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| The Book of Tea, compiled into The Siku Quanshu (complete Library of the Four Branches of Literature) of Qing Dynasty. |
Well-known People and Books about Tea
Chinese tea culture. is of long standing. People not only found out various ways of making, cooking and drinking tea through practice, but also summarized them and put them down in books. After Lu Yu wrote The Book of Tea as an example commentary about tea appeared in almost every historical time with numerous articles in this respect. These have been crucial clues for US to trace the historical development of tea.
Lu Yu and The Book of Tea
Lu Yu's The Book of Tea was the world's first commentary on tea, exerting a profound influence after its appearance. Books on tea in later generations were all affected by it in one way or another. Because of this, Lu Yu was idolized by later
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| The Book of Tea, Ming Dynasty. |
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| The Book of Tea, published in Japan in 1844. |
generations as "God of Tea," "Saint of Tea," "Ancestor of Tea," "The Immortal of Tea," and so on. There also emerged innumerable stories and legends based on Lu Yu.
Lu Yu belongs to Tang Dynasty, born around AD 733 and died in AD 804. He was an orphan and was adopted by a monk named Zhiji. It is said that one day when Zhiji went out, he found three wile geese protecting a newly born baby with their wings. Surprised at this, Zhiji took the baby back out of compassion. Lu Yu grew up in the temple. Zhiji intended him to become a Buddhist, but knowing that Buddhists couldn't marry nor have offspring, Lu Yu was more inclined to Confucianism. Angry at this, Zhiji punished Lu Yu by making him do all kinds of chores like cleaning, herding, washing toilets, etc. Tea drinking was Very popular in temples at that time, so naturally Lu Yu got to know something about tea. Later，finding the temple too stifling, Lu Yu ran away to join a theatrical troupe at the age of l2. He played puppet show, acrobatics and magic. Talented and versatile, Lu Yu was soon promoted to the position of director.
Lu Yu wasn't very good-looking and was innately inarticulate. But he was born With a generous heart, sincerely admiring other people's merits and felt genuinely sad when seeing others' demerits as if he
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| A tea bowl made by an Imperial kiln of Song Dynasty. |
suffered from those too. Because of this, many poets and personages liked to make friends with him. Writing The Book of Tea, Lu Yu made quite a sensation, so the emperor called for him to be an official. However, Lu Yu enjoyed a life of freedom and leisure, lingering in tea gardens every day and sang and relaxed with friends. In his old age, Lu Yu changed his hostile attitude towards Buddhism and became good friends with many famous monks and learnt much from them. Tales had it that Lu Yu was sent to his ancestral home after his death and buried beside the tomb of his stepfather monk Zhiji, as a compensation for his rebellion in youth.
Cai Xiang and Record of Tea
Cai Xiang(1012-1067)was a top politician and tea expert as well as one of the four most successful calligraphers of Song Dynasty. Based on big-dragon tea roll, he
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| A letter written by Su She, a famous litterateur in Song Dynasty, once mentioned tea cake. |
invented the delicate looking, meticulously made, and superb tasting small-dragon tea roll, which soon became a nonesuch. Contemporaries exclaimed: gold was easy to get while small-dragon roll was hard to attain. Cai Xiang was expert on tea. Once upon a time, he visited a good friend. The host prepared small-dragon roll for him on purpose, but Cai Xiang said upon the first sip,"there must be big-dragon roll in it."The host immediately blamed the kid-servant who prepared the tea. The servant had only to admit that just now more guests arrived. Not having enough time to prepare tea, he mixed the two kinds
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| A painting of Song Dynasty called "Contest of Tea" (part) reflecting competing drinking tea. |
of roll together.
This story is similar to that of Lu Yu telling water but more credible. Cai Xiang was the inventor of small-dragon roll, so naturally he knew it like the back of his hand. Had the kid-servant known this, he wouldn't have dared to lie in front of Cai Xiang. Lu Yu's The Book of Tea didn7t mention the most renowned tea in Song Dynasty-Beiyuan Tea of Fujian Province. Cai Xiang found this a big pity, so he wrote Record of Tea to compensate for this. Record of Tea consisted of two parts. The first part had ten items, dealing with quality of tea and ways of cooking and drinking. The second part had nine items, talking about apparatus for cooking. Cai Xiang insisted that observing tea with eyes was like physiognomy because the outside told of the inside. Good tea cake was like the face of a healthy person. Its luster, sleekness and compactness were symbols for top-grade quality. Cai Xiang was also for the naturalness of tea and against the practice of adding spices into tea cakes.
Zhao Ji and General Remarks on Tea
Zhao Ji(Emperor Huizong)was the eighth emperor of Song Dynasty. Though an incompetent emperor, he was a very gifted artist, making tremendous achievements
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| A mural excavated from a burial site of Liao Dynasty reflecting the scene of drinking tea. |
in calligraphy, painting, literature, and other artistic fields as well. The kind of calligraphic style invented by him-Thin Jin Style-was a gem in its kind, not only enjoying a high reputation in its own time, but much admired by later generations as well. Emperor Huizong was also a superb painter and tea master. However, it was also through him that the dynasty of Northern Song(960-1127)was overthrown.
