This tea gathering is extremely unusual, for nominally the host family should invite all the local women to drink, but actually it has become a convention to drink tea at each family's home and the hostess needn't offer any invitation. Having had breakfast on that very day, all women in the village together with their kids go to the host family, carrying their big tea bowls. Once there, they place the bowls on the square table. The bowls are fastened with silk thread or cloth strips in various colors, floating with wind, which not only symbolize spring blossoms but also mark their respective tea bowls. At each one's turn to host the tea gathering, the hostess gets up very early to boil several pots of water, and prepare "seasoning materials for tea" while waiting. When most of the local women arrive, the hostess puts some self-made top "family tea", a four-to-five-inch-long bamboo "seasoning stick" in their tea bowls, and brews together with such "seasoning materials for tea" as self-made ice ginger, fried soybeans,fried sesame seeds and Chinese honey orange peel. Every hostess will be especially generous when it is her turn, and she will take out as many "seasoning materials fortea" as possible, introducing the process of making them and boasting the tasty flavors as if they are competing with each other, for the variety of materials she puts in the tea bowls signifies her wealth and capability, along with her generosity and sincerity, which will be praised by tea guests on the spot. Then every tea guest will immediately find her own bowl to have a taste.
The flavor of this kind of tea is very unique, tasting not only sweet and fragrant but also a little salty. Some experienced tea drinkers are extremely skilled at tea drinking, and can drink 7 to 8 bowls of tea within an hour
