There is a Baiyun Villa in Yangming Mountain, off Yangde Avenue, which I often go to in the afternoons. White Cloud Villa has homemade orchid tea, which has a strong aroma and sweet taste. Order a cup of orchid tea and look down from the large floor-to-ceiling glass windows on the crowded city, and you will feel like flying with the hawks that often come to the area in the afternoon.
The orchid tea at White Cloud Villa is good because it produces good orchids. Therefore, whenever I go up to the mountains for orchid tea, I always drop by the orchid garden and bring home a few pots of orchids.
Because of their noble and beautiful qualities, orchids give people an impression of “nobility”, and people often mistake orchids as very expensive, but this is not the case. A pot of orchids costs only about the price of a bunch of roses, and roses only last for three or four days, but orchids can be kept on the desk for a whole season, and after they fade, they will bloom again the next year.
In this way, orchids are the most beautiful and cheapest flowers, much cheaper than any cut flowers in the flower market.
The best thing about orchids and orchid tea in White Cloud Villa is the orchid seller.
The owner of the orchid garden is a woman in her middle age, and she is the kind of person who is so kind and happy that even from fifty meters away, she smiles brightly and without pretense.
Perhaps because she has been caring for orchids for a long time, she is like a graceful fragrant water orchid, whose fragrance fills the cold air even in winter.
“I like orchids with fragrance,” I said. ” I said.
“An unscented orchid is just a little more beautiful than a scented one, and you can’t have it both ways,” she said. ” she said, “Scented orchids can be put in the bedroom, and the bedroom needs scent. The unscented ones go in the living room, which needs a sense of style. “
“Why is this potted orchid called Miss Taipei? “I asked.
“Call it anything you like, Miss Beautiful is just as beautiful in Taipei, Tokyo, and Paris. The beautiful orchid can be called by any name. “
When I was in the most chaotic mood, when the outside world was talking the most, hearing this kind of dialogue always made my heart blue and the moon bright, the outside world may give us many names and many descriptions, or there are people in this world who do not like orchids or slander orchids.
One evening, I went up to the mountains with my pregnant wife to drink orchid tea. That was the day when all the newspapers and TV in Taiwan made headlines about our wedding.
After drinking tea, we went to walk around the orchid garden as usual, and the owner of the garden still welcomed us with a big smile and said, “Thank you for your hard work. “
She introduced us to several new orchids with fragrant flowers, she said, while I carefully sniffed the air, but I couldn’t smell anything.
“It’s as if I can’t smell anything,” I said. ” I said, “I can’t seem to smell anything,” she said, smiling.
She laughed and said, “When your mind is calm, you can smell the fragrance. The fragrance of orchids is not something you can smell with your nose. “
I withdrew my nose and absorbed my mind, and the fragrance in the air seemed to wake up immediately. It turned out that although the fragrance of orchids was floating in the air, the name of the match that lit the fragrance was called “Meditation”.
When the mind is calm, it smells the fragrance. We were carrying a pot of Miss Taipei, a pot of When I was going down the mountain, I savored the phrase “fragrant water with orchids in the heart of the sea” and took heart, feeling the carriage being filled with the aroma, even spilling out the window and flowing into the mountains.
I mentioned to my wife that when I was very young, I used to go with my father deep into the mountains to collect wild orchids, and he had warned me seriously that the most important thing to watch out for when looking for orchids in the hollow valley was the Hundred-Pacer.
“What does an orchid have to do with the Hundred-Pacer Snake? “I asked my father.
My father said that wild orchids and snakes grow at the same altitude, latitude, temperature and humidity, so it is said that the deepest mountains, where orchids grow most beautifully, are also where snakes are most abundant. Many unsuspecting orchid hunters have perished in the venom of the Hundred-Pacer.
“So, when you find the most beautiful orchid, look under your feet first! “Father said.
The imagery of the wild orchid and the hundred-paced snake is deeply imprinted on my mind, not only as a true admonition of life in the mountains, but also as words of wisdom for practical life, the best of life! Things are like wild orchids in the mountains, often blooming in the valleys where the snakes are watching. However, no orchid picker will ever lose the persistence and courage to look for orchids because of the Hundred-Pacer.
Therefore, courage and perseverance are not to be drifted along with the flow. When the heart is calm, you can smell the fragrance.
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