22. 油茶 (yóu chá)
I’ll probably lose my honorary citizenship if I miss out this culturally important part of the local cuisine. In 2008, 油茶 (yóu chá) or oil tea was listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Guangxi. All of the ethnic minorities claim it as their own and the Han majority are known to sometimes indulge. Depending on where you find yourself, you may hear it referred to as Dong Oil Tea; elsewhere Miao Oil Tea or Yao Oil Tea. Yao oil tea made headlines in 2019 when it set a Guinness World Record with 2,019 people making oil tea simultaneously.
Oil Tea Ingredients
The tourist trap city of Guilin even falsely claims it as its own. It isn’t exclusive to Guangxi either. Cross into Hunan and the Miao and Tujia there also claim it. Same in Guizhou. I’ve never heard of the Zhuang claiming it, but they certainly use it. All these groups’ oil tea is basically the same and they all agree on the name 油茶 (yóu chá) when using Chinese.
Oil Tea Awaiting the Tea!
I have written about this before, so some of you may have read parts of this on other topics. Sorry.
Despite the unappealing name, I’ve grown to look forward to oil tea and its culture. It is essential for these ethnic minorities to welcome guests with the dish. I say dish because it ain’t a cup of tea. Instead it is more like a soup. And it isn’t oily.
Oil Tea
Camellia tree seeds are pressed to make tea seed oil, which is used both as a cooking oil and as the basis for the oil tea. This oil is used to fry regular tea leaves, green or black according to preference. I find black tea (which the Chinese call ‘red tea’) is the more common. The fried tea leaves are then used to make tea in the usual manner, by adding hot water and leaving it to steep. When the tea is suitably done, the leaves are scooped out using a bamboo scoop (see below).
Green onions, ginger, garlic and salt are usually added but not so much by the Miao. Sometimes, pork offal is cooked in the tea, then discarded.
Cooked glutinous rice is dried in the sun then fried in the same tea seed oil which causes it to puff up in a similar manner to popcorn. Peanuts and soybeans are also stir-fried. It is then served as shown above. It is considered polite to partake of a minimum of two bowls of the tea. Your host will keep replenishing your bowl until you make it clear you are definitely done. The tea tastes a little bitter on first tasting, but then the rice and peanuts etc kick in and mellow it out.
Oil Tea Scoop
It certainly keeps social life flowing among these minority people.
Preparing Oil Tea in a Restaurant