Introduction of tea set

Tea set, called tea set or tea set in ancient times. The word "tea set" first appeared in the Han Dynasty. According to Wang Bao, a poet in the Western Han Dynasty, there is a saying that "there is no end to making tea, and the hole has been hidden". This is the historical data that China first mentioned "tea set". By the Tang Dynasty, the word "tea set" could be seen everywhere in Tang poetry. For example, Lu Guimeng, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, said in the General Record of Lingling: "Visitors are not limited, and they will hold tea sets." Bai Juyi's "Tea after Sleeping" "This disposal rope bed has a tea washer next to it." Pi Rixiu, a writer in the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem about the pavilion of Chu family, in which Xiao Shugui moved the tea set. The word "tea set" can be found in all kinds of books in the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties. For example, in the History of Song Dynasty, it is said that "the emperor mourned the purple palace and the six officials lived in the north ... which is a famous fruit given to tea sets by Japan". The emperor of the Song Dynasty gave a "tea set" as a gift. Weng Juan, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote: "I can never get tired of seeing Huang Ting on one axis, and I carry tea sets with me." The famous sentence, Yuan painter Wang Mian's "Blowing Xiao Out of the Gorge" has "hip flask and tea set on board." At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Xu Ze, a painter known as the "Four Masters of Wuzhong", took the opportunity to write: "The tea set is still late, and the pot does not knock." It is not difficult to see that both poets in the Tang and Song Dynasties and painters in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties can often read the poem Tea Set. It shows that tea set is an inseparable and important part of tea culture.

The origin of tea set

What modern people call a "tea set". Mainly refers to teapots, teacups and other tea drinking utensils. Actually, there are only a handful of modern tea sets. But the ancient concept of "tea set" seems to refer to a wider range. According to Pi Rixiu, a writer in the Tang Dynasty, the types of tea sets listed in "Ten Odes on Tea Sets" are "tea dock, tea man, tea bamboo shoots, tea sticks, teahouses, tea stoves, tea baking, tea ding, tea ou and boiled tea." Among them, "tea dock" refers to the concave land where tea is planted. "Tea man" refers to tea pickers. For example, the Book of Tea says, "Tea people use tea sets to pick tea."

A "teapot" is a kind of appliance packed in boxes and cages. Tang Lugui dreamed of writing a poem "The Poem of Tea Storehouse", "The golden knife splits Cui Yun like a ripple weave." It can be seen that "tea barn" is a kind of tea set woven with bamboo and twill, and "teahouse" refers to the small hut where tea people live. One day in Pi Rixiu's Tea House Poetry in the Tang Dynasty, "Yang Yachen lived in the house for a few days, and the shed was filled with red springs, and the firewood fern was fried before baking. After Weng studied tea, women in China took a tea break, covered each other with firewood, and filled the mountains with incense. The poem describes the tea-making process in which people in teahouses bake, grind, stir-fry and pat tea.

The ancients used a stove (charcoal stove) to cook tea. Since the Tang Dynasty, the stove for boiling tea has been called "tea stove". The Biography of Lu Guimeng in the Tang Dynasty said that he lived in Songjiang House and didn't like to associate with the common customs. Although he built a door, he refused to see it. He didn't ride a horse or take a boat. All day, he just "pitched a tent for dinner." A pile of books and tea stoves. Yang Wanli, who claimed to be a "scattered man" and was known as one of the "Four Wonders" after the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote the words "a bed, a tea stove, a earthen pot and a rattan statue". Chen Tao, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in Poems on Purple Bamboo: "The fragrance enters the tea stove, and the game is quiet and straight. "It can be seen that the literati in the Tang and Song Dynasties can't do without the' tea stove' whether they study or play chess, and the tea stove is combined with the pen bed and earthen basin. It can be seen that the' tea stove' has been a daily necessity since the Tang Dynasty.

In ancient times, the apparatus for drying tea leaves was called "baking tea". According to "History of Song Dynasty Geography", "There is Beiyuan Baked Tea in Jian 'an. "It's famous, and according to the Book of Tea, baked tea is a kind of bamboo weaving, and it is wrapped in Indocalamus leaves. Because the leaves have the function of collecting fire, you can avoid roasting the tea leaves yellow. If the tea leaves are placed on a tea baking tray, it is required to bake at a low temperature, so as not to destroy the color and fragrance of the tea leaves.

