There are different opinions on the origin of tea drinking in China: tracing back to the origin of tea drinking in China, some think that it originated from Shennong in ancient times, and some think that it originated from Zhou, Qin, Han and Three Kingdoms. The main reason for the different opinions is that the orthography of the word "tea" was "tea" before the Tang Dynasty. Lu Yu, the author of the Tang Dynasty tea classics, wrote "tea" by subtracting one picture from the word tea, so some people say that tea originated in the Tang Dynasty. But in fact, this is just a simplification of the text, and in the Han Dynasty, people already used the word tea. Lu Yu only summed up the history and culture of tea drinking by ancestors. The history of tea was many years earlier than that of the Tang Dynasty.
Mengding Mountain is the earliest place where tea was planted artificially in the history of China. It can be proved from Tong Yue written by Wang Bao and Legend of Planting Tea Trees in Mengshan written by Wu Lizhen that Mengding Mountain in Sichuan is the origin of tea planting and tea manufacturing.
(1) Shennong said
Yu's Tea Classic: "Tea is a kind of drink, which originated from Shennong." In the history of cultural development in China, the origin of all things related to agriculture and plants always belongs to Shennong. However, China's view that tea drinking originated from Shennong has different views due to folklore. Some people think that tea was discovered by Shennong when he was boiling water in a large pot outside the field. The boiled water is yellowish in color, which can quench your thirst and refresh yourself. According to Shennong's past experience of tasting herbal medicine, it was found that it was a kind of medicine. This is the most common statement about the origin of tea drinking in China. Another way of saying it is to attach it to pronunciation. It is said that Shennong has a crystal belly, and it can be seen from the appearance that food crawls in the gastrointestinal tract. When he tasted tea, he found that tea flowed everywhere in his stomach and the gastrointestinal tract was washed clean. So Shennong called this plant "tea" and then changed it into the word "tea", which became the origin of tea.
(2) Western Zhou theory
Jinchangqu's Eight Records of Huayang Country: "Zhou Wuwang really is the teacher of Bashu, and ... tea honey ... is paid tribute." According to records, when Zhou Wuwang attacked Zhou, Pakistan (now northern Sichuan and Hanzhong) had already paid tribute with tea and other valuables. It is also recorded in Huayang National Records that there were artificially cultivated tea gardens. Huayang Guozhi is the first ancient book to record tea in words, so it is of greater historical significance and more reliable.
(3) Qin and Han Dynasties
Wang Bao's contract in the Western Han Dynasty: The earliest and most reliable information about tea science was in the Han Dynasty, based on the contract written by Wang Bao. This article was written on the fifteenth day of the first month in the third year of Emperor Xuandi (59 BC). It is the most important document in the history of tea science before tea classics. The development of tea culture at that time was illustrated by the pen and ink in the article. The content is as follows:
There are guests in the house. Take a jar and hold it tightly. Draw water. Hello. Wash the whole box of cups. Pull garlic in the garden. Cut the breast with soy sauce. Establish meat and taro. It's hard to catch. There is everything you need to make tea. Feeding has covered up hiding. There are trees behind the house. When cut into boats. Go up to Jiangzhou. Go to the frying master. Ask government officials for money. Push spinning failure. Silly keyhole pavilion. Buy a seat and go back and forth. We should work for the interests of women. Sell it in a small market. Return to the capital. Open the bypass. Penny sells geese. Wuyang buys tea. Young's pool bears the load. Gather in the city. Be careful to protect thieves.
"brew tea is a perfect instrument" and "Wuyang buys tea" prove that this kind of tea is today's tea. It can be seen from the article that tea has become a part of the social diet at that time, and it is a rare thing to treat guests with courtesy, which shows the importance of tea in the social status at that time. In the Western Han Tomb of Mawangdui in Changsha, it was found that there were "□" and "□" bamboo slips and woodcuts in the catalogue of funerary objects. After textual research, the variant of □ means □, which shows that there was a custom of drinking tea in Hunan at that time.