historical materials and evidence.

Starting from the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty, China's silk was sold to the west, which made Europeans crazy. Later, tea culture rose, and tea, as a commodity, also came to the Silk Road. Therefore, the Silk Road is also a "tea road", and some people call it the "Silk Tea Road". In fact, the complete Silk Road can be divided into two sections, one is from Chang 'an (Xi 'an) all the way to the west, passing through Gansu and Xinjiang, to Central Asia and West Asia, and to the Mediterranean region of Europe. According to historical records, there is another section from west to east, starting from Chang 'an, passing through Luoyang and Anyang (Xiangzhou), passing through Xingtai (xing zhou), Shijiazhuang (Hengzhou) and Yixian (Yizhou) in Hebei Province, passing through Beijing (Youzhou) and Miyun (Baitan), crossing Gubeikou and Liaodong Peninsula, and finally reaching the Korean Peninsula and crossing the Sea of Japan.

To enter the Silk Road, tea must first be transported from the south to the north. At that time, the transportation of tea from the south to the north was divided into land and water, and the water transportation mainly passed through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to facilitate the transportation of tea from the south to the north. Qinghe River, located in the North China Plain, is the intersection of the Sui and Tang Canal and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and is also an important hub terminal. There is a lot of tea trade here. After the tea is transported through the Grand Canal, part of it goes west, crosses Taihang Mountain and Taihang Mountain, and then enters Shanxi before being transported to the northwest. Others pass through Juma River and Zijingguan in yi county and are transported to the vast northwest region. Some tea leaves may also be transported to Chajiugou Village, Xingtai County, and then transported to the northwest after processing. According to the genealogy of Chajiugou village, the ancestors of the village once processed tea, and the quality was not bad. At that time, there was no certificate to test whether the tea was processed and packaged by ancient tea mortar and sold to various places. But just like Shaanxi Ankang Jingyang Fuzhuan tea, the tea in the south is transported to Ankang Jingyang for processing and packaging. Because it is processed in summer, its aroma and function are similar to those of Poria, and it becomes brick after autoclaving, so it is called "Poria Brick Tea", that is, the famous Jingyang Poria Brick Tea. At that time, there was a famous saying: "Since ancient times, tea has not been planted in the north of Lingling, and Jingyang only produces brick tea."

I think with the continuous trading of tea, tea culture has gradually penetrated into the homes of ordinary people from south to north, from wealthy families, and ordinary people have gradually regarded tea as a symbol of a better life!

Time flies, the years are long. Since entering the new era, the party and the government have focused on rural revitalization strategy and rural reform and development. In today's Chajiugou Village, under the leadership of the Party, the villagers emancipated their minds, combined with the regional and cultural characteristics of the village, attracted investment, fully tapped the cultural value of the village, developed the tourism industry according to the antique architectural characteristics and the beautiful landscape around the village, revived the history and allowed the cultural genes to continue to be passed down. Shops, supermarkets and hotels abound around the village, and the life of the villagers is naturally thriving. Tea is no longer just a dream and a symbol for them, but a real life. They not only drink southern green tea, scented tea and Tieguanyin, but also have a tea garden near Tonghua Village in Lincheng County, which produces famous Xiang Xing green tea and black tea. I think no matter how time passes, people's pursuit of a better life will never stop, and people's lives will get better every day! (Author: Hebei Provincial Department of Justice)