In addition to the tea set illustrated above. Tea can also be found in various ancient books: teapot, teapot, tea house, tea mortar, tea cabinet, tea press, tea trough, tea basket, tea board, saucer, tea bag, tea spoon, teaspoon and so on. How many kinds of tea sets are there? According to "Friends of Cloud Creek", "Twenty-four things Lu Yu made tea sets." According to Ten Teasets and Friends of Yunxi, writers of the Tang Dynasty, there were at least 24 kinds of ancient tea sets. The concept of "tea set" mentioned in this historical material is very different from today.

Improvement of tea set in the late Middle Ages

Before the ancients drank tea, they had to fry it on the stove. Before the Tang Dynasty, the method of drinking tea was to grind tea into fine powder and add ointment, rice flour and so on. Make tea balls or cakes, mash them when drinking, and add seasoning to fry them. Since the Tang Dynasty, scholars have been arguing about when tea was cooked. For example, Ouyang Xiu's Postscript Collection of Ancient Records in Song Dynasty said: "The history of tea has been covered since Wei and Jin Dynasties." Later generations saw that there was a "tea-frying man" in Wei's "Kanshu Collection". Therefore, it is considered that tea frying began in Wei and Jin Dynasties. According to the south window notes, "tea drinking began in Tian Liang prison (AD 502)." According to Wang Bao's "Love Covenant", there is a saying that "making tea has everything", so it can be seen that cooking tea requires a set of utensils. It can be seen that there were tea sets in the Western Han Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, with the vigorous development of tea-drinking culture, steaming, roasting, frying and other technologies were more mature. According to the "Painter", "In Zhenyuan period (AD 785), the long stick was the secretariat of the state. It was first steamed and then baked, and it was called paste tea, and then it was slightly pie-shaped, so it was called string." Tea cakes and tea skewers must be boiled with a tea set before drinking. This will undoubtedly promote the reform of tea sets and enter a new era of tea sets.

In the late Middle Ages, during the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, a kind of "teacup" made of copper was used to make tea. According to Records of the Historian, since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, tea-making utensils have been called "teacups", also known as "wind cups". Lu You's "Poems of Crossing the Temple" Day: "When tea is smoked, you know the fun, but the chess pieces are hard to know." According to this, there were "tea cups" in the land tour period of the Song Dynasty, and the famous tea cups in the Yuan Dynasty were "Jiangzhu tea cups". "Eight Chapters of Respecting Saints" said: "In the Yuan Dynasty, there were two casting methods, Jiang Niangzi and Ji Wang, which were very famous at that time." These two casting methods mainly wax the surface of the pot to make it smooth and beautiful, and there are exquisite patterns on the teapot. "The method is ancient and the style is impressive," he added. "Copper smelting is also clean ... or made." Real refers to gold plating. It can be seen that the tea cups in Yuan Dynasty were exquisite, and the "bronze tea cups" were widely used in Ming Dynasty, which was characterized by paying attention to carving skills in workmanship. Among them, there is a kind of gluttonous copper, which was the most luxurious in the Ming Dynasty. "Gourmet" is an ancient name of an evil beast. This carved animal shape is common in ancient Zhongding Yi wares. This is an exquisite carving decoration. It can be seen that the cups in the Ming Dynasty are antique and their carving skills are outstanding.

In the late Middle Ages in China, in addition to the teacups used for making tea, there were also "soup bottles" specially used for boiling water. At that time, it was commonly known as "blowing tea" or "chopsticks", also known as "firewood". The ancients in China first used pots and pans to boil water. "Huai Nan Zi said the mountain training" contained: "Taste a cup of meat and know the taste of an iron pot." Gao: "There is enough sunshine in the pot, but there is not enough sunshine in the pot." During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, some areas in southern China were called iron pots. According to historical records, it was not until the late Middle Ages that the ancient method of boiling water with tripod and iron pot was gradually replaced by "soup bottle".

