Information on Tea Culture

Chinese tea culture has a long history, and Ba Shu is often referred to as the cradle of the Chinese tea industry and tea culture. Information on the history of tea before the Six Dynasties indicates that the Chinese tea industry first emerged in Ba Shu. The formation of tea culture has a close relationship with the early politics, customs and tea drinking in Ba Shu.

① Enlightenment of tea culture before the Three Kingdoms

Many books put the discovery of tea at 2737-2697 BC, and its history can be pushed back to the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. Hua Tuo of the Eastern Han Dynasty recorded the medical value of tea in his book "The Book of Food": "Bitter tea is good for long time consumption, and it is good for the meaning". In the Western Han Dynasty, the county where tea originated was named "Tuling", i.e. Chaling in Hunan Province. To the Three Kingdoms Wei Dynasty "Guangya" has been the first record of the cake tea production and drinking: Jingba between the leaves for the cake, the leaves of the old cake into a rice paste out of the. Tea in material form and penetrate into other human sciences and the formation of tea culture.

② Jin Dynasty, the North and South Dynasties, the budding of tea culture

With the rise of literati tea, tea poems and songs about tea are coming out, tea has been separated from the general form of food into the cultural circle, playing a certain? Concrete (5) Velvet Jagged Breakfast tirade?br> ③ Formation of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty

"Since Lu Yu was born on earth, the earth learns to do new tea." In the Middle Tang Dynasty, Lu Yu's "Tea Scripture" was introduced to develop tea culture to an unprecedented height, marking the formation of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty. The Tea Scripture" summarizes the dual content of the natural and humanistic sciences of tea, discusses the art of tea drinking, and integrates Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism into tea drinking, creating the first spirit of the Chinese Tea Ceremony. The formation of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty and the rise of Zen Buddhism, because tea has a refreshing and beneficial to the mind, the essence of the thirst function, so the temple revered tea, tea trees planted around the temple, the development of tea rituals, set up a tea hall, selected tea, tea activities, specializing in presenting the tea ceremony. Formed in the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese tea ceremony is divided into court tea ceremony, temple tea ceremony, literati tea ceremony. The Tea Ceremony is a milestone. Dry hundred years, successive generations of tea people on the various aspects of tea culture for countless attempts and exploration, until the birth of the "Tea Scriptures" after the tea party, and therefore epoch-making significance.

④ The prosperity of tea culture in the Song Dynasty

The tea industry in the Song Dynasty has been a great development, promoting the development of tea culture, in the literati appeared in the professional tea tasting associations, there are officials composed of the "soup society", Buddhist "Thousands of people society" and so on. Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin is a tea-loving people, set up tea in the court, the court tea has been graded. Tea ceremony has become a ritual, giving tea has become an important means of the emperor to enlist ministers, favor family, but also given to foreign envoys. As for the lower class, the tea culture is more lively, some people migrate, the neighbors to "offer tea", a guest, to pay tribute to the "Yuanbao tea", betrothal to: "under the tea", when you get married to "fixed tea", when the same room to "joint tea". Folk fighting tea wind, brought a series of changes in the picking and cooking points.

⑤ Ming and Qing popularization of tea culture

This time there has been steamed green, fried green, baked green and other types of tea, tea drinking has been changed to a "handful of bubbles", the Ming Dynasty, a number of literati and elegant men have left a heirloom, such as Tang Bohu's "Cooking Tea Scrolls", "Tea Tasting Map", Wen Zhengming's "Huishan Tea Party", "Lu Yu Cooking Tea", "Tasting Tea", and so on. The Tea Party in Huishan", "Lu Yu Cooking Tea", "Tasting Tea" and so on. The increase in the number of tea, tea brewing techniques are different, the style of tea utensils, texture, pattern of a variety of styles. In the late Ming period, the scribes of the state of drinking and a new breakthrough, pay attention to the "to the fine and beautiful" state.

