Tea is a friend of meditation, keeping the heart immerged in profound tranquility
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| Tea is a friend of meditation, keeping people's soul and mind in profound tranquility. |
Tea is wings of imagination lifting people above the mundane world while remaining clear minded, getting people nearer wisdom rather than losing sanity. Therefore in nearly every Eastern country people have the same habit of drinking tea, because people in the east need this simple but not insipid drink. This is a tradition of life as well as of culture, just like the
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| A tea pot of Qing Dynasty with a handle and colorful patterns of phoenix. |
Eastern wisdom that they admire, which is featured in the spirit of self-reflection.
China is the homeland of tea, taking a leading position in the planting, producing and drinking of tea. The discovery and usage of tea has had a history of four or five thousand years in China. From the earliest fresh-boiled tea taken as a kind of soup to later dried-and-preserved tea, from the simple green tea to the blooming of six major kinds of tea, tea, which started catching on in the Tang(618-906) and Song(960-1279)dynasties, has carried itself to the contemporary times. The flavor of tea, which is sometimes thin and sometimes thick, seemingly bitter but actually sweet, has flown throughout the long history from ancient times up to now. What is more, with its unique appeal, tea has broken the bound of fields and been brought to all parts of the world.
The origin of tea is lost among history and legends. What can be roughly confirmed is that tea originated in the southwest of China. In Yunnan and other places there still exist wild tea trees over l, 000 years old. It is said that the first man to discover what tea can do is Shen Nong-the father of agriculture and herbal medicine in China.
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| A tea bowl of Qing Dynasty with a cover, made specially for the royalty. |
In time immemorial, people knew very little about plants. In order to find out which plants could be eaten and which couldn't, Shen Nong tasted various kinds of plants to find out their features as food or medicine. Fortunately, Shen Nong had a transparent stomach, which made it possible for him, after he had eaten the plants, to observe the reactions in his stomach caused by them. That is where the famous story of "Shen Nong Tasting A Hundred Plants" came from.
After a little while，he felt well and energetic again. So he picked more leaves to eat and thus cleared all the poison in his body. Whatever way the story goes, tea interested Shen Nong and attracted him to do further research on its characteristics. The ancient Chinese medical book called Shen Nonce Herbal, which is attributed to Shen Nong，says that"tea tastes bitter. Drinking it, one can think quicker, sleep less，move lighter, and see clearer." That is the earliest book to put down the medical functions of tea.
When it came to the Zhou Dynasty(1046-256 BC), the function of tea to freshen one's body and clear one's mind gradually replaced its function as medicine. People started drying tea leaves to better preserve it. When they made tea, they put the leaves into the hollowware and made a kind of thick soup. The princes of the Zhou
Dynasty were used to this thick soup, but due to its bitterness, it didn't catch on.
In the Han Dynasty(206 BC-AD 220), both the collecting and processing of wild tea leaves were improved. Tea became a tasteful drink and was fancied by the nobles, and it became very popular among them. In the time of Wei(220-265)and Jin(265—420), when metaphysics came into fashion and people got interested in talking, tea, in place of wine, has became the drink of banquet.
People preferred tea's freshness and purity to
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| Tea house and tea untensils. |
wine's violence and intoxication. The last emperor of the Three-Kingdom time(220-280)is Sun Hao(reign from 264 to 280). He asked his ministers to drink six liters of wine every time he held a banquet. One minister was not good at drinking, so he secretly asked Sun if he could drink tea instead. In fact the relationship between tea and wine has always been subtle. Wine drinking needs a hilarious environment while tea drinking prefers quietness. They are different in many aspects, but they are also the best partners because tea can quench one's drunkenness. In later times, this unity of opposites between tea and wine was reflected in a dialogue between them in a book called On Tea and Wine.
It is said in history that"tea started in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the
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| Suzhou, the hometown of the famous tea Pilochun. |
Song Dynasty." People in the Tang Dynasty invented a method called"Steaming Green" to get rid of the flavor of grass from tea leaves, They picked tea leaves, ground them after steaming, made them into cakes, dried them and then sealed them up for keeping. There were many ways to call tea before Tang. One of them was Tea,a Chinese character meaning bitter. Tang people crossed off one stroke and changed it into tea, This character has many interesting connotations in its shape. Its bottom is, meaning wood；the top is, meaning grass; between them is people, meaning people.This suggests the harmony between human being and nature. It was also in Tang that teahouse in its real sense came
into being.
The Song Dynasty was a golden age for tea. The business of teahouse was even
more blooming. The calligrapher Cai Xiang(1012-1067)wrote Record of Tea and EmperorHuizon9-Zhao Ji(1082-1135)wrote General Remarks on Tea. When the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)succeeded, the tea culture, which was once damaged by the Mongolians, underwent a renaissance. The familiar dark tea, green tea, and oolong tea were all developed during this time. Zhu Yuanzhang(reign from l368 to 1398), the first emperor of Ming, changed roll tea to loose tea, and the tradition has been kept ever since.
The wonderful tea leaves were spread to all parts of the world through Intercourse
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| Sundried chrysanthemum for making tea. |
among nations. Japanese Monks took tea seeds, techniques of tea making, and tea utensils back to Japan, which led to the appearance of Japanese tea ceremony. The earliest record of tea in Europe was in the travel notes of an Arab.
Marco Polo mentioned in his notes that a Chinese minister of inancee was deposed because he excessively levied taxes on tea. At the end of the l6 century, the Dutch brought such a message to Europe that there was a kind of magic leaves in the east, from which tasty drinks could be made. That was the first time that the Europeans heard of tea.In l610, East India Company was the first to sell tea to Europe, after which the habit of drinking tea took root there. In l636, tea entered France and two years later, it entered Russia, whereas the big tea-consuming Britain didn't have tea until l650.
Currently over 450 chemical substances have been discovered In tea, some of
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| A farmer picking up the tea leaves for making the famous tea Pilochun. |
which are microelements capable of supplementing nutrient substances needed by human body and some other can prevent or cure diseases. Green tea is a nutritious drink full of vitamins. It contains a kind of hydroxybenzene, which can restrain cancer cell and thus prevent or resist cancer. Oolong tea can control the absorption of dextrose by human body, and can help lose weight. Black tea is mild, which is good for phlegm reducing, digesting, and arousing appetite, especially good for people with weak spleen and stomach.Pu'er tea can prevent cardiovascular diseases, and has been internationally known as "Tea of Longevity" for a long time. Tea leaves are also helpful in radiation prevention, which is especially suitable for people who have constant contact with computers.
Coming to the 21"century, tea is no longer confined as drinks. The essence of tea is often found in shampoo, toothpaste, and other daily necessities. Health care products like ointment also contain tea. The story of tea is far from over.