In the past, some writers believed that the method of "making tea" (that is, "ordering tea") appeared in China before and after the Yuan Dynasty, so it changed the water-boiling apparatus in the Yuan Dynasty (referring to the reformed soup bottle). However, according to the historical data collected by the author, the bottle of boiling water existed in the Southern Song Dynasty. By the way, here are two historical materials. It is recorded in Luo Dajing's "He Lin Yu Lu" in the Southern Song Dynasty: "In the tea classics, fish, springs and lotus beads are the festival of boiling water. But recently (referring to the Southern Song Dynasty), tea has been rotten, and it is difficult to wait until the water boils in the pot. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish one boiling, two boiling and three boiling by sound. " According to Luo Dajing's meaning, in the past (before the Southern Song Dynasty), it was easy to observe the boiling degree of water when boiling water with a tripod and an iron pot, but it was difficult to observe the boiling degree of water when boiling water with a bottle, because the bottle mouth was small, so we had to judge the boiling degree of water by listening to the sound of water. "He Lin Yu Lu" also said: "Lu Yu's legal basis (refers to broken tea powder) Lu Yu, a native of the Tang Dynasty, is the author of the Tea Classic and is considered to be the founder of the rise of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty. Such a tea maker used a "wok" to boil water, which shows that the "soup bottle" was not used in the Tang Dynasty. According to Su Shi, a writer in the Song Dynasty, when talking about boiling water, he said, "The crab's eyes have crossed the fish's eyes, and he wants to make a song ... A silver bottle of diarrhea soup praises two, and I don't know what the ancients meant by decocting water. "Su Shi's poems can be used as another good example of" soup bottle "boiling water since the Song Dynasty.

In the Ming dynasty, it was more common to make tea with "soup bottles", and the styles and varieties of soup bottles also increased. According to the types of metals, there are tin bottles, lead bottles and copper bottles. At that time, the tea bottles were mostly bamboo tubes. Wen Zhenheng, the author of Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, said that this bamboo tube soup bottle has the advantages of "no leakage of fire, and it is convenient to take notes (make tea)". It can be seen that soup bottles can be used for boiling water as well as making tea. At the same time, porcelain tea bottles began to be used in the Ming Dynasty, but because "porcelain bottles boil water, although they do not take away the taste of soup, they are not suitable and unsightly." Therefore, in fact, porcelain tea bottles were not used in daily life in the Ming Dynasty. There are also grotesque works in the "tea bottle" of the Ming Dynasty. See Collection of Ancient Couplets' Poems and Pearls. "After sucking up the water in the south of the Yangtze River, Pang Lao will never know himself again. It is as rotten as mud, and there are three bottles of tribute tea." There were three tea bottles in the Ming Dynasty, which was unusual and divorced from the reality of life. There is no doubt that this strange tea bottle can only be used as a collection decoration, that's all.

Tea drinking has been improved and developed since the Tang and Song Dynasties.

Ancient tea-drinking tea set mainly refers to the utensils used to hold tea, make tea and drink tea. This concept is basically the same as the tea set mentioned today. Tea-drinking tea sets since the Tang and Song Dynasties are mainly ceramics, while metal tea-drinking tea sets since the Tang and Song Dynasties are rare. Because metal tea sets are far inferior to ceramics, they can't go to the so-called elegant tea ceremony table. The main tea arts that have changed greatly since the Tang Dynasty are: teapot, teacup and tea bowl. These tea sets are directly related to the rise of tea drinking culture.

(1) teapot

Teapots existed before the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang dynasty, people called the teapot "Zhu", which means pouring water out of the spout. According to "Random Books", "In the early Yuan Dynasty (Tang Xianzong in 806 AD), people still drank from bottles ... This banknote is like a poppy with a lid, a mouth and a handle." Poppy is a bottle with a small mouth and a big belly. Teapots in the Tang Dynasty are similar to bottles, with a big belly to hold more water and a small mouth to make tea and fill it with water. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, people didn't like the name "Zhuzi", and even removed the handle of the teapot to look like a "Ming bottle". Because there is no handle, the teapot is called "sheet handle". Later generations called making tea "point note". It is based on the name of "Zhuzi" in the teapot of the Tang Dynasty.

The art of tea ceremony in Ming Dynasty became more and more exquisite, especially in making tea, watching brown color, holding lamps and ironing pots. To meet such high requirements, tea sets must be reformed and innovated. For example, teapots in the Ming Dynasty began to pay attention to the teapot, which is a new pursuit of tea art. Because the teapot does not absorb tea fragrance and the tea color is not damaged, it is regarded as a good product. According to Chronicle of Long History, "the teapot is topped with sand, and the lid of the teapot neither steals incense nor smells hot soup." Speaking of Yixing sand pot, almost everyone knows it. Yixing sand pot was only famous in the Ming Dynasty. According to historical records, there was a Potter named Gong Chun in Yixing in Ming Dynasty, who was the first person to be famous for Yixing sand pot.

