“Open the door to seven things, firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy, vinegar and tea.” Tea has become an essential thing in the life of Chinese people and even people all over the world. So, when did Chinese people start drinking tea? What is the difference between the tea of the ancients and the tea of modern people, and what is the difference in flavor? What kind of cultural concepts are behind the small tea leaves?
　　Western Han Dynasty, the emperor has begun to drink tea Tang Dynasty, tea from the court to the people
　　It can be said that tea has always accompanied Chinese civilization. The Chinese were the first to discover and utilize tea. The earliest discovery of tea should be in the primitive collection era. The earliest utilization of tea, first of all, should be edible, and then discovered the medicinal value, and finally the drinking value. “Shennong tasted a hundred herbs, one day encountered seventy-two poisons, and got the tea and the solution. The tea mentioned here actually refers to tea. In the past, people can eat and drink the leaves, including tea, are called tian, so tian refers to the scope than the tea to be larger. Until the early Tang Dynasty, tea, tea is not divided between the situation still exists, such as the Xi’an Museum collection of “Ximing Temple Stone Tantui”, the word above is tea rather than tea. Until the “tea scripture” came out, people began to generally use the word tea.
　　According to “Huayang Guo Zhi”, the Ba people of Ba Zi State (present-day Ankang area of Hanzhong) in the Western Zhou Dynasty paid tribute to the Zhou Emperor for tea after King Wu’s conquest of the Zhou Dynasty. And in the Yangling Mausoleum of Emperor Jingdi of Han Dynasty, it is excavated and unearthed processed tea leaves, “and it is Shaanan tea, a leaf of bud tea, proving that more than 2,000 years ago, in the era of Emperor Jingdi of Han Dynasty, the emperor has begun to drink tea.” During the Three Kingdoms period, literati had begun to pay attention to and describe tea, forming a tea culture.
　　After the Tang Dynasty unified the country, the southern and northern cultures merged, and tea began to move from the court to the people, from the monasteries to the public, and from the south of the Yangtze River to the north. The court would hold a Qingming tea banquet every year, requiring that the tea used must be the tribute tea before Qingming. Dezong Dali five years (770 years), the establishment of the Huzhou Tribute Tea House. The people of the country began to drink tea in large quantities. During the Kaiyuan years of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Lu Yu began to collect historical information, visited famous mountains and teas, and wrote the “Tea Classic”. At that time, there were eight tea regions in the Tang Dynasty, Shaanxi, Hubei, Chongqing and the area east of Guangyuan in Sichuan Province was known as the Shannan tea region, Lu Yu took the Jinzhou tea (i.e., Ankang tea), Liangzhou tea (i.e., Hanzhong tea), and the Xiacha tea in Hubei Province of the Shannan tea region as the reference for assessing the quality of tea leaves. The Tea Scripture not only standardized the cultivation and processing of tea leaves and the design of tea utensils, but also introduced the methods of cooking and drinking tea. It can be said that until now the world’s regulation of the tea industry has not exceeded the “Tea Classic”, which can be called the source of the contemporary world tea ceremony. By the ninth emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Dezong Zhenyuan years, the total annual production of tea amounted to as much as 100 million pounds, when the population of 50 million, per capita annual consumption of tea about 2 pounds.
　　Tang Dynasty high society tea pursuit of true flavor and taste, but the southern folk are still “eating tea”.
　　So, how did the Tang Dynasty people actually use tea? Just succeeded the throne soon, only a teenager Tang Xi Zong Li Ingenious, in the Buddha’s bones back to the Famen Temple when a set of their favorite tea offerings, in one of the legs of the artifacts, but also engraved with Li Ingenious little name. According to the use, this set of utensils are divided into storage tea, grinding Luo ware, sieve tea, salt storage, tea boiler five parts, the material are silver gilt. According to the exhibition text, which silver tea Luozi weighs 1473 grams, silver tea mill and Cerdo a la Plancha (tuó) shaft weighs 1693 grams, the process is extremely sophisticated.
　　Tea in the Tang Dynasty is steamed green tea, tea leaves after picking to become a cake after steaming, after the moisture is dry, wrapped in paper, and then sent to the palace. Before drinking, the tea cake is placed in the hollow silver gilt cage. Ready to use the tea, the tea cake from the cage out of the roast, with a small hammer smashed into small pieces, put into the tea mill crushed, and then with a silver Luo Luo, Luo good end of the tea fell in the box in the lower layer of the silver Luo. Other utensils are used for decocting tea, and some are used for putting salt. After the water boiled, by watching the water to determine the water temperature, “a boil” (bubbles such as fisheye) to scoop out a ladle of water, “two boil” (bubbles such as Lianzhu) to throw down the tea powder, in the “three boil ” before (bubbles such as waves and drums) to scoop out the water and then add in, after the “three boiling” water can not be drunk. Finally, the tea soup into the bowl, which has foam, biscuit, flower (soup flower thin known as foam, thick known as biscuit, thin and light known as flowers), the points to drink to pay attention to the foam and biscuit distribution of the average.
　　In addition, the Tang people will put some salt when drinking tea. In addition to salt, nothing else.
　　If so, why the ancient novels used to drink tea called “eat tea”? Liang Guilin said, before the “tea scripture”, the ancients used “tea drink”. This tea drink is mixed with onions, ginger, pepper, jujube, cinnamon, orange peel, mint leaves and other materials, in addition to adding salt. “But after the ‘Tea Sutra’, the court, monasteries and literati who were concerned with the tea ceremony sought the true aroma and flavor of tea, so tea was mainly for tasting, not for consumption. But the southern folk also ‘ring tea’, this tea is tea drink, can be used to pad the stomach, so called ‘eat tea’.”
　　Song Dynasty began to popularize the “point of tea” to the Ming Dynasty tea production to “fried green” as the main
　　Lu Yu in the “Tea Classic” introduced the tea production method called “steamed green method”, tea cooking method called “decoction tea method”. To the late Tang and Song dynasties, tea cooking methods have changed, “point tea” is more common.
　　The so-called “point tea”, is directly put the tea in the bowl with boiling water. In the Song Dynasty emperor, Song Huizong advocated “point tea”. In addition, the Song people also like to “fight tea”, to see whose tea in the high punch low injection foam high, see whose tea more flavor.
　　To the Ming Dynasty, tea production methods have changed, began to deliberately pursue the original qualities of tea aroma and flavor, in the “steamed green method” based on the improvement of the more perfect “fried green method”, which is a major leap in the history of tea production, and still use this method today. This is a great leap forward in the history of tea production, and this method is still used today.
　　The world’s tea, either late or early, comes directly from China.
　　Due to the development of the tea industry in the Tang Dynasty, the convenience of transportation and enlightened economic policies, the tea as a “messenger of peace” to the outside world widely spread. Through the Tang monks, to the Korean Peninsula and Japan; through the court reward, gift to foreign envoys and ambassadors; through the trade, to all regions of the world, linking up the friendship of the people of all countries. Today, tea has become and cocoa, coffee and known as the world’s three major beverages, more than 100 countries and regions around the world people have the custom of drinking tea.
　　In Japan, learned monks brought back tea seeds and the tea ceremony, and in 815 AD, the Japanese court drank tea for the first time. Until now, Japan’s popular matcha tea is actually the “steamed green method” and “pan-fried tea method” of the Tang Dynasty. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