In the view of the literati, the ultimate and final state of things to the most refined and beautiful is "Tao", "Tao" exists in things. Zhang Yuan first in its "tea book" book put forward their own "tea way" said: "when the creation of the fine, hidden when dry, clean bubble. Fine, dry, clean tea road is complete." He believes that the tea has "internal God" that is "the spirit", the expression of the outside is called "the body", the two interdependent and mutual coexistence, each other as the table, inseparable. The spirit is the essence of tea, the body is the essence of the appearance of color, aroma and taste. As long as in the process of tea, to do simple and natural, simple and truth-seeking, Xuanwei moderate, neutral and punch, will be able to seek the true meaning of tea. Zhang Yuan's tea ceremony in pursuit of the beauty of tea, tea flavor of the true, and strive to enter the eye of the tea color, mouth taste tea flavor, nose smell tea, ear tea, hand Mo tea ware of the perfect state.

Zhang Dafu on this basis, one level further, he said: "the world tastes tea and not taste its nature, love landscape and will not be its feelings, reading and may not be the meaning of the study of Buddhism, but not to break their clan." He wanted to tell us is that tea does not have to catty in its water and its flavor of the appearance, and asked for its true meaning, that is, by drinking tea to achieve a spiritually pleasing, a kind of clear mind, transcendental state of mind, so as to achieve the transcendence of the outside world, the sentiment of the immortal realm of purity, a kind of heaven, earth, and the human being to integrate one of the realm. This can be said to be the Ming people on the development of the spirit of the Chinese tea ceremony and beyond. By the time of the Qing Dynasty, the export of tea had become a formal industry, tea books, tea affairs, tea poetry countless.

6 the development of modern tea culture

After the founding of new China, China's tea from the annual production of 7,500T in 1949 to 1998, the development of more than 600,000T. tea material wealth increased for the development of China's tea culture provides a solid foundation, in 1982, in Hangzhou, the first was established in order to carry forward the purpose of the tea culture of the social organizations --- "tea people". ---In 1982, the first social organization aiming at promoting tea culture was established in Hangzhou, "Tea People's House", "Lu Yu Tea Culture Research Association" was established in Hubei in 1983, and "Chinese Tea People's Friendship Association" was established in 1990. In 1990, "China Tea People Association" was established in Beijing, in 1993, "China International Tea Culture Research Association" was established in Huzhou, in 1991, the China Tea Museum was officially opened in Hangzhou, West Lake Township. 1998 China International Peace Tea Culture Exchange Hall was built. With the rise of tea culture, tea museums around the more and more organized. International Tea Culture Symposium has opened to the fifth sector, attracting Japan, South Korea, the United States, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong and Taiwan have to participate. Provinces, cities and the main tea-producing counties have hosted "tea festival", such as Fujian Wuyi City, Rock Tea Festival, Yunnan Pu'er Tea Festival, Zhejiang Xinchang, Taishun and Hubei Yingshan and Henan Xinyang Tea Festival, to name a few, all to tea as a carrier, to promote the development of comprehensive economic and trade.

2, the origin of tea drinking time

(1) Shennong period: Tang Lu Yu "Tea Scripture": "Tea for drinking, from Shennong's." In the history of China's cultural development, it is often the origin of all things related to agriculture and plants are ultimately attributed to Shennong. After it is attributed here it can never be pushed upward. Because of this, Shennong became the god of agriculture.

(2) Western Zhou Dynasty: Jin - Chang Qu "Huayang Guo Zhi - Ba Zhi": "King Wu of Zhou conquered the Zhou Dynasty and actually obtained the division of Ba Shu, ...... Tea Honey ...... all pay tribute to it." This record indicates that when King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty conquered the Zhou Dynasty, the state of Ba had already paid tribute to King Wu of the Zhou with tea and other precious products. It is also recorded in the Huayang Guozhi that tea gardens were cultivated at that time.