"Yang Xianming Lu Tao" records: "For spring, Wu Yishan's home is also." Wu Yishan is a scholar, studying in Jinsha Temple, offering sacrifices to spring, and secretly imitating the old monks in the temple to make pottery pots. In this way, the teapot filled with tea leaves has a strong aroma and the heat lasts longer. As soon as the rumor spread, the world followed suit, and there was a phenomenon that the society rushed to buy "a casserole for spring". Gong Chunzhen's surname is Gong. So it was written as "Gongchun" sand pot. Then there was an Yixing Potter named Shi Dabin, who made clay pots with clay or dyed white sand clay. Shi Dabin initially imitated the "spring offering" sand pot, which was bigger in shape than the "spring offering" sand pot. Once Shi Dabin went to Taicang, Jiangsu Province on business, I occasionally heard the saying of "tea for tea" in the teahouse. I suddenly realized that I started a small pot after returning to Yixing. Its pot is "not flattering, but elegant and wonderful ... and can't be compared with famous artists before and after." "Drawing a Sail Record" said: "The pot of the big guest is known by the thumb mark on the handle." In other words, people all over the world value those who know Shi Dabin's thumb print on the handle of the pot. Since then, Yixing sand pot has gained great fame, and it is still a refined tea set that everyone loves.

(2) Teacups and bowls

In ancient times, tea sets mainly included "teacups" (bowls), "teacups" and other ceramic products. Tea cups existed before the Tang Dynasty. Boya said, "One cup." Song dynasty began to have the name of "teacup". See "Lu You Shi" cloud: "The cane sticks sometimes stare at the stone, and the wind furnace disposes of the teacups." Modern people often call it a teacup or teacup. Tea cup is a small cup used for drinking tea in ancient times, and it is one of the indispensable instruments in the "tea ceremony" culture. As we all know, the tea culture in China rose in the Han and Tang Dynasties and flourished in the Song Dynasty. Tea cups have also undergone great changes with the rise of tea culture.

Tea cups in the Song Dynasty paid great attention to the quality of ceramics, especially the quality of the cup body, the fine grain and the uniform thickness. According to Cai Xiang's Book of Tea in Song Dynasty, "Tea is white and should be black. The maker of Jian 'an is black, and the grain is rabbit hair. Its cup is slightly thick, so it is difficult to be cold after being heated for a long time. Using it is the most important thing. Those who go out of town, whether thin or purple, are not as good as it. It's blue and white. You don't have to argue. "According to this historical data, it can be seen that if white leaf tea is served and red tea cups are selected, it means that the collocation relationship of tea sets has been noticed at that time. The purpose of collocation is to have better brown color and fragrance. A reddish red teacup made by Jian 'an in Song Dynasty (now Jian 'ou in Fujian) was regarded as a good product by people at that time. Secondly, we can see that the quality of the teacup was identified at that time, and there were fine lines on the surface of the teacup. For example, Jian 'an's red tea cups have been refined to the point of "rabbit hair", which shows that the level of ceramic art is very high. Watch Fire again. The idea of "fire fighting" in Guang Yun means "fire fighting" in Jiyun. The "simmering fire" here actually refers to the degree of heat dissipation in the teacup. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jiangsu Baoying and Gaoyou called "simmering fire" "hot hands". The "black cup" produced in Jian 'an in the Song Dynasty is thicker than that produced in other areas, so it has the advantage of "being hot for a long time and hard to cool" in your hand. Therefore, it is regarded as the first-class product of tea lanterns in Song Dynasty.

Historical Records also recorded the imperial tea lamp of the Ming emperor. It can be said that it is the most perfect masterpiece of ancient tea cup technology in China. Historical Records says: "Zhu Zhanji (Ming Xuanzong) liked to use" pointed teacups, which are exquisite and elegant, heavy and hard to cool, and white as jade. You can try brown and win the first cup. "Three-legged teacups are rare in the world. The cup shape of Xuanzong in the Ming Dynasty is really strange, which shows that the potters in the Ming Dynasty are active in thinking and brave in innovation. In addition, the 11th emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Ming Shizong (Zhu Houzong), liked to use an altar-shaped tea lamp called "altar lamp". The altar lamp of Sejong in the Ming Dynasty was specially engraved with the words "golden basket for altar". The altar is a place where ancient Taoist priests set up an altar to pray. Due to the superstition of Taoism in the late Sejong period of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese affairs were "fasting bait pills". He filled the "altar" with tea soup and fruit wine, and often sat alone in the altar, sipping the altar lamp in his hand and praying to God for eternal life. However, this superstition did not make the emperor live long. He died at the age of 59.

