Dong Ethnic Minority: Oil Tea

As one favorable tea of Dong ethnic minority, oil tea is like a kind of dish which can allay one's hunger, expel the wind and humid air, stimulate the appetite and prevent one from catching cold. For a people living in mountain areas all years round, the oil tea is really a kind of beverage that helps to improve one's health.

The procedure of making the oil tea has four steps.

First, choose tea. There are two kinds of tea which can be used to make the oil tea, one is specially-baked tea dust, and the other is tender leaves and buds just picked from tea trees. Which one to choose depends on different drinkers' taste. Second, prepare other materials, including pignut, popcorn, soybean, sesame, polished glutinous rice, and dried bamboo shoot

Third, make tea.

If the tea is made for a cerebration or a banquet, then the fourth step is required, that is to prepare the tea. One needs to fry the prepared materials and put them into bowls, then filtrate tealeaves before pouring the brewed tea into those bowls when the tea is still hot.

When the oil tea is nearly ready, the host will invite guests to take their seat around the table. Since various foods are mixed in the tea, one needs to eat the oil tea with the assistance of chopsticks. To return the host's hospitality, guests always pay a high compliment to the host by making clicks of tongue when eating the delicious tea.

Because there are many materials to prepare when making the oil tea and the brewing procedure is complicated, so many people invite oil-tea experts to help them during important occasions.

Be careful with the phrase eat the oil tea, because it has a special meaning of man proposing to woman in Dong's tradition. When a matchmaker visits a girl's family and says to her parents, someone has asked me to get a bowl of oil tea, if the parents agree to let her get one, it means that the girl's family accepts the marriage.