(3) Qin and Han Dynasties: Western Han Dynasty. Wang Berg "boy about": "cooking tea all set", "Wuyang buy tea", by the examination of the tea is now tea. In recent years, in the tomb of Western Han Dynasty in Changsha's Mawangdui, it was found that there were "? Yishu" and "? Yisu" in bamboo slips and woodcut texts, after checking the "?" That is, a variant of "Catalpa", indicating that tea was widely consumed in Hunan at that time. We are still drinking the same beverage as our very ancient ancestors such as Jiang Taigong, which is indeed a very exciting thing. Can give us a lot of reverie.

3, drinking tea originating point of evidence

The search for this point is often focused on the study of the origin of the tea tree. On the origin of the tea tree, there are so many claims:

1. Southwest: "China's southwest is the origin of the tea tree and the birthplace of tea." This statement refers to a large range, so the correctness is higher.

2. Sichuan: Qing Gu Yanwu, "Day Knowledge": "Since the Qin people take Shu, began to have tea drinking." The implication is that before the Qin people into Shu, the area of Sichuan is known to drink tea. In fact, Sichuan is in the southwest, Sichuan said that the establishment, then the southwest said that the establishment. Sichuan say than southwest say "precision" some, but the risk of correctness will be greater.

3. Yunnan: that the generation of Yunnan Xishuangbanna is the birthplace of tea, this area is the Kingdom of plants, there are native species of tea is entirely possible, but this statement has a "humanistic" aspect of the risk, because the tea tree can be native, while the tea is the result of revitalization of labor.

4. East Sichuan and Exi: Lu Yu, "Tea": "its Bashanxia River, there are two people embraced." Bashanxia Chuan that is now Sichuan East Exi. The place has such outstanding tea tree, whether it is someone will be utilized into a tea, did not see evidence.

5. Jiangsu and Zhejiang: It has recently been suggested that it began in the ancient Yue culture represented by the Hemudu culture. Jiangsu and Zhejiang is currently China's most developed region of the tea industry, history if you can take root here, but it is a very meaningful topic. In fact, I think that in ancient times there must have been more than one place where tea trees of natural origin existed. Where there are tea trees does not necessarily mean that the custom of drinking tea can be developed. As mentioned earlier, tea was invented by Shennong, so in which area was it active? If we find the intersection of the "origin of the tea tree" and the "Shennong activities", we may have an answer, or at least narrow the answer to the "value domain".

4, the invention of tea drinking

How did human beings invent the habit of drinking tea? Or how did tea originate? The study of this issue has always been a "basic problem" of tea. Because as any tea scholars or tea workers, if even "tea is how to come" can not explain the words, it is too insufficient. And now the answer to this question has a variety of answers:

1. Offerings: This statement that tea and some other plants were first made for the offerings, and then some people paid to eat and found that food and harmless, it is "by the offerings, and food, and medicinal", and ultimately become a beverage.

2. Drugs: this statement that tea "was initially used as medicine into human society." "Shennong Bai Cao Jing" wrote: "Shennong tasted a hundred herbs, the day met seventy-two poisons, get tea and solution.

3. Food: "the ancient people of the grass and water", "food for the people," food in the first in line with the law of evolution of human society.

4. Synchronization: "the initial use of tea ways and means, may be as chewing food, may also be used as baked and boiled food, but also gradually for the medicine to drink." The comparison and accumulation of these ways eventually led to the development of "drinking tea" as the best way.

The most useless of these statements is the fourth, which adds the three previous statements together and becomes its own "infallible" explanation. Perhaps this explanation is the most appropriate.

Now we can argue that tea in China was recognized and used very early, and very early tea planting and tea harvesting. But we can also prove that tea is widely popularized in all walks of life in the community to drink, or roughly in the Tang Dynasty Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" after the world. Therefore, there is a poem in the Song Dynasty, "Since Lu Yu was born on earth, the human world learns about spring tea". In other words, after the invention of tea, there are more than a thousand years of time is not known to the public.

