Enlightenment of tea culture before the Three Kingdoms.
Many books set the discovery time of tea at 2737-2697 BC, and its history can be extended to the Three Emperors and Five Emperors. Hua Tuo recorded the medicinal value of tea in the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Bitter tea is good for a long time". In the Western Han Dynasty, the tea-producing county was called "Chaling", that is, Chaling in Hunan. In the Three Kingdoms Wei Dynasty, Guangya first recorded the making method and drinking method of cake tea: picking leaves between Jing and Ba to make cakes, and the old man made cakes from leaves and made them with rice paste. Tea appears in the form of substance and permeates other cultures to form tea culture.
The germination of tea culture in the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties
With the rise of literati drinking tea, poems and songs about tea are coming out day by day. As a common form, tea has left the diet and entered the cultural circle.
The Formation of Tea Culture in Tang Dynasty
"Since Lu Yu was born in the world, the world has learned new things." In the middle Tang Dynasty, the appearance of Lu Yu's Tea Classic made tea culture develop to an unprecedented height, which marked the formation of tea culture in Tang Dynasty. The Book of Tea summarizes the natural and humanistic contents of tea, discusses the art of tea drinking, and integrates Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism into tea drinking, thus creating the spirit of China tea ceremony. Later, a large number of tea books and poems appeared, including Tea Narration, brew tea, Tea Picking and Sixteen Soups. The formation of tea culture in Tang Dynasty was related to the rise of Zen Buddhism. Because tea has the function of refreshing the brain, promoting fluid production and quenching thirst, temples advocate drinking tea, planting tea trees around the temples, making tea ceremonies, setting up tea halls, selecting tea heads and holding tea events specially. China tea ceremony was formed in the Tang Dynasty, which is divided into court tea ceremony, temple tea ceremony and literati tea ceremony. The Book of Tea is a milestone. Over the past hundred years, tea people in all dynasties have tried and explored all aspects of tea culture countless times. It was not until the birth of Tea Classic that tea parties became popular, so it was of epoch-making significance.
The Prosperity of Tea Culture in Song Dynasty
The great development of tea industry in Song Dynasty promoted the development of tea culture. Among the literati, professional tea tasting societies have emerged, including the Tang Society composed of officials and the Thousand People Society composed of Buddhists. Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin, who loves tea, set up a tea office in the palace, and the tea used in the palace has been graded. Tea ceremony became a kind of ceremony, giving tea became an important means for the emperor to win over ministers and take care of relatives as soon as possible, and it was also given to foreign envoys. As for the lower classes, tea culture is more lively, and some people migrate. Neighborhood should respect tea and guests, respect "Yuanbao Tea", respect tea at the time of engagement, tea at the time of marriage, and tea in the same room. The rise of folk tea fighting has brought about a series of changes in cooking points.
Popularization of tea culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties
At this time, various teas such as steamed green, fried green and baked green appeared, and drinking tea was also changed to "making tea". Many literati in Ming Dynasty left masterpieces handed down from generation to generation, such as Tang Bohu's Tea Making Scroll and Tea Tasting Map, Wen Zhiming's Huishan Tea Party, Lu Yu's Tea Cooking Map and Tea Tasting Map. With the increase of tea, the skills of making tea are also different, and the styles, textures and patterns of tea sets are also diverse. In the late Ming Dynasty, people made a new breakthrough in the realm of drinking, paying attention to the realm of "perfection"
In the eyes of those literati, the ultimate perfection of things is Tao, which exists in things. Bird put forward his own theory of "tea ceremony" for the first time in the book Tea Classic: "Time is refined, time is dry when it is hidden, and time is clean when it is soaked. Fine, dry and clean tea ceremony. " In his view, there is a "god with intrinsic meaning" in tea, that is, "meta-god", and the external one is called "meta-body". The two are interdependent and inseparable. Shen Yuan is the essence of tea, and Yuanti is the essence of color, fragrance and taste. As long as we are simple and natural, simple and realistic, modest and moderate, we can get the true meaning of tea. The tea ceremony in Bird pursues the beauty of tea soup and the truth of tea taste, and strives to enter the perfect realm of seeing the color, tasting the taste, smelling the fragrance, listening to the sound and rubbing the tea set.
Zhang Dafu went further on this basis. He said: "The world tastes tea without tasting its nature, loves mountains and rivers without feeling their feelings, learns without thinking, and learns Buddhism without breaking its Sect." What he wants to tell us is that tea tasting should not be limited to the appearance and taste of water, but should go deep into the essence, that is, to achieve a kind of spiritual pleasure, a pure and refined state of mind, so as to achieve a fairyland of detachment and noble feelings, and a realm of unity between heaven and earth. This can be said to be the development and transcendence of China's tea ceremony spirit by Ming people. By the Qing Dynasty, tea export had become a formal industry, and there were countless tea books, tea events and tea poems.
The Development of Modern Tea Culture
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 organization with the purpose of promoting tea culture, 1983 Hubei established Luyu Tea Culture Research Association, 1990 Beijing established China Tea People Association. 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. Various provinces, cities and tea-producing counties have held "tea festivals" in succession, such as the Rock Tea Festival in Wuyi City, Fujian Province, the Pu 'er Tea Festival in Yunnan Province, the tea festivals in Xinchang, Zhejiang Province, Taishun, Yingshan, Hubei Province and Xinyang, Henan Province, all of which take tea as the carrier to promote all-round economic and trade development.