The waiter began serving the dishes. Most of them were tea snacks commonly found in the south.
Once all the dishes had been served, Zuo Ren came over and greeted the other two. "Come, let's eat while we talk."
As he spoke, he brewed the tea.
He used the Gongfu Tea brewing method from the Chaozhou region.
This tea ceremony had spread throughout the world with the footsteps of the Chaozhou people and had become renowned far and wide. It could be said that wherever there were Chaozhou people, there was Gongfu Tea.
Five Rams Underground City was no exception. The tea culture there also centered on Gongfu Tea.
Zuo Ren skillfully warmed the teapot, rinsed the cups, added the tea leaves, and poured in hot water from a height.
Then he scraped away the white foam from the surface with the lid. Finally, he picked up the teapot and poured the tea into the cups from a high position.
He then held the cups out with both hands, delivering them to Old Ma and Liu Ying.
The two lightly tapped the tabletop with their curled fingers. In Gongfu Tea culture, this was a way of thanking the person serving the tea.
The two then picked up their cups, first smelling the aroma, then taking a sip, and only finally drinking slowly. The fragrance lingered in their mouths.
Old Ma set down his cup and, without any ceremony, picked up a pair of chopsticks. He reached into a nearby steamer and picked out a boneless chicken claw.
A Cantonese tea snack, this dish involved cleverly removing the bones from chicken feet, deep-frying them until the surface turned golden, and soaking them in cold water to create a tiger-skin texture. They were then stir-fried and marinated before being steamed over high