Tea drinking began in China. Tea is washed with boiling water, which is natural, elegant and tasteful. Seeking the inherent taste of tea, we should focus on artistic conception. This is the characteristic of tea tasting in China. Tea of the same quality, such as different water, different tea sets or different brewing techniques, will have different effects. China has attached great importance to tea brewing since ancient times and accumulated rich experience. To make tea well, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of various teas and master the scientific brewing technology, so as to fully display the inherent quality of tea.
People in China pay attention to the word "quality" when drinking tea. "Tea tasting" is not only to identify the advantages and disadvantages of tea, but also to daydream and appreciate the taste of tea. Making a pot of strong tea in your busy schedule, choosing a quiet place and taking a sip by yourself can relieve fatigue, relieve boredom, refresh yourself, sip slowly, enjoy beauty and sublimate the spiritual world to a noble artistic realm. The environment for tea tasting is generally composed of buildings, gardens, furnishings, tea sets and other factors. Drinking tea requires quietness, freshness, comfort and cleanliness. China's gardens are world-famous, and the scenery is even more numerous. Use gardens or natural mountains and rivers to set up tea rooms, so that people can rest and be full of interest.
China is an ancient civilization and a country of etiquette, which attaches great importance to etiquette. When the guests come, the etiquette of making tea and offering tea is essential. When guests come to visit, you can argue and choose the best tea set that best suits the taste of the guests. When offering tea to guests, it is also necessary to mix tea properly. When drinking tea with guests, the host should pay attention to the tea residue in the guest's cup and pot. Generally speaking, tea is brewed in a teacup. If you have already drunk half of it, you should add boiling water to make the concentration of tea basically the same and the water temperature appropriate. When drinking tea, it can also be properly accompanied by tea, candy, dishes and so on. To achieve the effect of regulating taste and snacks.
The Formation and Development of Tea Culture in China
China is the hometown of tea and the first country in the world to discover, utilize and cultivate tea trees. The origin of tea trees is at least 60,000 to 70,000 years old. Tea has been discovered and used by human beings for about four or five thousand years.
The utilization of tea was originally conceived in the field collection activities. The ancient legend "Shennong is exquisite and can see its lungs, liver and five internal organs". The reason is, "if it is not exquisite, it will encounter twelve poisons in one day. How do you solve it? " He also said, "Shennong tasted a hundred herbs and encountered twelve poisons every day, so he solved it with tea." Although the two theories can't be fully believed, a vague message is worth noting: in the long-term consumption process of "tea", people pay more and more attention to its medicinal properties. This reflects a lost story in the flood era.
According to the Book of Songs and other related documents, in early history, "tea" refers to all kinds of bitter wild plant food raw materials. In the historical era of the integration of food and medicine, it is not difficult to find the medicinal functions of tea vegetable oil, such as quenching thirst, refreshing, promoting digestion, resolving phlegm and relaxing bowels. But there must be some special factors, that is, some specific needs in people's real life, in order to develop from general drugs to conventional special drinks. Bashu area has become a "smoky place" with frequent diseases and epidemics. "Fan people live on tea, and they will get sick without tea." (Qing Zhou's Travels of the vassal States, Volume II) So Bashu people often eat spicy food, which has been accumulated for thousands of years and still exists today. It is this geographical and natural condition and people's eating habits determined by it that makes Bashu people take "fried tea" at the earliest time to get rid of miasma and detoxify. After long-term use, the medicinal purpose gradually disappears, and tea becomes a daily drink. When Qin people entered Bashu, they probably regarded this custom of drinking tea as a daily drink.
Tea has changed from medicinal to habitual beverage, and there has been a strict sense of "tea", whose typical symbol is the appearance of "tea" sound. Guo Pu notes the cloud in Er Ya Shi Mu: "A tree is as small as a gardenia, and it has leaves in winter, so it can be boiled and drunk. Tea was harvested early today, tea was harvested late, and one was bitter tea. " It can be seen that the word "tea" in the Han Dynasty has been pronounced specifically for the beverage "tea", and "tea" has been separated from "tea" and embarked on an independent development path. However, the emergence of the word "tea" is accompanied by the development of tea affairs and the increasing frequency of commercial activities. It was not until the middle Tang Dynasty that the word "tea" changed in people's social life after the emergence of new symbols.
