Tea CultureTea Development of Different Dynasties in China
來源：Huangshan Tianzhuang Industry Co., Ltd 發布時間：2020-12-01 點擊數：1546
The Discovery and Use of Tea
Tea trees originated in China land and this “middle Kingdom” was the first to utilize leaves of such tree.
The book on herbal medicine Shennong Materia Medica states: “shennong came across seventy-two toxicated herbs dialy in tasting hundreds of herbs but was antidotted by taking tea.” As a sage representing wisdom of Chinese people in the early Zhou Dynasty (c.1100 B.C.). Tea as was put down in words were found in China in an era more than three thousand years ago.
The first record of tea is found in Er Ya; on trees, reputedly written by Duke Jidan of Zhou Empire, with the definition; “Cha; a bitter herb.” There were several different writings for the herb in question but they all mean the same; Tea. Records of State Huayang (now Sichuan) written circa 350 A.D., has this record:“When Zhou's king Wu attacked the troops of last emperor of Shang Dynasty, he actually got soldiers mobilized from State Shu and with them --- red lacquer,tea and beehoney were brought as tribute to King Wu.” The war took place in 1066 B.C., tea was then already a commodity for tribute.
In Wang Bao's book Working Rules for Servants, one sees the words “use all utensils in serving tea”, “go to Wuyang to buy tea”, which show the fact that tea was used as beverage and was commercialized.
Buddhism began to develop during the big political turmoil after fall of Jin Dynasty (c. 420). Buddhists advocate peaceful sitting. To awake sleepy mood they took tea. Since the royal family favored sitting and tea drinking,, tea became a favorite into society and tendency was to live in the Buddhism fashion which showed self-styled top hat.
In Tang and Song dynasties (618-1260) tea drinking was popularized. A Tang book book Sketches by Fong says: “ in the years Kaiyuan (713-741), shops selling boiling-water-infused tea were every-where in provinces and up to the capital. Pedestrians, either ecclesiastic or secular may throw coins on the table and get one cup of tea to drink.” A seven-word code for daily urgency runs like this: “Seven matters face you on opening the gate; fagots, rice, iol, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea.” Tea is regarded as one of the top urgent matters in home live. Vang Anshi (1021-1086), the famous political reformer and literates of Song Dynasty, once said: “Tea is as indispensable in daily life as rice and salt.”
Lu Yu and his tea Classic
The Tang dynasty saw the first comprehensive treatise on tea and its varieties, though shorter works had appeared earlier. This was The Book of Tea(Cha Jing)now known as The Classic of Tea by the man of letters Lu Yu(733-804). Little is known about his antecedents except that he was a native of Hunan province. Apparently abandoned on a riverbank when he was very small, he was found and adopted by the famed Buddhist monk, Ji Ji, of the Dragon Cloud Buddhist monastery. Ji gave the boy the name Lu Yu, obtained from the Taoist classic The Book of Changes(I China).
Lu did not want to become a monk so was put to tending a herd of buffalo. What is probably a Confucian retelling of his story has him so avid for study that he practiced writing his characters while sitting astride a buffalo. If you see a figurine or painting of such a one, it is probably him.
Later he became a clown with a group of traveling performers and endeared himself to the company for his cutting and editing of play texts. After years of wandering he settled in Zhejiang province, Lu's interest in tea dated back to those early years when he had to brew it for his foster father. The drinking had become widespread and Lu began to investigate the process and its history. The tea growers wanted a systematic codification of tea information. He began work in 760 and the book was published in 780.
The chapter headings are:
1. Origin, Characteristics. Names, and Qualities of Tea.
2. Tools for Plucking and Processing Tea.
3. Varieties, Plucking and processing Methods.
4. Utensils for Making and Drinking Tea.
5. Methods of Making Tea and the Water of Various Places.
6. Habits of Tea Drinking.
7. Stories, Plantations and Tea as a Medicine.
8. Which Kinds of Tea Are Better in Different Locations.
9. Utensils Which May Be Omitted.
10. How to Copy This Book on Silk Scrolls.
The book made Lu a celebrity. He spent the last decades of his long life in semi-seclusion polishing others of his total of ten books, all now lost. Lu Yu's work played a great role in giving tea cultural significance, Francis Ross Carpenter points out in the preface to his translation of The Classic of Tea. Before Lu Yu, tea was a rather ordinary drink, says an early preface to the classic, and "he taught us to manufacture tea, to lay out the equipage and to brew it properly."
