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Liquor and Tea
For most men in Yunnan dinner is incomplete without jiu-the Chinese word for distilled spirits. If not one of the fiery liquors or medicinal wines, then beer (pijiu) will do. But some kind of alcohol is essential. It aids digestion, too. And when meals are taken in groups liquor is even more in demand, for its value as a social instrument, stimulating the spirit of conviviality which prevails at the event.
When the first round is poured the men raise their cups in a toast and take the first sip. Occasionally the meal may begin with a ganbei toast, which requires everyone to quaff the entire contents of the cup. In any case, while refills are immediate and even though people may take only sips at a time, once the meal has started one of the diners periodically takes the bottle and tops up the cups until all the liquor has been poured. In some places it's the custom to toast each time one wants to have a swallow.
Several breweries operate in different parts of the province. Their brands each dominate the beer market in their own and neighbouring prefectures. Dali Beer has probably the best distribution in the western and central prefectures, with Lancangjiang Beer in second place. Others are more restricted, like Longjing in the south, Yulong in the northwest, etc. The only beers which are available in practically every county seat are national brands-Qingdao and Budweiser. Imported beers like Calsberg, Amstel, Heineken, Beck's and Corona are available in Kunming, but rarely beyond. Some restaurants do not keep their beer in their refrigerators and serve it at room temperature. But customers can request the staff put a bottle or two in the freezer compartment to chill it somewhat while the food is being prepared.
The range of hard liquor at any given restaurant is greater. Among the commercial spirits, the most popular are those distilled from maize. In the northwest the ones made from barley and from buckwheat outsell the maize liquor. Strong wines are made from plums and can be as potent as the liquors. Home-made and medicinal liquors are among the beverage selections in the restaurants. Usually these are in big glass jugs, like the fruit wines, with various ingredients supposed to be of health-enhancing values. These may be chips of wood, shavings of animal bones, entire snakes, etc.
Certain medicinal jiu is peculiar to a given area because the ingredients are only found in that area. The Mosuo of Lugu Lake and Yongning celebrate Duanwujie on the fifth day of the fifth month. The main festival activity is to gather herbs from the forests of Lion Mountain. Back home they make and consume a broth from a portion of the herbs and insert the remainder into jugs of jiu.
The Mosuo are also famous for their sulima-barley beer-which they frequently serve at meals, especially if they have guests. Though it tastes a bit different from the rice beer produced by the Wa and the Jingpo, it is made the same way. First the brewer steams the rice or barley, spreads the cooked grain out on a table, sprinkles some yeast on it, then puts the grain into a large jar, sprinkles a cup or two of water to moisten it and covers the jar, perhaps even wraps blankets around it. After three days, four or five in cold weather, the fermented grain smells like beer. The brewer adds water, the amount varying according to the amount of grain, and lets it sit overnight. The next day the beer is strained from the mash and ready to serve. Almost as strong as the weaker commercial beers, it has a slight sweetness in the taste, not from sugar but from the dextrose released by the fermentation process.
If the goal is spirits then the fermentation goes on several more days until the original grain has turned into liquid. Then the mash is boiled and distilled. Tibetans in Diqing do not make beer from their barley mash but instead distill it all. Every household consigns a portion of the annual barley harvest to the production of qingkejiu-barley liquor. The Naxi of Lijiang use barley in conjunction with sorghum, wheat, yeast and spring water to make a deep amber, sherry-like wine called yinjiu. Unique to Lijiang the wine is often sold in special brown or white ceramic jars.
Most of those who drink alcoholic beverages only do so at meals. But karaoke bars have opened in even the remote towns, so the venues for social drinking have increased. Yunnanese hold their liquor well, though, so the sight of a drunkard staggering around bothering everyone he comes into contact with is extremely rare. Nor does liquor provoke aggression or lead to fights. Yunnanese can get quite intoxicated at times, but maintain control of themselves. The northern Yi are heavy drinkers, but are more likely to wax poetic in their conversations the more liquor they imbibe.
While not everybody drinks alcohol in Yunnan, everyone drinks tea. It is the first beverage poured out in a restaurant, served even before the diner has made an order, and the refreshment immediately offered a guest by a host. Tea contains several natural chemicals with anti-inflammatory and germicidal properties and others which stimulate the nervous system and aid the process of metabolism. Thus drinking tea promotes the digestion of meat and fat, two elements common to the diet of just about everyone in the province, and helps discharge nicotine out of the system for smokers. Taken regularly in doses of moderate strength, tea acts like a medicine to maintain physical health. Plus it has a pleasant flavour.
Yunnan's annual tea output is the sixth largest in China. The gardens lie mainly in the southern hills, with large parts of Xishuangbanna, Simao and Honghe given over to tea cultivation. Menghai County is recorded as the oldest tea-producing place in China. The "King of Tea Trees," estimated at over 800 years old, stands at Nannuoshan, in the centre of the prefecture, while another tea tree in Bada township, 1700 years old, is dubbed the "King of Wild Tea Trees."
Varieties include green, black and compressed tea. The black tea is actually called red tea in Chinese (hongcha), while the compressed tea is black tea compressed and hardened into bricks, and so also known as brick tea. This is the easiest to transport and that favoured by people in rural and remote areas. Dianhong black tea and Pu'er tea are the most famous types.
Pu'er tea originated in Pu'er County and grows all the way to the Myanmar and Laos borders. It has a long trade history. It was exported to Tibet via Dali and Lijiang and then up the Tea and Horses Road (Chamagudao) through Diqing Prefecture to Tibet, carried in compressed bricks in caravans organised by Muslims and Tibetans. The latter exchanged horses for the tea and a few Tibetans converted to Islam. Today a small mosque stands in Deqing county, used not by Hui but by Muslim descendants of Ming and Qing Dynasty Tibetan tea traders. Tibetans today in Deqing still prefer the traditional brick tea, adding yak butter to the brew to make the buttered tea that is the staple beverage of the Tibetan Plateau.
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