There are different opinions about when China started drinking tea. There were official documents about drinking tea in the Western Han Dynasty, and the starting time of drinking tea should be earlier than this. As a cultural phenomenon, tea appeared in the Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Tea culture in a broad sense is divided into two aspects: the natural science of tea and the humanistic science of tea, which refers to the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth related to tea created by human society in historical practice. In a narrow sense, paying attention to the humanity of tea mainly refers to the spiritual function and social function of tea. Because the natural science of tea has formed an independent system, the tea culture that is often said now focuses on humanities.
▲ Tea culture enlightenment before the Three Kingdoms.
Many books set the discovery time of tea at 2737-2697 BC, and its history can be extended to the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. Hua Tuo recorded the medicinal value of tea in the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Bitter tea is good for a long time". In the Western Han Dynasty, the tea-producing county was called "Chaling", that is, Chaling in Hunan. In the Wei Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms, Guangya first recorded the making method and drinking method of cake tea: picking leaves between Jing and Ba to make cakes, and the old man made cakes out of leaves and made them with rice paste. Tea appears in the form of substance and permeates other cultures to form tea culture.
▲ The germination of tea culture in Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
With the rise of literati drinking tea, poems and songs about tea are coming out. As a general form, tea has left the diet and entered the cultural circle, playing a certain spiritual and social role. During the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the door system had been formed. Not only emperors and nobles gather together, but ordinary officials and even literati are proud of boasting and competing for wealth, which has multiple effects. In this case, some people of insight put forward the problem of "leading an honest and clean life". As a result, Lu Na and Huan Wen replaced wine with tea. Shi Zuwu of Nanqi was an enlightened emperor. He doesn't like going to parties. He wrote a will before he died, saying that the funeral after his death should be as frugal as possible. No three sacrifices, just put some dry rice, fruit cake and tea rice. And "the world is expensive, so is salt." In the period of Lu Na, Huan Wen and Emperor Wu of Qi, drinking tea was not only for refreshing and quenching thirst, but also began to produce social benefits, and became a means of entertaining guests, offering sacrifices and expressing a spirit and sentiment. Drinking tea has not been fully utilized by people because of its natural use value, but has entered the spiritual field.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the world was in chaos, and various cultural ideas collided, so metaphysics was quite popular. Metaphysics is a philosophical trend of thought in Wei and Jin Dynasties, which is mainly based on Laozi and Zhuangzi's thoughts. Metaphysical scholars are mostly so-called celebrities, pay attention to family status, appearance and manners, and like nothingness and lightness. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties, the wealth of the south of the Yangtze River temporarily satisfied the scholars, and they lingered among the beautiful mountains and waters all day long, and the wind of luxury continued to develop, resulting in many luxury scholars. At first, there were confidants and many drinkers. Later, the trend of confiding gradually developed to ordinary literati. Metaphysical scholars like to talk, and so do ordinary speakers. Wine can make people excited, but if you drink too much, you will lose your mind, talk nonsense and be unsightly. But Chaze can drink for a long time and stay awake all the time, which makes people think clearly and have a peaceful mind. Besides, for ordinary literati, dealing with wine and meat all day is not allowed in economic years. God, many metaphysicians and conversationalists have changed from good wine to good tea. In their place, drinking tea has been regarded as a spiritual phenomenon.
With the introduction of Buddhism and the rise of Taoism, drinking tea has been linked with Buddhism and Taoism. In Taoism's view, tea is a good way to help refine the "inner elixir", raise the purity and lower the turbidity, and become an immortal; In the eyes of Buddhists, tea is a necessary show for meditation. Although a complete religious tea-drinking ceremony has not been formed at this time, and the ideological principle of tea has not been clearly defined, tea has been separated from the material form of diet and has significant social and cultural functions, and tea culture in China has begun to take shape.
▲ The formation of tea culture in Tang Dynasty
In 780, Lu Yu wrote Tea Classic, which was the symbol of the formation of tea culture in Tang Dynasty. It summarizes the dual contents of nature and humanity of tea, discusses the art of drinking tea, and integrates Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism into drinking tea, thus creating the spirit of China Tea Ceremony. Later, a large number of tea books and poems appeared, including Tea Narration, brew tea, Tea Picking and Sixteen Soups. The formation of tea culture in Tang Dynasty was related to the rise of Zen Buddhism. Because tea has the function of refreshing the brain, promoting fluid production and quenching thirst, temples advocate drinking tea, planting tea trees around the temples, making tea ceremonies, setting up tea halls, selecting tea heads and holding tea events specially. China tea ceremony was formed in the Tang Dynasty, which is divided into court tea ceremony, temple tea ceremony and literati tea ceremony.