After Lu became known as the patron saint of tea, tales about him proliferated. The water used for tea is crucial and Lu was skilled at distinguishing its kinds. He later write a book on twenty sokurces for fine water, the best of which was held to come from, midstream on the Yangtze at Nanling. Water from near the bank was often brackish. During a trip on the river his host gave Lu water from that spot to taste. Lu sipped and said the water was from neat the bank. The servant who had drawn it swore it was from the favored place. Lu took another sip and conceded that perhaps it was, but some other water was mixed in. Then the man admitted that when his boat rocked, some of the water in the jar had spilled out and he had added a bit from near the bank.
In another tale, the emperor refused to believe the story that when Lu left home his foster father gave up tea because no one could make it so well. The emperor invited the old abbot to the palace for a cup of tea made by his most skilled court lady. The monk was not impressed. But, when served a cup of another brew, he declared that even his son could not do better. What the abbot did not know is that the second cup had been made by Lu himself, summoned to the palace to make tea for an "unknown guest."
Contests testing their acuity at tasting were a popular pastime among officials in both the Tang and subsequent Song dynasties. Participants would nominate a judge, and each in turn prepared a tea of his choice for the others to identify. Greatest taster of them all was probably CaiXiang, born in 1012. Many tales are told about this native of Fujian province who served as its tea commissioner and later governor, including his role in building a bridge at the town of Chuanzhou. He was able, one story says, to tell when even a tiny bit of a cheaper tea had been added to make a cup of the expensive Small Rounds (two ounces of gold for a little over a pound). His Tea Record (Cha Lu),a report to the emperor, is another renowned tea book.
The tea Culture in Han Dynasty
In the Han Dynasty, tea drinking was very popular in Bashu district and tea began to be a commodity in commercial circulation. Wang Bao, a Sichuan celebrity of the West Han Dynasty wrote in his document " The contract with servant" about "brewing tea and preparing tea utensils" as well as "buying tea from Wuyang Town". "The contract with servant" was then a document for selling servants and has now become an important historical document about tea.
Tea was spreaded along the Yangtze River and found roots in the lower reaches areas of theYangtze River. The focal point of tea civilization then began to be transferred. The ancient record "Dialects" reads that people of the Han Dynasty went to Yangxian (now in Jiangsu ) to buy tea. Teas which were buried with the dead were unearthed from the tombs of the Han Dynasty in Hubei, Jiangling and Mawangdui of Hunan Changsha. An intact celadon jar unearthed from a tomb of the late East Han Dynasty in tea town Huzhou was identified to be tea container used in the Han Dynasty because a character "cha" was engraved on the shoulder of the celadon jar. Huzhou is now located in the Taihu lakeside of lower reaches of Yangtze River, where the "Yangxian tea" was produced in ancient times.
It was recorded in the ancient book "Guang Ya" that the plucked tender tea leaves were directly made into cake shaped tea and the old tea leaves were mixed with rice gruel and then compressed into cake tea. Before cooked and drunk, the cake tea was baked to be deep brown in color and ground into powder. Then the tea powder was cooked with shallot, ginger and tangerine peel; a thick soup cooking method.
Although the people's understanding of tea remained primitive, there was a tea manufacturing method at that time. The methods of cake tea processing and drinking were followed until the Tang and Song periods. The only change was that the processing was more careful and the drinking more meticulous.
According to historical records, there were a lot of tea scholars who were celebrities in ancient times, such as Yang Xiong and Sima Xiangru of the Han Dynasty.
In the West Jin and South-North dynasties, people used tea to keep honest against luxurious practices. In the most famous story, Lu Ne served tea to his guests.
Around the South Dynasty in the fifth century, Xiao Ji, the Emperor Qi Wudi(479-502), stipulated in his will that he did not want posthumous offerings of cattle; only cakes, fruit, tea, rice and wine. The stories that tea was used as posthumous offerings could traced back to as early as the Zhou Dynasty. It can be seen from this that the spiritual values of tea were understood by the people at the early stages of civilization.
Tea Drinking Methods Beginning to Take Shape in the Tang Dynasty
From south west China along the Yangtze River, tea entered the Tang Dynasty when Lu Yu lived, during which time it went through barbaric, prosperous and declining stages over thousands of years.
The Tang Dynasty was in the middle stages of the long feudal society, where national power was the most strong, the economy the most developed and the culture the most flourishing. As a great power in that world, the Tang Dynasty had a developed network of communication and its political and cultural influence was far beyond its territory.
Historical literature reads that tea became popular in the Tang Dynasty and was in vogue in the Song Dynasty. It took about 600 years from the Sui Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty; the most flourishing period of tea culture. Tea production was greatly promoted because of the development of the feudal economy and the increase in social productivity. Tea as a major commodity entered in the daily life of common people. A lot of famous teas and tribute teas appeared then. It was in this period that there appeared the character "茶" for tea, books on tea, dealing in tea and taxes on tea. Tea drinking customs and techniques began to take shape in the Tang Dynasty and they had great influence on the later ages. The publication of the "Tea Classic" written by Lu Yu had an epoch-making significance on the development of Chinese tea culture.