According to historical records, the precious tea cups in Ming Dynasty mainly include the products of "Ding Bai Kiln", which refers to the white porcelain kiln built in Dingzhou in Song Dynasty. In Dingzhou, the porcelain cups in the kiln are decorated with flowers, strokes, prints, peony, day lilies, phoenix and so on. Bonus and white. At that time, people mainly distinguished the authenticity of Dingbai porcelain from whether it was white and moist, or from the glaze color such as bamboo silk and white lines. Because Dingzhou porcelain is white, it is called Fending or Ding Bai. Although the teacups in Ding Bai Kiln were white, smooth and moist, they were always regarded as "hidden toys, not suitable for daily use" in the Ming Dynasty. Why can't such a beautiful teacup be used as a daily necessities? There is a simple reason. When the ancients drank tea, they wanted to "order tea". Before ordering tea, they must burn the lamp with hot water. Heat up the teacup. If the teacup is cold but not hot, the brown color will not float, so it will also affect the brown color and taste. The disadvantage of white teacups is that they are fragile when they are hot. That is, it is hot and easy to break, which can be described as beautiful and not easy to use, so it was collected as a boutique plaything by the Ming people.

Bowl, called "Yi" or "Yi" in ancient times. In the pre-Qin period, another "ghost domain" appeared. "Gouzi" said: "Lu people use foreigners, Wei people use grams" (original note: foreigners are foreigners, and danger is grams). Dialect also says: "Chu, Wei and Song are called jars." It can be seen that Yi, Yi and Ke are all daily necessities shaped like concave basins, so the ancients called them "basins". Modern people are used to separating the bowl from Meng.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the bowl used to hold tea was called "tea lamp" (bowl), which was smaller than the bowl used for eating. The use of this kind of tea set is reflected in many poems in Tang and Song Dynasties. For example, Tang Bai Juyi's Poem of Idle Eyes says: "One meal and two bowls of tea during the day, nothing goes unnoticed." A poet who drinks two bowls of tea at a meal can know that in ancient times, the tea bowls were neither too big nor too small. See Han Yu's Meng Jiao couplets: "The clouds are silent and listening, and the tea bowls are exquisite and delicate." Exquisite is not just exquisite. Based on this, we can be sure that the tea bowls in the Tang Dynasty were neither big nor round.

Tea bowls are also common tea sets in the Tang Dynasty. It's a little bigger than a teacup, but it's different from today's rice bowl. It is a "slim" shape, such as the shape of an ancient wine glass. From the perspective of poetry, the literati in Tang and Song Dynasties drank tea in a big bowl and enjoyed the booze of washing their poems with tea, which reflected from the side that ancient literati had an indissoluble bond with drinking tea.

Differences and connections between ancient and modern tea sets

The concept of ancient tea set is slightly different from that of modern tea set. The "tea set" in the Tang and Song Dynasties seems to be divided into big concepts and small concepts. For example, the "tea set" written by many poets in the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties mainly refers to teacups, teapots, teacups and other utensils related to drinking tea, so it is a small concept. From the big concept, Pi Rixiu, a writer in the Tang Dynasty, pointed out that there are ten items, including making tea, serving tea, baking tea sets, drinking tea-related utensils, and even tea men and teahouses. According to Yunxi Friendship, there are twenty-four tea sets. Obviously, the latter two are big concept tea sets, which are different from today.

Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, ancient gold, silver and jade tea sets have been gradually replaced by copper and ceramic tea sets, mainly because during the Tang and Song Dynasties, there was a general trend that household copper porcelain did not value precious jade articles. According to the notes of the Song Dynasty, "in the Tang and Song Dynasties, jade was not expensive, but copper (porcelain) was expensive". Compared with jade, copper tea set is cheaper and has good boiling performance. Ceramic tea sets can not only hold tea, but also keep aroma, so they are easy to popularize and are loved by the public. This change from metal tea set to ceramic tea set also reflects that people's cultural views, values and practical orientation of daily necessities have changed since the Tang and Song Dynasties, which is a sign of cultural progress in the Tang and Song Dynasties to a great extent.

