Poetry plays an important role in tea culture. Because tea is rich in natural beauty, it has the function of refreshing and benefiting thinking. Drinking tea makes people relax and associate with human beauty, so it has been the object of poetry and songs since ancient times.
The Book of Songs is the first collection of poems in the history of China, which contains many poems related to tea. Such as: "Pick a new bottle of tea and eat my farmers", "Sing, Toona sinensis leaves" and "Who says tea is bitter, it is as sweet as water." Zhang Mengyang, a poet in the Jin Dynasty, praised tea as a fragrant tea with "six emotions crowned, full of fragrance, spreading to nine districts" in his poem "Climbing the Chengdu Building". As a wonderful tea party in later generations, it has been passed down to this day.
The Tang Dynasty is a prosperous time in the history of China's poetry, and it is also the heyday of the development of tea culture. Drinking tea has become an elegant fashion, and it is also a major way to cultivate sentiment and enhance friendship. Famous poets Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Liu Yuxi and Lu Tong all wrote philosophical tea poems.
Li Bai heard about Yuquan in Jingzhou. He is really a gentleman. Because he often drinks a kind of tea called "cactus", although he is over eighty years old, he still looks like a peach blossom. After receiving the tea "Cactus" presented by yuquan temple as a monk and nephew, he wrote: "I often listen to Yuquan Mountain, where the cave is full of milk, the fairy mouse (white bat) is as white as a crow, hanging upside down in the deep stream, and this stone is full of tea, and Yuquan keeps flowing, and the roots and branches are sprinkled with aromatic liquid to nourish the bones and muscles ...". This poem describes the health care function of tea as a myth.
Du Fu wrote in a poem: "On the sunset terrace, when drinking tea in the spring breeze, the stone fence is inclined, and the tung leaves sit on the poem ...". The poet described the fun of tea tasting with friends and the beauty of the environment as a beautiful and elegant "tea tasting map".
Bai Juyi has handed down more than 50 tea poems. He once lived in Lushan Cottage and lived a secluded life of "building a thatched cottage with stones and opening a tea garden", which made him an expert in tea making, tea picking, frying and identification, and he was proud of it. He said in the poem "Xie Li Six Doctors Send New Shu Tea": "If you don't send it to others, send it to me first, because I am a different tea man." The poet claims to be an expert in identifying tea; The poet also coined the word "tea guest" in another poem "Raise a lamp for no reason and give it to a tea guest".
A tea poem written by Yuan Zhen in the Tang Dynasty: Tea shoots and monks grind and carve white jade. Luo Zhihong yarn arrow fried, yellow heart bowl into dust. After nightfall, invite me to accompany the bright moon to wash away the morning glow. After I was drunk, I couldn't praise the short 55 words from the natural characteristics, grinding technology, taste and comprehensive performance of tea. In particular, "A poet loves a monk's family" personifies tea. Love Monk tells the close relationship between tea and Zen. Monks worship benefactors with tea, serve Buddha with tea, and help Zen with tea. Just as Liu Yuxi wrote in "Tea Songs in Lan Ruo, Xishan", "Monks should be quiet, be quiet", and meditation with tea will help monks improve their meditation and reach the realm of silence. With the spread of tea culture, the word "Jing" was cited as one of the spirits of Japanese tea ceremony by neighboring Japan, which is separated only by water.
Wei, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, thought that tea was an elegant and holy fairy grass. He wrote in the poem "Happy Garden Tea": "Clean and clean, welcome the dust for drinking. This thing believes in spiritual taste, it comes from mountains ... I like to grow up with grass, so I have to talk to you. "
The masterpiece of expressing affection with tea and sublimating tea drinking to a philosophical level is Lu Tong's "Writing a Pen to Thank Meng for Persuading to Send New Tea", which was later called "Seven Bowls of Tea Songs". After expressing the joy of "Yangxian Tea" presented by a friend, the poet sang: "... a bowl of throat-moistening kiss; Two bowls of broken loneliness; Three bowls of heartbroken, only five thousand volumes of words; Four bowls of light sweat, all the grievances in life are scattered into the pores; Five bowls of bones and muscles are distinct; Six bowls of fairy spirits; I can't eat seven bowls, but I feel the wind blowing under my arm. Where is Penglai Mountain? Yuchuanzi wants to fly away in this cool breeze ... ".
Lu Tong's poems were not many, and he was not famous in the Tang Dynasty. However, his first "Seven Bowls of Tea Songs" is full of philosophy, which has been widely praised by poets who love tea in past dynasties, such as: "Don't praise Li Bai cactus, write a chapter for Lutong" (Song Mei Yao Chen); In Lutong, "Why did Di Wei take one pill and use seven bowls of tea" (Su Shi, Di Wei refers to Wei Wendi Cao Pi); "Lutong's seven bowls of poems are rare, and it is also a credit to miss the dream of three sons" (Yuan Zhen's minister Lu Ye Chu Cai, "missing the old" means that the monks in Zhaozhou in the Tang Dynasty followed the Zen master and took "having tea" as their motto); "In the mountains, I try new springs every day. He Jun's predecessor is Lao Yuchuan" (Chen Ming Ji Ru). Mr. Zhao Puchu, a modern scholar, Buddhist scholar and president of China Buddhist Society, also wrote a poem: Seven bowls are delicious, and one pot is really interesting. It is better to have tea than to hold a hundred poems "(the lyrics in the Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures of Jiji, and the Sanskrit Kato).
Poetry expresses ambition. These tea poems are actually literary expressions of China's tea ceremony thought.