5, the origin of the tea tree

China is the first country to discover and use the tea tree, known as the motherland of tea, written records show that our ancestors more than 3,000 years ago has begun to cultivate and use the tea tree. However, with the origin of any species, the origin and existence of tea, necessarily in the human discovery of the tea tree and the use of the tea tree before, until a long, long time apart, for people to discover and utilize. Human experience with tea, but also through the generations, from the local area slowly expanding, and a long time after a long, long time, only gradually into the written record.

The origin of the tea tree, has always been more controversial, with the development of verification technology and new discoveries, only gradually reached **** knowledge, that is, China is the origin of the tea tree, and to confirm the southwest region of China, including Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan is the center of the origin of the tea tree. As a result of geological changes and man-made cultivation, the tea plant began to popularize the whole country, and gradually spread to the rest of the world.

I. Origin and place of origin

When did the tea plant originate? It must be much earlier than the 3,000 years of written records. The problem that historians have no way to prove was finally solved by botanists. They trace the roots of the plant taxonomic methods, after a series of analysis and research, that the origin of the tea tree has been 60 million years to 70 million years of history.

The tea tree is native to China, since ancient times, has always been recognized by the world. Just after 1824, India found a wild tea tree, foreign scholars in China is the origin of the tea tree to raise objections, in the international academic community sparked a controversy. These dissenters, are based on the Indian wild tea tree, at the same time that there is no wild tea tree in China. In fact, China in 200 AD or so, "Er Ya" mentioned in the wild tea tree, and today's information shows that the country has 10 provinces and regions in 198 places found wild tea tree, of which a plant in Yunnan, the age of the tree has reached 1700 years or so, only in Yunnan Province, the trunk diameter of more than one meter there are more than 10 plants. Some areas, even wild tea tree communities as large as thousands of acres. So since ancient times, our country has been found in the wild tea tree, the time of the early, the tree's large, the number of large, widely distributed, the traits of the different, can be called the world's largest. In addition, it has been verified that the wild tea tree found in India and introduced from China to India with the tea tree is a variant of the Chinese tea tree. Thus, China is the origin of the tea tree is finalized. In recent decades, the combination of tea and botanical research, from different perspectives, such as species and geological changes in climate change, the origin of the tea tree for a more detailed and in-depth analysis and argumentation, further proving that China's Southwest region is the origin of the tea tree. The main arguments, simply put, there are three aspects:

1. From the natural distribution of tea tree

Currently found Camellia sinensis plants **** 23 genera, more than 380 species, and China has 15 genera, more than 260 species, and most of them are distributed in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan area. More than 100 species of Camellia sinensis have been discovered, and there are more than 60 species on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, of which Camellia species occupy the most important position. From a botanical point of view, the origin center of many genera is concentrated in a certain region, which indicates that the region is the origin center of this flora. Camelliaceae, Camellia sinensis in the southwest of China's high concentration of plants, indicating that the southwest of China is the origin center of Camellia sinensis, when the birthplace of tea.

2. From the point of view of geological changes

Southwest China's rolling hills, river valleys criss-crossed, topographical changes, so that the formation of many small geomorphological zones and microclimatic zones, in the low latitude and altitude differences, resulting in large differences in the climate, so that the original growth of the tea tree here, slowly divided into different climates in the tropics, subtropical and temperate zones, resulting in tea Tree species within the mutation, the development of a tropical type and subtropical type of large-leaf species and medium-leaf species of tea, as well as the temperate zone of the medium-leaf species and small-leaf species of tea. Botanists believe that the place where a species has the most variation is the center of the origin of the species. China's three southwestern provinces, is China's tea tree with the most variations, the richest resources, when it is the center of the origin of the tea tree.

3. From the point of view of the type of evolution of the tea tree

The tea tree in its phylogenetic history, always tends to evolve. Therefore, where the original type of tea tree is more concentrated in the region, when the origin of the tea tree. China's three southwestern provinces and their adjacent areas of the wild tea tree, with the morphological characteristics of the original tea tree and biochemical characteristics, but also proved that the southwest of China is the center of the origin of the tea tree.