Zhao Kuangyin--the first emperor of Song Dynasty--was a military officer at first. He seized his power from the previous Dynasty. But to prevent others from following his steps and subverting his kingdom, he gave military power to civil officers who didn't know how to maneuver armies at all. As a result, Song Dynasty's military strength was always fairly weak and it was always under threat from northern ethnic regimes. The situation came to its worst at Emperor Huizong's time. He was the kind of person who lived his life as a kind of art. Completely immerged in artistic charm, he totally ignored the cruelty of reality. When the Nurchen nationality to the northeast of China rapidly rose up and threatened to devour the Song Dynasty, Emperor Huizong mistook it as a flourishing age of "reconstruction from ruin and prosperity of coastal regions"
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| Emperor Huizong's painting "Wen Hui Tu" (part) of Song Dynasty has reflected a scene of feast with tea. |
and started compiling his General Remarks on Tea. In 1 125, Nurchen army invaded Song Dynasty in a big way. Hurriedly passing down the reign to his son, Emperor Huizong thought he could preserve himself this way, but his Successor didn't eave the situation, either. In the second year, Nurchen army marched southward again, breaching the capital of Song and capturing thousands of Song people, including Emperor Huizong and his son. Emperor Huizong suffered all kinds of tortures in the foreign land and finally died there.
Emperor Huizong was fond of drinking tea. He drew a picture called Picture of
Drinking Tea, in which he was dressed in common clothes and enjoyed himself taking and discussing tea with the surrounding ministers. It is recorded in
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| The painting "Tea Meeting at Hui Mountain" by Wen Zhengming of Ming Dynasty. |
reference books that Emperor Huizong once cooked tea for his ministers in person. His tea had white froth floating on the surface like scarce stars and a brilliant moon. General Remarks on Tea is Emperor Huizong's summary of his predecessors' achievements, and is also a summary of his own experience in tea drinking. The book contains merely 2800 words, but is very comprehensive, divided into exordium and 20 catalogues of place, climate，picking, steaming and pressing, making, differentiating, etc. The book has three main points. First, it records and introduces the planting，picking and processing of Beiyuan Tea(produced in today's Jian'ou county of Fujian Province)which represents the highest level of tea making at that time. Second, it introduces how to differentiate tea cakes. Third, it talks about the art of cooking tea and competition in tea. Emperor Huizong maintained that tea picking should be in the morning and stop after sunrise.
Tea cakes that met three standards of "sparking in color, dense in texture, and sonorous in grinding" were of top quality. He opposed the partial emphasis on seeds and producing places of tea, and insisted that whether tea was good or not entirely
depended on the facility or clumsiness of making techniques but not on the producing place. General Remarks on Tea put its stress on the part of competition in tea. His invention of "Seven Round" method of cooking tea was the most complex and delicate tea ceremony skill in Chinese history.
Zhu Quan and Guide of Tea
Zhu Quan(1378-1448)was the l7 son of Zhu Yuanzhang—the founder of Ming Dynasty. Since very young Zhu Quan was brighter than others and was entitled as a prince at the age of l4. Like Emperor Huizong, Zhu Quan failed as a political ruler.
His brother Zhu Di(1360-1424)house-arrested him for his throne and didn't release him until he succeeded in his coup and obtained the crown. After that Zhu Quan
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| The painting "Tea-drinking" (part) by Wen Zhengming of Ming Dynasty. |
withdrew from society and devoted himself to Taoism in his later years, living a life free from worldly anxieties.
Zhu Quan's Guide of Tea comprises two parts-preface and body, body being subdivided into discussion of tea and catalogue of tea. Discussion of tea copes with
tea’s functions, introduces five names of tea, and comments on works by earlier
scholars. Despite that Zhu Quan highly appraised Lu Yu's The Book of Tea and Cai
Xiang's Record of Tea and considered them the only ones of value among its kind, he put forward different opinions from theirs. Zhu Quan didn't think much of tea cakes popular in Tang and Song dynasties, believing that the practice of "making 1eaves into powder, grease and cake" stripped tea leaves of their natural taste, whereas cooking loose tea catered for the inherent nature of tea. Zhu Quan criticized Lu Yu for running after "curiosity" too much. This was in accordance with the trend of loose tea replacing iced tea and cooking method supplanting frying method.
Lu Tingcan and Additional Book of Tea
During the hundreds of years from Tang to Qing Dynasty, great changes took place in the producing places of tea, producing methods of tea, and the apparatus for making and cooking tea. It was at that time that a book about tea appeared, which made ample references and quotation and was also very practical. That was Additional Book of Tea.
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| The painting "Shi Ming Tu" by Tang Yin of Ming Dynasty. |
This book followed the structure of Book of Tea, being divided into ten parts-origin of tea，tools of tea, production of tea, apparatus of tea, cooking of tea, drinking of tea, ceremonies of teal making of tea, general information about teal and pictures of tea. Making amendments and supplements to many tea books after Tang Dynasty, this book was not only ten times that of Book of Tea in volume，but differed very much from it in content,too. It can be called a general summary and comprehensive expression of Chinese ancient tea books. Its author Lu Tingcan was once an official in Wuyi, Fujian Province, which was a perfect place for a scholar fond of tea. He not only took great efforts to study origin of Wuyi tea and understand relevant matters about it, but read widely to accumulate knowledge on tea. He wrote a draft of this book when he was still in his post. After retiring to his hometown, he finished the book and presented to the world in about 1734.
