The tea culture of the Song Dynasty is an important part of Chinese culture. Below is a basic introduction to the tea culture of the Song Dynasty that I have carefully compiled for you. Let’s take a look.
Basic introduction to the tea culture of the Song Dynasty
The tea drinking customs and forms of the Song Dynasty have the characteristics of the times and society in its historical time and space. In the Song Dynasty, more than 200 varieties of tea were produced nationwide. Among them, the royal tribute tea is the most representative. When the Northern Song Dynasty was first established, the Song Emperor set up a tea bureau and sent important ministers to supervise the production of royal tea. They finally selected the Fenghuang Mountain Beiyuan Tribute Tea in Jianzhou, Fujian as the royal tea. This was how the unique tea was born, opening up the Chinese tea industry. A new chapter in history. According to records, the royal tribute tea "Dragon Group Phoenix Cake" was created by Ding Wei, the prime minister during the Zhenzong period of the Song Dynasty, and the small "Dragon Group Phoenix Cake" was created by Cai Xiang, the four great calligraphers of the Song Dynasty and the history of Fujian's transportation. During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, Zheng Kejian's reformed "Long Tuan Sheng Xue" became a myth in the history of Chinese tea making and cannot be surpassed to this day. The beauty and essence of the Song Dynasty tribute tea attracted a large number of literati and writers. Drinking tea has not only become an important part of people's material life, but has also entered the spiritual life of the upper class and has become one of the themes of literature and art. During the "Two Song Dynasties" period, more than 180 poets and lyricists used articles to praise Song Dynasty tribute tea, and there were 400 poems. The tribute tea of ??the Song Dynasty records the footprints of the people of the Song Dynasty who deeply cultivated the history of tea, and records the glory of Song Tea in creating the history of tea. Jiancha can be found everywhere in poetry. Su Shi, a writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, associated good tea with beautiful women, and wrote a beautiful sentence: "Good tea has always been like a beautiful woman", which has been passed down by people. Lu You wrote more than 300 tea poems, becoming the poet who wrote the most about tea in all dynasties. Lu You had a special liking for Jiancha. He went to Fujian to work as a tea official and lived in Jianzhou, the place where tea was built. The famous line "Jianxi official tea is unparalleled in the world" comes from his "Jian'an Snow". Ouyang Xiu was delighted to get Jian Tea while he was ill. After tasting it, he wrote "He Mei Gongyi Tasted Jian Tea". "Don't praise Li Bai's cactus, and write Lu Tongzhu's pen seal", this is a poem by Mei Yaochen, which means that Beiyuan's "Longfeng Tuan Tea" can be compared with "Cactus Tea", and it can also be compared with "Yangxian Purple Bamboo Shoot Tea". Comparable.
Song tea became the national drink and the prosperity of tea culture in the Song Dynasty is inseparable from Song Huizong Zhao Ji. According to the "Xuanhe Beiyuan Tribute Tea Record", when Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty was on the throne, the imperial tea garden in Wuyi Mountain Beiyuan could no longer be limited to the traditional "Dragon and Phoenix Group Tea" for tribute. It had to follow the emperor's wishes and change its patterns to please the dragon. He refined dozens of kinds of tribute tea for the emperor to enjoy: white tea, "Longyuan Shengxue", "Yuyuan Yuya", and "Wanshou Longya" to name a few. Zhao Ji loved tea, not only because he was proficient in tea affairs and tea art, but he also wrote a "Tea Theory", which later generations called "Daguan Tea Theory", discussing the method of making tea and the true charm of tea ordering. The book says that the right way to drink tea is to first pay attention to the color, aroma and taste. It can be seen from this that Song Huizong not only knew how to order and brew tea, but also clearly understood the process of making tea and the aroma effect of drinking tea. Under the leadership of the emperor, as tea drinking became more and more important in social life, the number of tea books written in the Song Dynasty greatly exceeded that of the Tang Dynasty, with more than 30 kinds. Many of them have become classics that have been handed down to this day, and have become the writings on Chinese tea culture. precious heritage.
