A detailed explanation of the relationship between tea culture and tea ceremony

A detailed explanation of the relationship between tea culture and tea ceremony

tea ceremony

Tea ceremony is the art and spirit of tea drinking for the purpose of cultivating monasticism, which includes four elements: tea art, etiquette, environment and practice, and is the core part of tea culture. China's spirit of tea ceremony is manifested in four aspects: the way of neutralization, the beauty of naturalness and elegance, and the ceremony of understanding.

1, the way of neutralization

In our daily life, we often refer to the "golden mean", and "neutralization" is a word to explain this. In life, people often regard this relatively harmonious state as the ideal realm, which is the ideal pursuit of a balanced, harmonious and beautiful relationship between psychology and physiology, between people and between people and society.

2. Nature

Let nature take its course is the interest pursued by China culture since ancient times. The pursuit of "nature" in tea ceremony has two aspects: one is the pursuit of the natural development of all things in the world, and the other is the pursuit of the natural development of human nature.

3. Elegant beauty

Qing refers to the material environment of drinking tea, and also refers to the lofty personality. Elegance means that the environment for drinking tea should be elegant, the tea set should be elegant, the people who drink tea should be elegant, and the way of drinking tea should be elegant … and so on. The realm of tea ceremony should be based on elegance, not on formality. After all, vulgarity can be elegant.

4. Ritual of Bright Ethics

It refers to the behavior etiquette and communication etiquette based on tea drinking activities. For example, when drinking tea, this person's manners are dignified and neat, and communication with others is well-behaved, which makes people very carefree.

tea culture

Tea culture includes material culture, institutional culture, behavioral culture and psychological culture. The tea ceremony we mentioned above is the behavior and mentality culture in tea culture and belongs to the category of spiritual civilization.

1, material culture

It refers to the synthesis of people's tea production activities and products, that is, tea planting, manufacturing, processing, preservation, chemical composition and curative effect research, and also includes tangible objects and buildings such as tea, water, tea sets, tables and chairs, tea rooms and so on used for tea tasting.

2. Institutional culture

Refers to the social behavior norms formed by people in the process of engaging in tea, raw tea and consumption. For example, with the development of tea production, rulers of past dynasties have continuously strengthened management measures related to tea, which we call "tea administration", including tribute, tea tax, domestic sales and foreign trade.

3. Behavior culture

It refers to the agreed behavior pattern in the process of tea production and consumption, which is usually expressed in the form of tea ceremony, tea custom and tea art, such as the customs formed in ancient times, such as playing with tea, worshipping Buddha with tea and offering sacrifices with tea. Today, the tea-drinking customs formed by local and individual folk customs are even more colorful, and various tea-drinking methods and tea ceremony procedures are also numerous.

4. Psychological culture

It refers to subjective factors such as values, aesthetic taste and way of thinking bred by people in the process of tea tasting. Just like in the process of tea tasting, we pursue artistic conception and charm: of course, it also includes literary and artistic works that reflect tea making and drinking interest; There is also the combination of tea drinking and philosophy of life, which rises to the philosophical level and forms what we call tea ceremony and cha de. This is the highest realm and the core of tea culture.

In fact, as can be seen from the above, both tea culture and tea ceremony are centered on "drinking a good cup of tea". Without tea, there would be no tea culture and tea ceremony.