Song Huizong Evonne is a tea lover. He thinks that the fragrant taste of tea can make people carefree, quiet and interesting: "If tea is a thing, it is good at the delicious taste of the people, the spirit of Zhongshan, the spirit of Sichuan, and the clarity and harmony, it is not known to young people." The lotus is carefree and clean, and the rhyme is high and quiet ... "
Mr. Wu Juenong believes that the tea ceremony means "taking tea as a precious and noble drink, because tea is a kind of spiritual enjoyment, an art and a means of self-cultivation."
Mr. Zhuang Wanfang believes that tea ceremony is a ceremony to educate people on etiquette and morality through drinking tea. Mr. Zhuang Wanfang also summarized the basic spirit of China Tea Ceremony as "sincerity, beauty, harmony and respect". He explained: "Honesty, frugality, virtue, beauty, honesty, sincerity and respect for others."
Mr. Chen believes that China tea ceremony includes seven principles: tea ceremony, cha de, tea ceremony, tea theory, tea sentiment, tea theory and tea ceremony guidance, and the core of China tea ceremony spirit is harmony. China Tea Ceremony is a way to guide individuals to complete character cultivation in the process of enjoying beauty through tea being a process, so as to realize the harmony and happiness of all mankind. Mr. Chen's moral tea ceremony theory can be abbreviated as "seven arts and one heart".
Mr. Zhou Zuoren said it casually. His understanding of tea ceremony is: "The meaning of tea ceremony, in ordinary words, can be called taking a vacation from work, enjoying happiness in suffering, enjoying a little beauty and harmony in incomplete reality, and experiencing forever in an instant."
Mr. Lin Zhi, a tea drinker in Wuyishan, thinks that "harmony, quietness, elegance and truth" should be the four truths of China tea ceremony. Because "harmony" is the core of China's tea ceremony philosophy and the soul of tea ceremony. "Quiet" is China's method of practicing tea ceremony. "Yi" is the spiritual feeling of China's tea ceremony practice. Truth is the ultimate pursuit of China Tea Ceremony.
Taiwan Province scholar Mr. Liu said: "The so-called tea ceremony refers to the method and artistic conception of tea tasting."
1977, in the book Tea Ceremony Aesthetics, Mr. Tanikawa Sanji defined the tea ceremony as an art performed through body movements. It includes four factors: artistic factors, social factors, etiquette factors and practical factors.
Mr Kumatsu Machi, on the other hand, thinks that tea ceremony culture is a comprehensive cultural system with tea as an opportunity, which is comprehensive, unified and inclusive. It includes art, morality, philosophy, religion and culture, and its core is Zen.
Mr. Xiong Cang Kung Fu proposed from a historical perspective that tea ceremony is an indoor art function. Art can make people-oriented culture a unique art group, and through the cultivation of human body, it can achieve the purpose of cultivating sentiment and perfecting personality.
On the other hand, Mr. Yukiyama Kurazawa of the Institute of Humanities Tea and Soup Culture believes that the profound philosophy of the Eleventh Tea Ceremony is the ideological background, and the comprehensive life culture is the essence of oriental culture. He also believes that "Tao is the road to life, tea ceremony is the road to heart, and the road from heart to tea."
The tea ceremony in China is hundreds or even thousands of years earlier than that in Japan. China's tea ceremony can be said that the spirit is greater than the form, and it has different forms of expression in different historical stages. All kinds of teas are different and full of flowers, but they all embody the spirit of "purity, elegance and truthfulness".
5. The development of tea ceremony
Tang Dynasty: The formation of tea culture in Tang Dynasty was related to the economy, culture and development at that time. The Tang Dynasty had a vast territory and attached importance to foreign exchanges. Chang 'an was the political and cultural center at that time, and China tea culture was formed in this climate. The formation of tea culture was also related to the development of Buddhism at that time, the imperial examination system, the prosperity of poetic style, the rise of tribute tea and the prohibition of alcohol.
With the participation of the people and the court, the tea culture in the Tang Dynasty reached a peak.