After the Tang Dynasty, the tea drinking style of the Song Dynasty penetrated into all strata of society and penetrated into every corner of daily life. In the Song Dynasty, Kaifeng city was dotted with tea houses, tea shops, teahouses, etc. Meng Yuanlao's "Tokyo Menghua Lu" and Zhang Zeduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" both describe the prosperous scene of teahouse business on both sides of the Bianhe River in Tokyo. Teahouses in the Song Dynasty paid great attention to decorations. Some hung famous calligraphy and paintings, while others placed flowers and bonsais, paying great attention to the beauty of the environment. "Mengliang Lu" records the teahouses at that time: "Bianjing Delicatessen has famous paintings hanging on them, so they seduce viewers and entertain diners." Today's tea shops in Hangzhou are like this, with seasonal flowers and paintings of celebrities decorating their facades. ? From banquets in the palace and government to gatherings between relatives and friends, from welcoming and sending off, socializing and entertaining on various occasions to the festive etiquette and customs of life, the breeze and fragrance of tea are everywhere, and tea fights and tea battles are everywhere. It is full of fun and elegant style. The tea ceremony flourished and the tea banquet flourished. The trend of tea fighting is strong, and it pays attention to the quality of tea, water quality, and beautiful utensils. The tea should be new and expensive, the water should be living water, and the utensils should be excellent.
Select the tea group, grind it into fine powder and put it into a cup, pour boiling water and stir. If the tea soup is pure white, then green and white, then gray and white. If there is no water mark on the cup, it is excellent, and if the water mark comes out first, it is negative. The king of tea "fights for tea", among the people there are secular tea fights between tea farmers and ordinary people; eminent monks love tea fights, there are Buddhist monks in monasteries who fight for tea; celebrities praise tea, and officials and scribes like poets and writers fight for tea. As the art of tea ordering continued to innovate, the art of tea ordering, which can form words and images in the tea soup, emerged. With the admiration of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty and a large number of literati and monks, they not only achieved the perfection of tea distribution, but also pushed Chinese tea culture to a historical climax.
The teahouses of the Song Dynasty were flexible in operation. In addition to being open during the day, they also provided morning tea and night tea. According to "Tokyo Menghua Lu", during the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a morning teahouse in Kaifeng that was lit every fifth watch. In addition to tea, the service also provides soup and refreshments. In addition to tea shops, tea houses, and teahouses selling tea and other beverages in fixed places, there were also people selling tea in bottles until midnight in Kaifeng in the Northern Song Dynasty. People in Gaidu worked in public and private affairs and returned late at night. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou had a night market with carts and floating stalls on the streets, where visitors could order tea and soup, and provide tea drinking services to officials, merchants or citizens who were still active and playing late at night. In the streets and alleys, there are people who carry tea bottles and order tea at the door, or look at the day, order tea to the neighbors and communicate with them when encountering good or bad events, which provides great convenience for the daily life of the citizens.
The tea style and tea ceremony of the Song Dynasty were popular all over the world. Kaifeng was once the center of tea culture in the world. The tea economy accounted for about 5% of the fiscal revenue at that time. The tea drinking culture in the Song Dynasty was more profound and influenced the formation of tea ceremonies in Japan, Korea and other countries. Tea existed in Japan, probably before the Heian period. According to literature at that time, tea was brought back to Japan by Saicho, a Japanese monk who was studying in China at that time, and was first promoted in temples. Similar to Chinese tea, Japanese tea has also experienced a process from medicinal use to drinking. Zen Master Eisai, who is revered as the "father of Japanese tea", brought tea seeds back from the Song Dynasty and distributed them to Chikuzenbeizhenzan and other places, which were planted in Uji and other places. He also brought the complete tea-eating rituals of the Song Dynasty Zen monastery to Japan. In 1235, the Japanese monk Ener Benen went to the Song Dynasty to seek Dharma and brought tea from Jingshan Temple back to his hometown of Shizuoka. Since then, the tradition of Japanese tea ceremony - Zen tea - has been firmly established. The Japanese Matcha Tea Ceremony is mainly inherited from the Chinese Tea Ceremony of the Song Dynasty.
The tea fights and "tea games" of the Song Dynasty are the legends of Chinese tea culture. In view of the booming tea-horse trade, the Song Dynasty began to set up a tea-horse department in the imperial court, which was responsible for exchanging tea for horses from surrounding ethnic minorities. Horses are an important war material. The Northern Song Dynasty court set up a tea and horse department to facilitate the court to control various ethnic minority areas. At the same time, the tea-horse trade also promoted the promotion of the culture of ethnic minorities, especially tea culture, and gradually produced black tea (border tea), a tea specially supplied to ethnic minority areas.