Upsurge in Tea of the Tang Dynasty
During the Tang Dynasty, tea drinking customs spread quickly in the north of China on the basis of development in south China. The flourishing and influences of Buddhism were important factors in promoting tea drinking customs to spread from the South to the North of China. This was fully reflected in the "What Feng heard and saw" written by Feng Yan of Tang Dynasty. During the Kaiyuan period of Tang, a devil subduing master from Lingyan Temple of Taishan Mountain subscribed to Chan (Buddhism) in a big way. Those who studied Chan or sat in meditation were required neither to sleep nor to eat food at night, but all of them could drink tea. So tea brewing and drinking could be seen every where. It gradually became a custom in the Buddhist circle because of each other's following.
Another important factor for the flourishing of tea affairs was the appearance of tribute teas for imperial court use. Tea drinking was popular in the imperial court of the Tang period and there were many forms of tea ceremonies and tea parties. The imperial court attached great importance to tea production. In the Dali fifth year of Tang (A.D. 770), Emperor Tang Daizong had Guanpei (Governmental baking) established on Guzhushan Mountain in Changxing of Zhejiang (a special production base for plucking and processing tea for imperial court use) and he instructed governors of Huzhou and Changzhou states to supervise the processing of tribute teas and to be in charge of transporting the Zisun tea, Yangxian tea and Jinsha spring water to the court. There was a saying that various herbals had no courage to bloom before the emperor could taste the Yangxian tea. Once the new tea was plucked and processed, it should be transported around the clock to the capital city Chang'an for hosting a "Qingming Banquet". It was reflected by poem of Li Ying of the Tang period that “walk four thousand li, be sure to catch the Qingming Banquet.”
Tea Affairs of the Tang's People
The cake tea processing method was the major tea manufacturing method in the Tang Dynasty. The tea soup cooking with dressings was changed into pure tea brewing because of Lu Yu's advocation after the middle Tang. The plucked tea leaf was steamed in a steamer, ground in a mortar, compressed into cake, dried and strung with rind of reed or bamboo. The cake tea was ground into powder, shifted and cooked in a caldron before drinking.
Painting of Lanting Pictrue Obtained by Xiao Yi drawn by Yan Liben was a precious reference about tea cooking by people of the Tang Dynasty, were a typical scene of tea cooking by people of the Tang Dynasty is shown.
A series of tea sets used by the imperial family were unearthed in the underground palace of Famen Temple pagoda in Fufeng of Shaanxi in May 1985. It confirmed the existence of Lu Yu's tea ceremony.
"30% for thirst quenching and 70% for tasting". The greater contribution of Tang's tea men whom Lu Yu represented was that they advocated technical skills of tea tasting and accomplished the transformation from the rough thirst-quenching drinking to artistic, fine tasting so that tea tasting became a sophisticated and cultural activity.
In his Tea Classic, Lu Yu advocated a tea theory, from emphasis on cooking to emphasis on tasting , including the utensils and the complete procedure he wanted a tea drinker to have a realm of calm, to concentrate attention on the tea, to make the tea tasting activity become a medium of cultivating one's behavior and moral character as well as molding one's temperament. It created a precedent for Chinese tea ceremony and set a model for the development of tea culture in later ages.
Prosperous Song Dynasty Tea
The Song Dynasty was historically an important period during which tea culture was highly developed.
The major characteristics of the Song's tea included exquisite workmanship of tribute tea- dragon-phoenix ball tea, elegant tea competition skills and tea serving arts.
Tea drinking method of the Song Dynasty was transformed into infusing method from cooking method used by the Tang people. The so-called tea infusing was that ground tea powder was put into a tea bowl, stirred with implements while boiling
The greatest development and contribution of Song people to tea culture was reflected in the harmony with tea and related arts, it carried tea tasting toward the perfection of scholar tea.
Scholar tea tasting was very popular in the Song Dynasty.
The first-rate scholars such as Wang Yucheng, Cai Xiang, Fan Zhongyan, Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, Mei Raochen, Su Shi, Su Che, Huang Tingjian, Lu You were all involved in the tea tasting.
Su Dongpo's poem reads: "a fine tea had always been mentioned in the same breath with beautiful women". It was a mature symbol of Chinese tea culture. The tea tasting procedure was developed from daily tea drinking.