Moreover, since the Tang and Song Dynasties, ceramic tea sets have obviously replaced the metal and jade tea sets in the past, which is also directly related to the development of ceramic technology production in the Tang and Song Dynasties. Generally speaking, China's porcelain production began to advance by leaps and bounds in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, China's porcelain production has entered a prosperous stage. For example, the porcelain products of the Tang Dynasty have reached the point of smoothness and lightness. Tang Pirixiu said: "Xing Ke and Ren Yue can make porcelain, which is as round as the soul of the moon and as light as a cloud." At that time, "Yue people" mostly referred to the eastern part of Zhejiang. More artificial porcelain is shaped like a full moon and as light as a cloud. Therefore, it is also known as "Jinling Bowl, the more porcelain". Wang Shu wrote a poem saying: "Jinling contains the light of cornucopia, and the secret color is the sound of celadon." Porcelain-making technology in Song Dynasty is unique, with many famous kilns, such as Dingzhou White Kiln. Song Shizong had a "firewood kiln". It is said that the porcelain produced by "Chai Kiln" is "colorful as the sky and sound like a rock". During the political period of the Northern Song Dynasty, Kyoto built its own kiln to burn porcelain and named it "official kiln". After the Southern Crossing in the Northern Song Dynasty, Shao Li's backyard was named "Shaoju", and after imitating the legacy of the Northern Song Dynasty, he set up a kiln to repair celadon and named it "Inner Kiln". The porcelain in the inner kiln is "brilliant in oil and precious in the world." During the Daguan period in the Song Dynasty (1107-110), the color of Jingdezhen pottery changed, such as vermilion (red), for the sake of tribute. During the Daguan period, the tribute porcelain of the imperial court required "correct combination, flawless jade quality and consistent color." The Song court ordered Ruzhou to build a "green kiln ware", which was made of agate, not used as oil, but also had bright colors. At that time, only a little celadon porcelain from Gong Yu Palace could be sold. "It is rare in the world." Ru kiln is considered as the main porcelain kiln in Song Dynasty. According to historical data, the prices of teacups and drinking tea bottles at that time were as expensive as those of "selling rich rooms, and the prices of gold and jade." In addition to the above examples, there were many folk kilns in the Song Dynasty, such as Wuni Kiln, Yuhang Kiln and Continued Kiln. The porcelain produced is also very beautiful and considerable. In a word, the rise of ceramic technology in Tang and Song Dynasties is the fundamental reason for the improvement and development of tea sets in Tang and Song Dynasties.

Classification of tea sets

Metal utensils refer to utensils made of metal materials such as gold, silver, copper, iron and tin. It is one of the oldest daily utensils in China. As early as18th century BC to 1500 years before Qin Shihuang unified China in 22/kloc-0 BC. Ancestors used bronzes to make plates, hold water, make cups and hold wine. These bronzes can naturally be used to hold tea.

From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Six Dynasties, tea as a drink gradually became a fashion, and tea sets were gradually separated from other drinking utensils. About the Northern and Southern Dynasties, gold and silver utensils including tea drinking utensils appeared in China. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the production of gold and silver wares reached its peak.

In the mid-1980s, a set of gold-plated tea set offered by Tang Xizong was unearthed from Famen Temple in Fufeng, Shaanxi Province, which is a rare treasure among metal tea sets. But since the Song Dynasty, the ancients had different views on metal tea sets. After the Yuan Dynasty, especially since the Ming Dynasty, with the innovation of tea, the change of tea drinking methods and the rise of ceramic tea sets, metal tea sets, including silverware, gradually disappeared, especially tea sets made of metals such as tin, iron and lead, which were regarded as "distorting the taste of tea" and were rarely used. However, metal tea storage vessels, such as tin bottles and tin cans, are not uncommon. This is because metal tea containers have better sealing performance than paper, bamboo, wood, porcelain and pottery. And has better moisture-proof and anti-rotation optical properties, which is more conducive to the preservation of loose tea. Therefore, tea storage containers made of tin are still popular in the world.

Porcelain tea set

There are many kinds of porcelain tea sets, including: porcelain tea sets, white porcelain tea sets, black porcelain tea sets and colored porcelain utensils. These tea sets once had a glorious page in the history of tea culture development in China.

(1) porcelain tea set.

The quality produced in Zhejiang is the best. As early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, celadon with pure color and light transmission was produced. Yue Kiln, Wu Kiln and Ou Kiln in the Jin Dynasty in Zhejiang Province all had considerable scale. By the Song Dynasty, the porcelain tea set produced by Zhejiang Longquan Ge Kiln, one of the five famous kilns at that time, had reached its peak and sold well all over the country. The porcelain tea set in Ming Dynasty is famous at home and abroad for its delicate texture, dignified shape, turquoise glaze and elegant pattern. /kloc-at the end of 0/6, Longquan celadon was exported to France, causing a sensation throughout France. Compared with the beautiful blue robe of Sheraton, the heroine in the famous drama Shepherdess, people call Longquan celadon "Sheraton" and regard it as a rare treasure. At present, the porcelain tea set and Zhejiang Longquan have made new development, and new products are constantly coming out. This kind of tea set not only has many advantages of porcelain tea set, but also is beneficial to the beauty of soup color when it is used to brew green tea. However, using it to brew black tea, white tea, yellow tea and black tea will easily make tea soup lose its true color, which seems to have shortcomings.