Lu Yu's Tea Classic says that "tea is a drink, which originated from Shennong, heard from Duke Zhou of Lu ... and flourished in Zhou Dynasty. Both of them are located between Jing and Yu, so it is better to drink it at home". "Drink at home", that is, every household drinks tea, which can reflect the popularity of tea drinking in Chang 'an, the capital of Tang Dynasty. In addition to "two Beijing and Chongqing", the wind of drinking tea is also popular. This situation is most typical in Feng Shiwen Jian Lu. "From Zou, Qi, Cang, Di, and gradually to Jingyicheng City, it is not bad to open more shops to sell fried tea, and invest money to drink." It can be seen that tea has been deeply rooted in people's hearts and has become a necessity of life.
The popularity and elegance of tea culture has rich generational connotations. In addition to popular tea and court tea, there are also monk circles. Many of these people are Lu Yu's mentors, such as Zhiqi, Huaihai monk, paranormal monk, Jiao Ran and Miracle. Lu Yu's tea teacher, because Lu Yu's tea-making technology is fast, the tea soup cooked by Lu Yu has its own characteristics, and the wise monk has reached the point where he doesn't drink Lu Yu's tea. This also means that Lu Yu got the essence from the superb tea-making art of monk Zhiji and made new development.
Tea has a deep relationship with Buddhism, which became closer in the Tang Dynasty. In recent years, the Tang Xizong gold and silver tea set unearthed from Famen Temple in Shaanxi Province also reflects the special relationship of the Buddha drinking tea in the Tang Dynasty.
In the development of tea culture in Tang Dynasty, the enthusiastic participation of literati played an important role in promoting it. Typical in poetry is the creation of tea poems.
Poetry in the Tang Dynasty is a brilliant chapter in the history of China literature. In Tang poetry, there are many works about tea. The famous ones are Li Bai's nephew, Yuquan cactus tea given by Zhongfu monk, Qin tea given by Bai Juyi, tea with a pot, and Jiao Ran's visit to Lu Yu. These tea poems appear in the form of ancient poems, regular poems, quatrains and so on, including famous tea, tea people, fried tea, drinking tea, tea sets, picking tea and making tea.
Scholars in the Tang Dynasty took tea as their friends, preached by tea, and promoted art by tea. The status of tea in the life of literati has been greatly improved, and the cultural connotation of tea is deeper. At the same time, these cultural and artistic works have also become valuable materials for studying the history of Chinese tea.
As we all know, the three-volume Tea Classic written by Lu Yu around 780 AD is the first tea monograph in China, which marks the establishment of the tea science system, promotes the continuous expansion of tea and creates a precedent for writing tea monographs.
Since the Book of Tea, many people of insight have summarized tea and its related contents in time. From the middle and late Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties, many monographs on tea appeared. Such as three volumes of Jiao Ran Tea Tactics, one volume of Zhang brew tea, one volume of Wencai Tea Record, one volume of Tea Garden Miscellanies, Pei Wen's Tea Description, Wen Cha Bu and Mao Wenxi's Tea Spectrum.
Lu Yu's Tea Classic is an epoch-making event. Lu Yu is the "Cha Sheng" of China. The Book of Tea is a milestone in the history of Chinese tea. It is a systematic summary of tea culture before and after the Tang Dynasty. The Book of Tea established the basic framework of tea science, which directly promoted the rapid development of tea production and drinking.
After thousands of years of twists and turns, the custom of drinking tea finally moved from chaos to civilization in the Tang Dynasty. The compilation of tea books in Tang Dynasty moved from grass-roots creation to philosophy, and played a beautiful overture in the history of tea culture.
Song Dynasty: The tea culture was dominated by monks, Taoists and literati in the Tang Dynasty, and further expanded upward and downward in the Song Dynasty. On the one hand, the emergence of court tea culture, on the other hand, the rise of citizen tea culture and folk tea fighting. In the Song Dynasty, the direct tea-making method in the Tang Dynasty was changed to tea-ordering method, emphasizing the unity of color, fragrance and taste. In the early years of Southern Song Dynasty, the method of making tea reappeared, which opened the way for the popularization and simplification of tea drinking. The skill of drinking tea in Song Dynasty is quite exquisite, but it is difficult to melt into thoughts and feelings. Because most of the famous tea people in Song Dynasty were famous literati, the process of the integration of tea and related arts was accelerated. Writers like Xu Xuan, Lin Tong, Fan Zhongyan, Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, Su Shi, Su Zhe, Huang Tingjian and Mei all like tea, so famous poets have tea poems, calligraphers have tea stickers and painters have tea paintings. This expands the connotation of tea culture and becomes a direct part of pure spiritual culture such as literature and art. The tea culture of citizens in Song Dynasty mainly used tea drinking as a means to promote friendship and social communication. (Bianjing folk custom in the Northern Song Dynasty, when someone moves into a new house, the left and right neighbors should "offer tea" to each other; Please have tea between neighbors, and call it "tea". At this time, tea tasting has become a folk etiquette.