Chinese tea evolved from medicinal and edible use to later drinking. Not only has its use value been fully explored, but a unique tea culture has also been formed around the drinking of tea. Boiled in the Tang Dynasty, brewed in the Song Dynasty, and brewed in the Ming Dynasty, it gradually became a classical drink, a romantic drink, and a natural drink. However, only the tea culture of the Song Dynasty rose from tea to tea. ?’s romantic realm can be called the pinnacle of Chinese tea culture.
In Kaifeng today, the Song Dynasty is vigorous and the ancient charm still exists. The cultural industry is prosperous and cultural projects are brilliant. The two major national festivals, the Qingming Cultural Festival every spring and the Chrysanthemum Cultural Festival every golden autumn, have become brands and carriers for inheriting and displaying the treasures of Chinese civilization. When you come to Kaifeng, every step you take is culture, every sound you hear is legend, and every look is beautiful. It inherits the history and civilization of palace culture, government culture, calligraphy and painting culture, religious culture, food culture, celebrity culture, and folk culture. , chrysanthemum culture and tea culture of the Song Dynasty can all be rematerialized from the lingering fragrance of tea smoke into the feast of the imperial court, the exquisiteness of food, the delicacy of official porcelain, the softness of Bian embroidery, the freshness of woodblock New Year pictures and the beauty of calligraphy and painting. Zen state allows you to feel the rich history and experience the beautiful culture immersively.
The history of tea culture in the Song Dynasty
The Chinese tea industry flourished in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty, so the tea culture in the Song Dynasty was naturally also very prosperous.
The reason why tea culture flourished in the Song Dynasty was because there were a group of people who were enthusiastic about tea culture. From the emperor Zhao Ji to the great poet Su Dongpo, more than 370 tea lovers in China have written poems, essays and monographs about tea.
In the Song Dynasty, the court, local officials, and literati respected tea and regarded it as an elegant thing to gather together to drink tea, which further promoted the spread of tea drinking. Cai Xiang, the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, wrote "Tea Records", and Zhao Ji, Huizong of the Song Dynasty, wrote "Daguan Tea Theory". Tea became a drink for the whole country. The tea culture of the Tang Dynasty was led by literati and hermit monks, while the tea culture of the Song Dynasty has moved towards society. At the same time, tea style also emerged in the court. Taizu Zhao Kuangyin was fond of tea, and Huizong Zhao Ji wrote "Daguan Tea Theory". After tea entered the palace, it also gained a royal aura.
Tea culture has also emerged widely among the people. Not only the palace has ceremonial tea, nobles have ceremonial tea, scholar-bureaucrats have tea play, but also citizens have tea fights.
Methods of the development of tea culture in the Song Dynasty
The depth of tea science
Compared with the tea science in the Tang Dynasty, the tea science in the Song Dynasty made many achievements in depth. Due to the southward shift of the tea industry, the tribute tea industry is dominated by Jian'an Beiyuan, so many tea researchers also tend to focus on Jian'an tea, especially the research on Beiyuan tribute tea, which is both in-depth and sophisticated, and has an academic reputation. The topic has a strong color of the times and region. After these studies were handed down in the form of books, they provided detailed information for the current study of tea history and tea culture in the Song Dynasty. Among the tea writings of the Song Dynasty, the more famous ones include Ye Qingchen's "Short Notes on Cooking Tea", Cai Xiang's "Tea Records", Song Zian's "Dongxi Tea Test Records", Shen Kuo's "Tea Method of this Dynasty", Zhao Ji's "Daguan" "Tea Theory" etc. Among the authors of tea science in the Song Dynasty, there are Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, who was the leader of the country, Ding Wei and Cai Xiang, the court ministers and writers, the famous natural scientist Shen Kuo, as well as rural Confucians, Jinshi, and even those whose real names are unknown to this day. The hermit "keeps an eye on the old man". Judging from the identities of these authors, tea studies in the Song Dynasty were rich in talents and research levels. The research content includes the comparison of tea origins, tea cooking techniques, tea leaf type, the relationship between raw materials and finished tea, tea drinking utensils, tea fighting process and appreciation, tea quality evaluation, the name and reality of Beiyuan tribute tea, etc.
Because tea science in the Song Dynasty focused more on building tea, it had new developments in depth and system compared with the Tang Dynasty.
Strong advocacy by the royal family