⑵ White porcelain tea set

It has the characteristics of compact and transparent body, high firing degree of glaze and pottery, no water absorption and long sound and rhyme. Because of its white color, it can reflect the color of tea soup, moderate heat transfer and insulation performance, bright color and different shapes, and it can be called a treasure in tea drinking utensils. As early as the Tang Dynasty, the white porcelain produced in Yao Xing, Hebei Province had been "widely used by all countries". In the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi also wrote poems praising the white porcelain tea bowls produced in Dayi, Sichuan. By the Yuan Dynasty, the white porcelain tea set in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province had been exported to foreign countries. Today's white porcelain tea set is brand-new. This white glazed tea set is suitable for brewing all kinds of tea. In addition, white porcelain tea sets are beautifully shaped and elegantly decorated, with mountains and rivers, flowers and plants in four seasons, birds and animals, stories of people, or decorated with celebrity calligraphy, which is quite artistic, so they are most commonly used.

⑶ Black porcelain tea set

Black porcelain tea set began in the late Tang Dynasty, flourished in the Song Dynasty, continued in the Yuan Dynasty and declined in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This is because since the Song Dynasty, the method of drinking tea.

The method of frying tea in Tang dynasty gradually changed into the method of ordering tea, and the popular fighting tea in Song dynasty created conditions for the rise of black porcelain tea sets.

Song people weigh the effect of fighting tea, and look at the color and uniformity of tea noodle soup, taking "fresh white" as the first; Second, look at the water mark at the junction of the soup flower and the teacup, and take "water mark on the teacup" as the top priority. At that time, Cai Xiang, who was appointed by the three secretaries, made it very clear in Tea Record:

"Seeing his face clearly, wearing waterless marks is excellent; In the battle of Jian 'an, the water mark is the first negative, and the durable one wins. "And that black porcelain tea set,

As Zhu Mu said in the Song Dynasty's Yu Fang Sheng Lan, "Brown and white, with black lights, its marks are easy to check." Therefore, the black porcelain teacups in Song Dynasty became the largest variety of porcelain tea sets. Jian Yao in Fujian, Jizhou Kiln in Jiangxi and Yuci Kiln in Shanxi all produce a large number of black porcelain tea sets, which have become the main producing areas of black porcelain tea sets. In the kiln of black porcelain tea set, the "floor lamp" produced by the kiln is the most praised. Cai Xiang's Tea Story says:

"The creator of Jian 'an ... is the most important thing. Those who go out from other places, whether thin or purple, are not as good as them. "The formula for building a lamp is unique. In the firing process, the glaze shows rabbit stripes, partridge spots and sun spots. Once the tea soup is served,

It can radiate colorful little brilliance and increase the interest of fighting tea. Since the Ming Dynasty, because the method of cooking is different from that of the Song Dynasty, black porcelain lanterns are "unsuitable" and only used as "backup".

⑷ Colored porcelain tea set

There are many kinds of colored tea sets, among which blue and white porcelain tea sets are the most eye-catching. Blue-and-white porcelain tea set, in fact, refers to a kind of apparatus which uses cobalt oxide as colorant, directly paints patterns and ornamentation on the porcelain body, then coats a layer of transparent glaze, and then reduces and fires it in a kiln at a high temperature of about 1300℃.

But the understanding of "blue" in the color of "blue and white" is different in ancient and modern times. The ancients called black, blue, cyan and green "cyan", so the meaning of "blue and white" is wider than today. Characterized in that:

Blue and white patterns are interesting and pleasing to the eye; The color is elegant, quiet and beautiful, flashy but not obvious.

Brilliant power. In addition, the glaze on the pigment makes it moist and bright, which adds the charm of the blue and white tea set.