The development of tea culture in Song Dynasty was greatly influenced by the royal family. No matter its cultural characteristics or cultural forms, it is more or less aristocratic. At the same time, tea culture has been more fully developed in the elegant category. The strong advocacy of the imperial court is mainly manifested in the following aspects: First, the feudal ritual system strives for perfection in tribute tea, which leads to the diversification of tea drinking methods. After Cai Xiang was appointed as Fujian's transshipment ambassador in Song Dynasty, tribute tea was further developed in form and quality through seiko reform, and was called "Xiaolongtuan cake tea". Ouyang Xiu called this kind of tea "its value is two taels of gold, gold is available, and tea is not available". Song Renzong recommended this little dragon group and treasured it. Even the prime minister's closest ministers are not given casually. It's just that when he gives gifts to heaven and earth in the southern suburbs every year, four ministers of the Privy Council are lucky enough to be assigned to the same group, and these ministers often refuse to drink them themselves, which are specially used to honor their parents or give them to friends. Before presenting this kind of tea to the minister, the maid-in-waiting first cut it into dragons and phoenixes with gold foil, and then pasted it with flowers and plants, which is called "embroidered tea".
Song Dynasty was the most active period of drinking tea in history. There are "embroidered tea" and "fighting tea" derived from tribute tea; As a scholar, there is "tea sharing"; As a folk teahouse, the way of drinking tea in restaurants is more colorful.
The most typical folk tea drinking in Song Dynasty was Lin 'an (now Hangzhou) in Southern Song Dynasty. When Lin 'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, was established, due to the exchange and integration of tea culture between the North and the South, teahouse culture centered on it appeared. The present teahouse was called the teahouse in the Southern Song Dynasty. According to Wu's Meng Lu Liang (volume 16), Lin 'an (now Hangzhou) tea house is modeled after Bianjing tea house in style, and the tea house is decorated with celebrity calligraphy and painting, flower stands and flowers of four seasons. Strange teas and different soups are sold all year round. Qibao tea, steamed dumplings and scallion tea are sold in winter ... At night, a mobile car shop is launched to meet the demand of tourists for tea. At that time, in Lin 'an city, tea was bought and sold all day. Even when it snows in the dead of winter, some people come to sell tea after midnight.
Tea shops in Hang Cheng are divided into many grades to suit different consumers. Teahouses and tea shops are generally used as places for drinking tea. Among the customers, "there are many well-off children, and people from all departments get together to learn musical instruments, teach music and earn money". At that time, it was called "listing". Some tea shops "don't take tea and soup as their business, but use it as an excuse to find more tea and golden ears." It is called "human tea shop", and some "specialize in five benefits, and some banks lend workers to sell people to gather the elderly", which is called "market buying". There are also some tea shops, which are special places for literati to make friends and date, such as the famous "Qiuqiu Teahouse" and "Jiangping Teahouse". There is also a tea house called "Flower Tea House", which specializes in placing prostitutes upstairs to lure customers. These teahouses are called teahouses, but they are actually pornographic places.