▲ The prosperity of tea culture in Song Dynasty
The great development of tea industry in Song Dynasty promoted the development of tea culture. Among the literati, professional tea tasting societies have emerged, including the Tang Society composed of officials and the Thousand People Society composed of Buddhists. Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin, who loves tea, set up a tea office in the palace, and the tea used in the palace has been graded. Tea ceremony became a kind of ceremony, giving tea became an important means for the emperor to win over ministers and take care of relatives as soon as possible, and it was also given to foreign envoys. As for the lower classes, tea culture is more lively, and some people migrate. Neighborhood should offer tea to guests, to "Yuanbao Tea", to offer tea for engagement, to order tea for marriage, and to share tea in the same room. The rise of folk tea fighting has brought about a series of changes in cooking points.
Since the Yuan Dynasty, tea culture has entered a tortuous development period. Song people expanded the social level and cultural form of tea culture, and tea affairs flourished. However, tea art has become complicated, trivial and extravagant, losing the profound ideological connotation of tea culture in Tang Dynasty. Too fine tea art drowned the spirit of tea culture and lost its noble and profound essence. In the imperial court, nobles and literati, drinking tea became a "drinking ceremony", "drinking style" and "playing with tea".
The Mongols in Yuan Dynasty entered the Central Plains, which marked the acceleration of the integration of the Chinese nation as a whole. On the one hand, although the northern minorities like tea, it is mainly for the needs of life and physiology, and they are not interested in tea tasting and cooking in culture; On the other hand, in the face of the broken motherland and foreign oppression, Han cultural people have no intention of expressing their feelings with tea, but hope to express their feelings with tea and sharpen their will. The combination of these two different ideological trends in tea culture has promoted the development of tea art towards simplicity and simplicity. Before the mid-Ming Dynasty, the Han people felt that the previous generation of people had perished and it was difficult to be a country when the People's Republic of China was founded, so they still had the ambition to observe the festival. Tea culture still inherits the trend of Yuan Dynasty, which is characterized by the simplicity of tea art, the harmony between tea culture candy and nature, and the expression of one's bitterness with tea.
▲ Popularization of tea culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties
At this time, various teas such as steamed green, fried green and baked green appeared, and drinking tea was also changed to "making tea". Many literati in Ming Dynasty left masterpieces handed down from generation to generation, such as Tang Bohu's Tea Making Scroll and Tea Tasting Map, Wen Zhiming's Huishan Tea Party, Lu Yu's Tea Cooking Map and Tea Tasting Map. With the increase of tea, the skills of making tea are also different, and the styles, textures and patterns of tea sets are also diverse. By the Qing Dynasty, tea export had become a formal industry, and there were countless tea books, tea events and tea poems.
▲ Development of modern tea culture
After the founding of New China, the annual output of tea in China increased from 7500T in 1949 to more than 600,000t in 1998. The substantial increase of tea material wealth has provided a solid foundation for the development of tea culture in China. 1982 Hangzhou established the first social organization with the purpose of promoting tea culture, 1983 Hubei established Luyu Tea Culture Research Association, 1990 Beijing established China Tea People's Association. 1998 China international peaceful tea culture exchange hall was built. With the rise of tea culture, there are more and more teahouses all over the country. The fifth International Symposium on Tea Culture has attracted Japanese, Korean, American, Sri Lankan, Hongkong and Taiwan Province. Tea festivals are held in all provinces, cities and tea-producing counties, such as the Rock Tea Festival in Wuyi City, Fujian Province, the Pu 'er Tea Festival in Yunnan Province, the tea festivals in Xinchang, Taishun, Yingshan, Hubei Province and Xinyang, Henan Province. They all use tea as a carrier to promote the all-round development of economy and trade.
In a word, the history and development of China tea is not only a simple process of the formation of food culture, but also reflects the spiritual characteristics of a nation with a history of 5,000 years.