It was not until the middle and late Yuan Dynasty that mass production of blue-and-white porcelain tea sets began, especially Jingdezhen, which became the main producing area of blue-and-white porcelain tea sets in China. Due to the high level of painting technology of blue-and-white porcelain tea sets, especially the application of China's traditional painting techniques to porcelain, this can also be said to be a great achievement of painting in Yuan Dynasty. After the Yuan Dynasty, besides Jingdezhen, there were a few blue-and-white porcelain tea sets produced in Yuxi, Jianshui, Zhejiang and other places, but they could not be compared with the blue-and-white porcelain tea sets produced in Jingdezhen at the same time in terms of glaze color, embryo quality, decoration and painting skills. In the Ming Dynasty, the blue and white porcelain tea sets produced by Jingdezhen, such as teapots, small handles, teacups, etc., had more and more varieties of colors and more exquisite quality. No matter the shape, modeling and ornamentation, it is the best in the country and has become the object of imitation by other kilns producing blue and white tea sets. In the Qing Dynasty, especially in the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, blue and white porcelain tea sets entered a historical peak in the history of ancient ceramics. Blue-and-white porcelain wares fired during the reign of Kangxi were called "the best in Qing Dynasty" in history.

Throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, due to the improvement of porcelain-making technology, the development of social economy, the expansion of foreign exports and the change of tea drinking methods, blue and white tea sets developed rapidly. At that time, in addition to the blue and white tea sets produced in Jingdezhen, there were other influential places such as Ji 'an and Leping in Jiangxi, Chaozhou, Jieyang and Boluo in Guangdong, Yuxi in Yunnan, Huili in Sichuan, Dehua and Anxi in Fujian. In addition, there are many places in the country that produce "earth blue and white" tea sets for folk tea drinking in a certain area.

Red porcelain tea set

Zisha tea set is a new type of pottery developed from pottery. It began in the Song Dynasty, flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and has been passed down to this day. In Mei Yao's "Yi Yun and Du Xianggong Xie Cai Send Tea" in the Northern Song Dynasty, it is said: "The small stone cold spring stays for the first time, and the new purple mud is full of spring flowers." It is about the rise of purple sand tea sets in the Northern Song Dynasty. As for who created the purple sand tea set, there is no textual research. . However, as far as written records are concerned, Zisha tea set was created in Zhengde period of Ming Dynasty.

Today's purple tea set is made of purple mud, a special clay buried in the south of Yixing, Jiangsu Province and the north of Changxing, Zhejiang Province. This clay has high iron content and good plasticity, and the suitable firing temperature is about 1 150℃. The color of purple sand tea set can be changed into different colors through "clarification" and "washing" according to the different color and texture of purple mud. For example, azure mud can be dark liver color, honey mud can be light ochre color, stone yellow mud can be vermilion color, and pear skin mud can be frozen pear color. In addition, purple mud with different textures can be mixed to make it appear bronze and light ink. High-quality raw materials and natural color have laid a material foundation for firing excellent purple sand tea sets.

Yixing purple sand tea set is loved by tea people, not only because of its diverse styles, changeable shapes and rich cultural tastes, but also because it is unique in ancient tea set circles. Later, it was said that purple sand tea set has three characteristics, namely, "making tea does not change flavor, storing tea does not change color, and it is not easy to deteriorate in summer."

Zisha tea set is a kind of ceramic tea set. Its green body is dense and hard, taking natural mud color, mostly purple sand, but also red sand and white sand. The fire degree of the finished pottery is1100-1200 degrees Celsius, which does not absorb water and has a long sound. It is cold-resistant and heat-resistant, making tea without the smell of cooked soup, keeping the fragrance real and transferring heat slowly, so it is not easy to burn hands, and it will not explode when making tea with it. Therefore, there is a saying in history that "a pot does not weigh two taels, and the price of every tael of gold can make the soil compete with gold." But the fly in the ointment is that it is limited by color, so it is difficult to appreciate the beauty of tea and the color of soup.

At present, the domestic purple sand tea set is of the highest quality, produced in Yixing, Jiangsu, and also produced in Changxing, Zhejiang, which is adjacent to it. Through the continuous innovation of tea people in past dynasties, "the square is different, the circle is different" is people's praise for the modeling of purple sand tea sets. It is generally believed that a good purple sand tea set must have three beauties, namely, the beauty of modeling, the beauty of production and the beauty of function, and the combination of the three can be called a perfect work.

Lacquer tea set

Lacquer tea sets began in the Qing Dynasty and were mainly produced in Fuzhou, Fujian. Lacquerware and tea sets produced in Fuzhou are colorful, such as "Gem Flash", "Golden Agate", "Glazed into Gold", "Antique Porcelain", "Carved Fill", "High Carving" and "Inlaid Silver". Especially after creating new technologies such as ruby red, "red gold sand" and "dark flower", it is even more dazzling and lovely.

Bamboo and wood tea set

Before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, tea drinking in China gradually became popular, but it was widespread. At that time, tea drinking utensils were mostly made of bamboo and wood except ceramics. Lu Yu in Four Instruments of Tea Classics