The art of "embroidered tea" is a secret game in the court. According to the detailed record of Gan Chun Wind in the Southern Song Dynasty, the first-class tea given by Beiyuan is listed in the palace in the first half of mid-spring every year. This kind of tea is beautifully packaged and made of flower buds on the tip of sparrow's tongue. It is said that one person can brew several lamps. Probably because it is too precious, it is generally reluctant to drink, so there is an art of playing tea only for viewing. According to careful records, this method of embroidering tea is: "When the Qing Dynasty was closed, it was resplendent, colorful and fruity, named embroidered tea, but pleasing to the eye. There are also people who specialize in the industry, and there are few outsiders. "
Another art of playing tea, called "Spring in the Shadow", is to look at it first and then taste it. The game of "Leaking Shadow Spring" appeared in the Five Dynasties or the end of the Tang Dynasty, and by the Song Dynasty, it had become a more fashionable way of drinking tea. In the Song Dynasty, Gu Tao recorded this practice in detail in Qing Louis: "The shadow-leaking spring method, with carved paper to stick a lamp, no paper to make tea, and fake it as a flower. Don't stir the soup with litchi meat as the leaf and precious things such as pine nuts and duck feet as the core. " "Embroidering tea" and "Leaking shadow spring" are plastic arts mainly based on dry tea, while "fighting tea" and "separating tea" are a kind of tea-making art. ..
"Fighting tea" is a mutual comparison method of tea quality, which is very utilitarian. It was first used in the selection and delivery of tribute tea and the competition of market price grades. The word "dou" has summed up the intensity of this activity, so "fighting tea" is also called "tea war"
If Dou Cha has a strong utilitarian color, then Fencha has an elegant literati flavor. "Divide tea" is also known as "tea hundred plays" and "soup plays". People who are good at matching tea can use the water veins in the tea bowl to create many paintings and calligraphy that are good at changing. From these bowls, audiences and creators can enjoy many wonderful things.
Tea science in Song Dynasty paid more attention to tea making, which made a new development in depth and system than that in Tang Dynasty. Tea culture in Song Dynasty continued to develop and deepen on the basis of tea culture in Tang Dynasty, forming a unique cultural taste. Tea culture in Song Dynasty, together with tea culture in Tang Dynasty, became a brilliant chapter in the history of tea culture.
Yuan Dynasty: During the Yuan Dynasty, although the northern nationalities liked tea, they were impatient with the tedious tea art of the Song people. Literati have no intention to express their love affairs with tea, but hope to express their noble integrity and temper their will in tea. In tea culture, these two thoughts coincide, and tea art gradually returns to simplicity.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, China's tea industry and tea culture continued to prosper, but at the same time, it was relatively neglected in the Northern Jin Dynasty.
Although the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were not Han Chinese, they did great harm to the Agricultural Bank of China in the process of reunification, but at the same time they also implemented some measures that were beneficial to agricultural production. For example, The Collection of Agriculture and Mulberry was compiled by the Yuan government. In the other two books published in Yuan Dynasty, Agricultural Books and Summary of Agriculture and Mulberry, tea planting and tea making were introduced as important contents. This shows that the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty still supported and advocated the tea industry.
By the Yuan Dynasty, in addition to the continued development of folk loose tea and the continued use of glutinous rice balls in tribute tea, there were new cooking and seasoning methods, which reflected the lifestyle of Mongolian nomads and Han people. When drinking tea, especially when the court drinks it daily, it seems quite common to add auxiliary materials to tea. In Yuan Dynasty, Hu Sihui concentrated on describing all kinds of tea drinks at that time in Diet.
Compared with the added tea, the Han people's clear drink still accounts for a considerable proportion. The way they drink tea is also very different from that of the Mongols. They still love the true color and taste of tea, the ancient tripod and clear spring, and the elegant environment.
For example, although Zhao Mengfu was an official in the Yuan Dynasty, his "Dou Cha Tu" was still a scene in the Song Dynasty. Many of his poems have no "cheese flavor" and are still fresh:
"In the middle of the night, I am unknown, I saw the bacteria. The tea bowl is always cold, and the plum blossom is cold and knows spring ... "
Scholars in Yuan Dynasty, especially Han scholars in Song and Yuan Dynasties, still made outstanding contributions to the development of tea culture. Pursuing clear drinking is not only the characteristic of Han literati, but also many Mongolian literati are quite keen on it, especially Lu Ye Chu Cai, who has a poem that clearly sings his own aesthetic view of drinking tea: "After years, you will not sip Jianxi tea, but you will be stuck in traffic." Jasper ou thinks of snow waves, and gold rolls over the shore to remember thunder buds. Lu Tong's "Seven Bowls of Poetry" is rare, and the dream of the third child is also on credit. Dare to ask you to share the cake and temporarily teach Qingxing to bypass the haze. "
Tea culture from Yuan Dynasty to the middle of Ming Dynasty has two characteristics: one is the simplicity of tea art; Second, the spirit of tea culture is in harmony with nature, and tea is used to express one's own sufferings.