The purpose of tea tasting of scholars, monks and priests of the past dynasties was mainly for intellectual enjoyment. So they wrote a lot of poems and prose about tea tasting and they advocated tea banquets, tea ceremonies and tea parties. For them, tea was a precious and noble drink and tea tasting was an intellectual enjoyment, means of cultivating moral character and nature, and realm of artistic atmosphere. Monk Qi Yi described exactly the realm: "autumn billows calm in the stone caldron, tasting mountainous tea as returning from siting in meditation".
The Song Dynasty was historically an important period during which tea culture was highly developed.
The major characteristics of the Song's tea included exquisite workmanship of tribute tea- dragon-phoenix ball tea, elegant tea competition skills and tea serving arts.
Tea drinking method of the Song Dynasty was transformed into infusing method from cooking method used by the Tang people. The so-called tea infusing was that ground tea powder was put into a tea bowl, stirred with implements while boiling
Original Purity and Simplicity Returning of the Ming Dynasty Tea
On the sixteenth day of ninth month in Ming's Hongwu twenty-fourth year ( A. D. 1391), Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang issued an imperial edict that loose leaf tribute tea should be paid instead of the conventional ball tea. It was highly praised by people of the later ages that the Imperial Court fully considered the laboring people and stopped ball tea production, only tender tea buds were picked for paying tribute because the real tea flavor was lost when tea was ground with spice and compressed into small cakes.
The people then picked the best leaves just the flushing buds, heated spring water in a tripod or quadripod, then infused and tasted it. The tea tasting system of the ages was found.
Tea competition of the South Song period and the North Song period was over and cake tea was replaced by loose leaf tea. The tasting method of grinding and cooking tea was changed into the boiling water and infusing method. The epoch-making changes took place . Pure tea drinking lasting for the later ages started.
This drinking method was considered by the Ming people to be particularly simple, naturally interesting, and true flavor tasting. In fact, this infusion method was developed on the basis of loose tea drinking method in the folktales of the Tang Dynasty.
Some scholars of the Ming dynasty such as Wen Zhengming ,Tang Yan, Xu wei were all great men of letters who had talent but no opportunity to use it. In the fields of music, chess, painting and calligraphy, they were omniscient. They all had the hobby of tasting tea. They created a new situation in "Scholar tea" of the Ming Dynasty. They all left lots of excellent works and precious materials for later generations.
Compared with their predecessors, they laid more stress on selection of natural environment and construction of aesthetic temperament and interest during tea tasting, which was fully reflected in their works. The great painters either played music, brewing tea, with the harmony of the tinkling of spring, breeze, music, and the sound of boiling water in tea pot, or sat opposite each other to taste tea in a hatched cottage, or stood alone against verdant hills and watched the river surging.
Once tea was involved in the nature, it was not only a physical product, but also a medium for people to correspond and to return to nature.
Tea Becoming Common Customs in the Qing Dynasty
During the Qing Dynasty, the main stream of Chinese tea culture - the spirit of traditional culture of nationalities, began to enter common people's life. Tea house culture and tea customs culture replaced the former elite tea culture. Tea culture penetrated into the city people's daily life and became common customs and a noble national sentiment as it was integrated with traditional etiquette and order of importance and seniority in human relationships.
Tea Houses in the Qing Dynasty
Tea house trades in the Qing Dynasty prospered greatly. Various tea houses were distributed all over the cities and the country-sides, they were beyond count and all afforded magnificent views. They constituted the basis of the modern magnificent tea house phenomenon.
Tea Goes to the Japan
Japan was among the earliest countries to be deeply influenced by China's tea drinking, which was one of the many customs to spread from China to Japan during the Tang dynasty. Japanese history records that as early as 729 Emperor Shomu served tea to a hundred monks in the palace. The Japanese surmise that the leaves had been brought back by their missions to China.
Buddhists in China had been tea drinkers for a long time,. As it helped them stay awake during their long meditations. In 803 the Japanese Buddhist monk Saicho (posthumously known as Dengyo Daishi) went to study in China and there met another Japanese monk, Eichu. They came home together in 805, the former bringing tea seeds, which he planted in a monastery. Five years later, after the plant had reached maturity, Emperor Saga stopped at the monastery and Eichu, its abbot, served him green tea he had processed. The emperor enjoyed it so much that he instituted tea cultivation in five provinces near the capital. Tea was to become an important part of Japanese life.
The original Japanese tea ceremony began as a custom practiced in China during the Tang dynasty. However, while it died out in China, the Japanese continued developing it as a complex ritual with close ties to art. Japanese artists designed beautiful bowls, jars, cups, incense burners, and other utensils for the ceremony.?
