◎Jinling Xiaodai

　　This summer, lychee shells quickly came out of the circle, and major short video apps have successively launched tutorials on making incense with lychee shells, so "Lychee incense" has become a new product in the national trend.

　　In fact, making incense with lychee shells is not a "wonderful idea" of modern people, but an elegant life left by the ancients.

The leftover lychee shells have been reborn in the creativity of the ancients and become a fresh and fragrant fragrance.

Lu You once revealed a secret recipe in "Burning Incense": "From old friends in the mountains and forests, entertaining the elderly in the rest of the day. The clothes of danli, the brilliance of Zhuang Fanglan, the beauty of relocating autumn chrysanthemums, the truth of picking up ancient cypresses, the jade rabbits of accepting The mortar, and the honey of cypress." Among them, "Dan Li Zhi Yi" refers to the lychee shell, and the rest of the raw materials are also common plants in the mountains.

　　This formula of Lu You is elegant and simple, and the one who shares the same "incense making concept" as him is Queen Wen Cheng of Song Renzong, who is also the prototype character of Zhang Yuhan in the TV series "Qing Ping Le".

This woman, who was very favored during her lifetime, had a "scent in the pavilion", which was recorded in Su Shi's "Xiang Shuo": "The incense in the pavilion of Empress Wencheng is made of pine nut membrane, lychee skin, bitterly cultivated (neem) flowers and the like." Lychee Natural The fragrant aroma is in sharp contrast with the extravagant and expensive spices such as ambergris and dipterocarp commonly used in the palace, and has become a clear stream in the spices. This is obviously a differentiated competition!

I wonder if Song Renzong's care for this woman had any lychee credit?

　　However, the lychee fragrance of these two is a little bit niche, and the most famous one is "Hong Jufu Lychee Fragrance": "Lychee shell (no matter how many), musk skin (one carapace). The right is soaked in wine for two nights, and the wine is high school two. Refer to, cover. Steam it on the rice retort, and the wine is dry. For the end of the day, add the word musk to each or two, and make a cake with honey and agent, and burn it as usual." This recipe is very unrestrained, only Lychee shell and musk spice.

This fragrance is very pure, only the fragrance of lychee shell is taken, and musk is mainly used for fragrant, in order to increase the diffusing power of lychee shell fragrance.

The combination of lychee shell and musk was widely spread in Fujian and other regions where lychees were produced.

The ancients, like modern people, pay attention to the durability of fragrance.

　　Hong Ju's father who wrote this formula is Hong Chu, a master of incense making. He wrote the "Incense Pu", and Jufu is his word.

The incense maker had a famous uncle, Huang Tingjian.

Perhaps Hong Chu's obsession with making incense was influenced by his uncle, because Huang Tingjian was also obsessed with making incense, and he had his own way.

For example, after the lychee shell was in his hands, after making it into incense, it was no longer called "Lychee Fragrance", but was named "Wen Sixiang".

Such an artistic name actually has a lot of background. According to the "Splendid Valley of Ten Thousand Flowers" of the Xiaozong Dynasty in the Southern Song Dynasty: "The incense in the valley is called 'Wen Sixiang', which is based on the words of Guanyin in the Shurangama Sutra. The land', because of the fragrance of the name."

　　So, what's so special about Huang Tingjian's "Wen Sixiang" formula?

Chen Jing recorded in "Chen's Fragrance Spectrum": "Half liang of red sandalwood (soaked in honey water for three days, slow fire roasted), half liang of sweet pine (soaked in wine for one day, roasted on fire), one tael of orange peel (dried on day), One tael of neem flowers, one tael of juicing, one tael of purple lychee, and a little bit of borneol. The right is the end, refining the honey and the agent, and smelling it for the rest of the month." In this recipe of Huang Tingjian, a small litchi shell is set up. The threshold must be "purple lychee", that is, Chen Zi lychee produced in Putian.

It is said that the aroma of this variety of lychees is very elegant and fragrant. Cai Xiang, a calligrapher, once listed it as the best among lychees in the "Lychee Spectrum".

　　The unique aroma, coupled with the cultural value endowed by Huang Tingjian, soon "Wen Sixiang" was widely praised in the incense industry, so someone developed "Wen Sixiang 2.0", adding or reducing the formula in the original formula. spice ratio in .

For example, "thyme" in "Chen's Fragrance Spectrum" refers to the formula of "Wen Sixiang". The main fragrance in the recipe is still lychee shell, but the requirements for lychee shell are more stringent: "Thousands of Ratchi peels" (For those who use salt and plum from Fujian), Gansong and Zhanxiang each three or two, sandalwood (mixed with honey and stir-frying yellow), half two each of the chia incense, musk one money (do not grind). Right fine powder, refining honey It is thick enough to make it thick and thin, and it is filled with chinaware, which is buried for half a month and taken out. You can also add a little honey and twist it to make a cake. The red salt lychee, first infuse the fosang flower with salt plum to make red pulp, then put it into the lychee shell to pickle, and finally expose it to dryness to become the raw material for incense making.

This process is to add a touch of sweet and sour smell to the pickled lychee shell, making the smell of "thyme" richer.

　　Since the Song Dynasty had "thyme", then the Ming Dynasty said: We can't lose, let's have a "thyme"!

According to the "Duo Neng Ji Shi" compiled by Liu Ji in the Ming Dynasty, this "Chian Li Xiang" is slightly different from "Thyme". It does not need to be pickled, but it is necessary to add precious raw materials such as borneol and agarwood to make fragrant cakes for incineration.

　　The poet Qu Dajun in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties once wrote a long poem "Lychee Wine". In the poem, there is a cloud in the poem: "Flowers come first to brew the knowledge of immortals, and the shell is the fragrance of the inner house." Neifu also began to use lychee shells to make incense.

The most exaggerated is Gao Lian's "Mengjuan Miaogaoxiang", the incense prescription "Mengjuan Miaogaoxiang" recorded by Gao Lian in "Zunsheng Bajian". Although lychee shells are used as the raw material for the incense, the spices in the formula are very complicated. , there are as many as twenty-six flavors.

Later, Gao Lian, who is good at making incense, changed this and reduced it to twenty-four spices, saying that it can correspond to the twenty-four solar terms.

　　At this point, the ancients began to develop "lychee incense" to an extravagant level, which was farther and farther away from the original intention of retaining the aroma of lychees. This extravagant behavior is not worth emulating.

If we modern people want to use the leftover lychee shells to make incense, we might as well learn from Su Dongpo. Pear peels and sugarcane tartar are four raw materials that are often discarded but still have their fragrance.

Although this fragrance is not as thick and lingering as the precious spice of Shentanlong musk, it has the natural aroma of fruits and vegetables.

After all, the taste of the world is pure joy.