Ming Dynasty: Due to the development of tea and new production technology, the tea production mode and tea drinking mode in Ming Dynasty have changed greatly, and the influence of tea drinking on people's life concept has become more and more obvious.
The brewing method of tea in Ming Dynasty is based on the rise of loose tea, which is easy to brew, convenient to drink and has intact buds and leaves, greatly enhancing the ornamental effect when drinking tea. People in Ming Dynasty have consciously pursued a kind of natural beauty and environmental beauty when drinking tea. The artistry of tea drinking in Ming Dynasty is also manifested in the pursuit of the beauty of tea drinking environment, which includes the number of tea drinkers and the natural environment. At that time, there was a saying about the number of people drinking tea: "One person gets the spirit, two people get the interest, three people get the taste, and seven or eight people are famous for giving tea." For the natural environment, it is best to stay in quiet mountainous areas, frugal wooden houses, Qingxi and Songtao, without noise.
The rise of loose tea in Ming dynasty caused the change of brewing method, and the original tea set in Tang and Song dynasties was no longer applicable. Teapots are more widely used in people's tea drinking life, and tea cups have changed from black glazed porcelain to white porcelain and blue and white porcelain, in order to better set off the color of tea. Besides white porcelain and celadon, Yixing teapot was the most prominent tea set in Ming Dynasty. Zisha tea set not only prospered because of the drinking method, but also catered to the spiritual needs of insipid, dignified, simple, natural, gentle and elegant pursued by the society at that time. There are many famous artists making teapot, such as Shi Dabin and Chen Yuanming. They have formed a certain genre and finally formed an independent art, so the rise of purple sand art is also a fruitful achievement of tea culture in Ming Dynasty. Qing dynasty: with the development of feudal agriculture and handicraft industry, the commodity economy was significantly improved compared with that of Ming dynasty, and tea production and trade were quite developed. The wind of drinking tea has further stepped out of the small circle created by literati and poets, and really entered ordinary lanes and into thousands of households.
Since the Qing Dynasty, the compilation of tea books has not been further innovated with the development of tea industry, but tea drinking technology and teahouse culture have been deeply rooted in people's hearts.
Kung Fu tea is popular in Guangdong, Fujian and other places in the south of China. The prosperity of Kung Fu tea has also led to special tea drinking utensils. For example, it is a kettle for boiling water, which is mainly white mud in eastern Guangdong and has a small mouth; Tea stove, made of fine white mud, truncated, one foot two or three inches high; The teapot is made of purple sand pottery. They are round, with flat bellies, big lips and big cranks, and can receive half a catty of water. Tea cups and saucers are mostly blue and white porcelain. The teacup is as small as a walnut and as thin as an eggshell, which is very delicate.
The Qing Dynasty was the heyday of China Teahouses. Teahouses, as a civilian-style tea drinking place, have mushroomed and developed rapidly. According to records, there are more than 30 famous teahouses in Beijing, and more in Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty, reaching 66. Teahouses in towns and villages are as developed as those in big cities, such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Some towns have only a few thousand residents, and there can be more than 100 teahouses.
Teahouse is a very noticeable content in China tea culture. The management and functional characteristics of teahouses in Qing Dynasty are as follows:
A place to drink tea, a dim sum diet and tea,
A place to study.
In addition to the above, teahouses are sometimes used as gambling places, especially in market towns in the south of the Yangtze River.
In addition, the teahouse sometimes acts as a "place for dispute adjudication". "Talking about tea", after various disputes in the neighborhood and rural areas, both sides often invite elders or middlemen who uphold justice to the teahouse to judge and solve them satisfactorily. If mediation fails, bowls and lamps will fly around and fight, and the teahouse will be unrecognizable.
Modern: 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 group with the purpose of promoting tea culture-"Tea People's Home"; 1983, Hubei Luyu Tea Culture Research Association was established; 1990, China Tea People's Association was established in Beijing. 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. All provinces, cities and tea-producing counties will hold "tea festivals", 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, Zhejiang Province, Yingshan, Hubei Province and Xinyang, Henan Province. They all use tea as a carrier to promote the all-round development of economy and trade.