There's a modern Chinese idiom about "being invited out to tea" by Public Security. As a general rule, it means you've done something wrong and this is your final warning before you face serious consequences. Not always though. Being invited to tea is also the euphemism used when high profile figures briefly disappear from the public eye as they are put on house arrest before emerging a month later with an apology about something like tax evasion or a promise to contribute more to charitable causes.

I have been invited out to tea by Public Security.

Since they have steadfastly, over a period of years, refused to tell me why they are inviting me for a friendly little interrogation session (and make no mistake, it is an interrogation wrapped up in fancy clothing), I have been ramping up the level at which I clearly indicate that I view them as little more than a nuisance. 

Today, however, when I was invited out to tea, it wasn't a nuisance. It was a genuine invitation to come by the police station and say "hi". Also, I am saddened to say, that unlike the last time I was successfully¹ invited to tea by Public Security not only were there no adorable little dimsum cakes shaped like swans, there wasn't even any tea.
Hot water only. And in a disposable paper cup!

But I got the opportunity to directly tell the officers present that I really appreciated the ten or fifteen minutes of their time that they gave in helping me get to town three years ago, and that they had given me an exceptionally positive impression so far unmatched by any other police station that I have had the fortune (or misfortune) of dealing with in China. And, when an old man showed up with his grandson to apply for the boy's first ID card, I got to give that kid a Very Special Gift (one of my drilled pennies) in a way that will make this day even more memorable for him.

Even with my having already spent an hour mending a flat tire this morning, the distance between Longlin and Daqiao is negligible (and will be made faster by my picking the smaller and more recently paved of the riverbank roads), so none of my riding time is wasted in the slightest by doing this.

All told, today is an excellent day. It is not an excellent day for the scenery (which is stunning), the terrain (which is fairly easy), or the road quality (which is mostly good). Instead, it is an excellent day for the people. 

It is an excellent day for the person who shoves a 20y note into my hand as I walk into the restaurant where I eat a lackluster 20y lunch.

It is an excellent day for the man who realized from the comments section on a recent video where I would be, and who was waiting for me at an intersection with a bag full of cold drinks.

It was an excellent day for the hour I spent on the phone with my friend Sarah who I haven't spoken to in weeks.

It is an excellent day for the man in Daqiao who pays for my dinner in return for taking a photo with me and who asks me, in all curiosity, if I heard about his town not from one of the Chinese cyclists that pass this way occasionally but the American who it is said spent the night here three years ago².

It is an excellent day because the cops in Daqiao not only remember me but, without prompting, already remember my Chinese name.

And if the ice cream cones one of them brought back to the office weren't as nice as the walnuts they fed me the last time they puzzled their way through the registration system, it was an awesome gesture that they probably thought of greater value than some boring locally produced farm good.

It will probably be another three years, but I think I shall have to come to this part of China again.

¹ I've been unsuccessfully invited to tea as recently as six months ago. 

² Three guesses and the first two don't count as to who that American was