Chapter 97 Apocynum tea

When I travel to Dunhuang, I will go to Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Moon Spring. When I went to Dunhuang, I drank a kind of elixir tea - apocynum tea, which was very impressive. Mingsha Mountain Crescent Spring is five kilometers south of Dunhuang City. It starts from the top of the Mogao Grottoes in the east and connects to the Danghe Reservoir in the west. Like an orchestra.Surrounded by Mingsha Mountain, Crescent Spring resembles a crescent moon. The spring water is clear and bright, and it will not dry up for a thousand years. There are three treasures in Crescent Lake, iron-backed fish, five-color sand, and seven-star grass. I have seen them all.The sand of Mingsha Mountain is red, yellow, green, white and black, and it is very beautiful in glass bottles. Many tourists will take a bottle home.It is said that if you eat iron back fish and seven star grass together, you can live forever, but I don't believe it. Iron back fish is a fish from Crescent Spring, and seven star grass is the apocynum tea I drank.

On the south bank of Crescent Moon Spring, there is a unique small red flower called Luobu Kenaf, which blooms from June to August every year, like stars in the night, this is Seven Star Grass.Nanhu Lake on the eastern edge of Lop Nur, 76 kilometers southwest of Dunhuang, is rich in wild hemp. People in Nanhu Lake are called Wanwanhua. They drink apocynum tea and eat grapes to prevent colds.As the saying goes in Dunhuang: Everyone loves Apocynum tea, if you want to sleep well, please drink jujube soaked in wild hemp. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian was sent as an envoy to thirty-six countries in the Western Regions. In addition to opening up the traffic in the Western Regions, he also had a special task: to search for the elixir of longevity in the Western Regions.Zhang Qian lived up to the entrustment and went to the ancient country of Loulan, that is, Lop Nur. The King of Loulan presented a special tribute to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty-the longevity pill developed with apocynum.Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty lived to be 71 years old after taking the longevity medicine. He was the first emperor in the history of our country to be over 70 years old.In the ancient Lop Nur area, the oldest aborigines are called Luobu people, who live by water, wear apocynum clothes, drink apocynum tea, eat apocynum powder, and smoke apocynum cigarettes, and they live a long life.Now the centenarians in Lop Nur account for a quarter of the country, and the international natural medicine community has identified it as the fourth longevity area in the world.Lop Nur people do not eat fruits and vegetables, do not eat salty salt, lack of medical treatment, but rarely get sick, and are very healthy. They benefit from the god of the desert, apocynum tea.They drink apocynum tea all the year round, which can regulate blood pressure, delay aging and prolong life.

Apocynum is mainly natural and wild in Dunhuang, also known as wild hemp, tea flower, bowl bowl flower, the Aksay Kazak people around Dunhuang are called Tala Teer, the Subei Mongolian people are called Saier Rioers, Xinjiang Uyghurs The family name is Harakigan.Apocynum mainly grows along the Tarim River, Kongque River, and Shule River within the Lop Nur area, and is also distributed in other areas in the north. The Apocynum apocynum in the Lop Nur area is the best, with high active ingredients.Dunhuang Apocynum is divided into kenaf and white hemp. Kenaf has higher content of quercetin, rutin, and triterpenes than white hemp, and is rare and precious. It is the best in hemp.

Dunhuang Apocynum tea uses high-quality young leaves of wild Apocynum as raw material, removes withered yellow, insect eyes, rusty leaves, thick stems and other impurities, washes in cold water, reduces alkaline components, spreads the sun, distributes water, leaves stick to each other, and uses a flat bottom Heat the sand in a pot to 180-200°C, put in the young leaves, turn them with two wooden forks, quickly and sensitively, shake them constantly, the greening is even, not burnt, the leaf veins are soft and continuous, put them in a bamboo basket to dry for a while, and knead them into Rope-shaped, fixed and shaped, put it in a pot and then stir-fry at a temperature of about 120-140°C until the color changes from light to black-green, then put it in an oven at 80-90°C to dry, and then it is fried green apocynum tea.

Apocynum tea has been dried, roasted, prepared, and sprayed to maintain its medicinal properties. It has the characteristics of drinking tea, curing diseases, and prolonging life. It is also a weakly alkaline tea.Apocynum tea does not contain caffeine, has no bitter taste of tea leaves, has a light taste, and has a slight peculiar smell. "Three Kingdoms Hua Tuo Biography" contains: Apocynum is a prescription handed down from ancient times by the genius doctor Hua Tuo to treat vertigo and prolong life. , " book on Chinese herbal medicine for saving famines " carries: apocynum has flat palpitation, only dizziness, the function of reducing phlegm and relieving cough, strong heart and diuresis.The local people weave the apocynum fiber into clothes and wear it to treat dizziness and colds.

Apocynum can also be made into other teas, Apocynum hops tea can be made with Apocynum tea and hops; Apocynum leaves are added with 4% caffeine to make Apocynum coffee tea; Apocynum tea and Zhenmei green tea are made at a ratio of two to one Apocynum tea; Apocynum tea and jasmine tea are mixed at a ratio of ten to seven to make tufted apocynum tea; apocynum tea is added with cocoa powder and sucrose powder to make fortified apocynum tea.High-quality apocynum tea has a scent of hay, which makes the mind clear after a long smell, and slightly salty in the mouth; low-quality apocynum tea has a pungent smell of hay, which makes the head dizzy after a long smell, and astringent and bitter in the mouth.Just after brewing, the color of the tea is a little yellowish green. The color of high-quality tea will soon turn golden yellow, while the color of poor-quality tea will remain unchanged.Apocynum tea is divided into whole leaf tea and tea in bag.

Apocynum tea has the functions of clearing heat and lowering blood pressure, calming the liver and calming the nerves, relieving asthma and relieving cough, eliminating phlegm, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-aging, suitable for high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia, neurasthenia, palpitation and insomnia, liver yang dizziness, nephritis edema, People with edema and oliguria. During the two months I lived in Dunhuang, I got used to drinking apocynum tea, and every day I ran around the desert with a cup of tea, looking for cultural relics.