On the eve of the Battle of Chibi in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Sun Quan invited Zhuge Liang to give him advice, and Zhuge Liang came at all costs, and Sun Quan, in order to show his attention to Zhuge Liang, specially set up a banquet with wine to "pick up the wind and wash the dust" for Zhuge Liang.
Since ancient times, the reception of VIPs has often been the reception of good tea and good wine. But there's a lot to note behind tea and toasts. For example, "tea is full of deception, wine is full of respect"; the first time tea should not be drunk, but should be poured out "washing dust"... What are the special meanings behind these rituals?
Nowadays, when encountering guests visiting, brewing a cup of steaming tea for guests is also a basic way of hospitality, but when serving tea to guests, you should pay attention to the tea is not too full, and it is appropriate to be eight points full. The water temperature should not be too hot to avoid guests accidentally being burned.
The etiquette of pouring wine is the opposite of pouring tea, entertaining guests at the banquet, and the wine must be poured full, which also reflects the welcome and sincerity of the guests.
We saw a scene in the TV series where brewing a pot of good tea requires brewing and then pouring out the first tea, and then mixing it with white water, and so on. Tracing its origin, in fact, there is a person named Ruo Chen Ou from ancient China,
He is famous for making tea sets, which are beautiful and durable. But when a vicious wizard found out, he recited a poisonous spell and destroyed the tea set. To undo the spell, a young man needs to throw himself into the fire that burns the tea set. So Chen Ou fearlessly threw himself into the raging fire, the spell was unraveled, the tea set returned to its original state, and people were able to continue to taste the tea with the tea set. In order to commemorate Chen Ou, people called the first tea "Chen Ou washing dust".
Nowadays, "Chen Ou washing dust" has gradually evolved into one of the "eighteen kung fu teas", and people use the word "washing dust" more to express respect for guests.
As a country of etiquette, the Chinese nation is extremely particular about eating and wearing. In the four famous works "Dream of the Red Chamber", there is such a fragment, Jia Mu took Liu Grandma to MiaoYu's Li Cui Nunnery, and Miao Yu took out different cups to entertain everyone: for Bao Yu to use "green jade bucket", for Jia Mu to use "Cheng kiln multicolored small cover bell", for Dai Yu and Bao Chao used "apricot rhinoceros" and "divide the melon", the rest of the people used "official kiln to fill the white lid bowl", which can be described as full of ritual.
Looking back at the history of Chinese use of cups and wine utensils, although the shape is very different, it is full of the wisdom of the ancients.
The earliest cup in China is a ready-made object in nature such as shells, gourds, and animal horns, describing the feast and drink as "staggering and staggering", and the first is a wine container made of animal horns.
In the Paleolithic Age, the cups used by the ancients were mainly stone cups. In addition to filling water with cups, people at that time drank wine fermented with wild fruits and also served in stone cups.
By the Neolithic age, agriculture began to develop, and grain-made wine had already been produced. Archaeologists also found a set of wine-making utensils in a tomb in the Lingyang River in Juxian County, Shandong Province, not only for fermenting grain, but also for large-mouth pottery for fermenting grain, leaky tanks for filtering, pottery pots for receiving wine, pottery urns for storing wine, and yao-shaped pottery cups and high-handled pottery cups for drinking. At that time, the pottery cup, from the shape point of view, is also very close to the current cup.
During the Xia Shang Zhou Period, bronze cups began to appear on the table. Due to the development of the wine industry in the Shang Dynasty, the wind of alcoholism prevailed, and drinking became an indispensable ritual in feasting and sacrifice.
Therefore, people have exhausted their imagination in the production of wine utensils, and have created ding, huo, 罍, 觯 and other utensils. The nobles also included bronze wine vessels in the category of ceremonial vessels, with a complete bronze wine vessel system that belonged to the era.
In the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the most representative cup should be the Jue Cup, which is not only a basic wine vessel, but also a symbol of rank, status and status. Various forms of cups have been unearthed from the tomb of Yin Ruins, usually round-bellied, with a flow groove at the front of the mouth on one side, a pointed tail at the back, a column between the stream and the mouth, and a handle for the cup next to it, and three cone-shaped long feet at the bottom. One of the cups contains an inscription with the words "drink with dedication", indicating that the knight is a drinking vessel.
In recent years, some people have put forward new ideas for the use of knights, believing that knights may be used to "pour wine and worship gods" during sacrifices, and associate them with the totemic worship of merchants.
After the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Juju Cup was gradually forgotten and became a unique mark of that era. It was not until the Song Dynasty that retro was popular, and the study of antiquities as the object of study flourished, and people re-understood the original appearance of the Shang Zhou Jue Cup, and the ensuing antique style masterpieces, but the descendants were not limited to bronze, but used more different materials to produce silver lords, bronze lords, jade lords and porcelain lords.
Looking back at history, we are not surprised, even after a long period of change, the image of the cup made by the ancients is still not much different from the cup we use today. The ancients designed a splendid Chinese civilization with their imagination, and these drinking utensils are only a very small part of their creation history.