Tea affairs before the Tang Dynasty
Tea is a natural health product given by nature to human beings. Tea was first sacrificial treasure, followed by "tea dish", "tea porridge", "noodle tea", "oil tea" and "cold mix tea". Chinese tea, the initial rise of Bashu, China's tea drinking, is a matter after the Qin unified Bashu.
Tea in the Han Dynasty has been gradually promoted as a drink, in the Western Han Dynasty, China's Sichuan area of tea drinking, tea has become increasingly common, in the rich families of officials, tea has become a daily drink, and tea has been commercialized.
During the two Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, emperors and nobles gathered into a common practice, and the general officials and scholars took the praise of the rich as the beauty, and the children of the nobles played enough to eat and chew, and used tea cakes instead of three sacrifices as an example.
The rise of tea drinking in the Two Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties was related to the development of Taoism, the rise of Buddhism, and the literati's advocacy of light customs. Taoists practice qigong to meditate and introspect, and tea has a certain effect on clearing the mind and easing the meridians. So there are some stories and legends that drinking tea can be feathered into immortals. During the war and chaos during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, people comforted themselves through religion, monks advocated Qing cultivation, tea can make people calm, many monks advocated tea drinking, so there are many records of tea in Buddhist stories.
Tea drinking from ordinary people to the upper class, especially among the literati, monks, Taoists, and Qingtans, tea drinking has been regarded as a means of enjoying and cultivating sentiments and expressing ambitions in the elegant spiritual world, not only a way to awaken the brain and quench thirst, and tea drinkers have formed a certain social level, it should be said that this marks the formation of Chinese tea culture.
Tea with Wei Jin demeanor
Tang Dynasty tea affair
The Tang Dynasty was a period of great economic development of tea. The tea producing area is already quite large.
Tea production in the Tang Dynasty was also considerable. Total production is estimated at 100,000 tonnes. The tea area is wide, the output is large, and the tea drinkers are numerous, so the tea shops and tea houses in the Tang Dynasty are very developed. Tribute tea has a long history, with a history of at least 3,000 years. During the reign of King Wu of Zhou, Bashu tea was "tribute tea", but at that time, it was known as "tribute tea", with the nature of gifts, and it was not institutionalized, about the Tianbao period.
From the "New Book of Tang Dynasty Geographical Records", it can be seen that tang dynasty tribute tea spread throughout 5 provinces and 17 state capitals, and every tea harvesting season, imperial court envoys and local officials rushed to the tea area to supervise tea farmers to collect tribute tea.
The Tang Dynasty also set up a tribute tea house, responsible for manufacturing high-grade tea, and paying tribute to the imperial court. The Tribute Tea House was built in Wuxing County, where Guzhu Tea was built as a tribute tea by Lu Yu.
What is more interesting is that after salt and wine, in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the tea tax began to be levied, and the tax was still very heavy and strict. The main reason is that after tea became the eating habit of the Tang people, it greatly promoted the development of tea production, and at the same time, after tea became a commodity, it also promoted the prosperity of the commodity economy. At this time, the northern non-producing tea area has become a large market for tea sales. The smuggling of tea from tea-producing areas in the south can be profitable. The political situation of the Tang Dynasty was unstable, and only by relying on tea merchants to open up new sources of taxation, so the "tax tea" system appeared. From non-taxation to taxation, tea is officially recognized and improved as a national socio-economy from a national point of view, that is, from a free local economy.
Before the Tang Dynasty, although the history of tea drinking and growing tea in some places in southern China has been a long time, there has not yet been a monograph on tea science, that is to say, tea has not yet formed into an independent formal science. With the development of the tea industry and the need for tea knowledge in society, Lu Yu, with his rich knowledge of tea science and his strong interest in tea research, spent nearly 20 years writing the earliest and first tea science monograph in China and even the world - "Tea Classic". The advent of the "Tea Classic" is a comprehensive summary and improvement of the knowledge of tea science at that time and before the Tang Dynasty, which has epoch-making significance and has had an important academic impact on the time and future generations. Lu Yu also practiced what he preached, carrying a tea set to perform tea skills for the emperor and dignitaries. Therefore, "the tea ceremony is popular, and the princes and courtiers are all drinkers."
Song Dynasty tea affair
The development of the tea industry in the Song Dynasty was prominently reflected in the rise of "Jiancha", and the center of gravity of the tea industry shifted to the southeast, mainly in the change of Gongba from Guzhu to Jian'an, Southern Fujian and Lingnan. In addition to the good quality of "Jiancha", another important reason is climate change, Zhejiang Yixing, Changxing, spring tea is later than Jian'an tea, germination is late, can not guarantee that tribute tea before the Qingming Dynasty to Beijing, and Jian'an tea, for Ouyang Xiushiyun: "Jian'an three thousand miles, Beijing in March to taste new tea." ”
In the Song Dynasty, the Jian'an Tea District sprang up, and the Xiaolongfeng Tuan Tea in Beiyuan replaced Gu Zhu's Purple Shoot Tribute Tea, and its reputation spread far and wide. Because tribute tea is enjoyed by the royal family, the collection of its tea leaves is improved, thereby promoting and improving the production technology of tea, so that later the "Jiancha" system has become the main production technology of Chinese tuancha and cake tea.
The production area and output of tea in the Song Dynasty have increased greatly compared with the Tang Dynasty, and there are many social tea drinkers, and tea drinkers not only require low tea prices, but also hope to be convenient for cooking and drinking. Therefore, on the basis of the production of tuancha and cake tea processes in the past, steaming without crushing, crushing without shooting, steaming green and steamed tea came into being, and gradually developed. During the Song Dynasty, the tightly pressed teas such as TuanCha and Cake Tea were called "slice tea", and the steamed green and finished teas that were steamed but not broken, crushed and not patted were called "loose tea". Some tea producing areas in the Song Dynasty, including yixing and Changxing in Zhejiang, where the Tang Dynasty specialized in making tribute tea. Since the time when the tribute tea is no longer paid, the tuan tea and cake tea have been transformed into loose tea to meet the needs of the public for tea drinking. Therefore, the Song Dynasty was in the stage of china's tea production from tuancha and cake tea to loose tea, which was actually related to many factors such as tea from "Zhumen" to "Chaihu", traditional tea making technology and cooking habits and social consumption needs at that time, the prevalence of Tea Fighting in the Song Dynasty and the further development of tea culture.
Doucha, that is, the evaluation and identification of the quality of tea, was established along with the Tea System of the Middle Tang Dynasty. Tea fighting began in the Tang Dynasty, and in the Song Dynasty, it became more and more common, and has developed into a folk competition that is more interesting than tea quality, fighting cooking skills, and Chinese fun. Su Shi has a poetry cloud: "Millet buds by wuyi creek, before Ding and after Cai Xianglong plus." Compete for new favors to buy each other's intentions, this year's dou pin charge "official tea." "Every year, before the new tea is listed, the first tea is doucha, and the top product of the "bucket" is "official tea".
The popularity of Dou tea in the Song Dynasty has a lot to do with the good tea of Emperor Huizong zhao of the Song Dynasty, and the Beiyuan tea produced in Jian'an, Fujian is precious. In order to win the favor of the Heavenly Son, when the Beiyuan Tea saw the new, they each offered their own pre-spring products, and fought tea under the forest, with a focused look and a high spirit. Doucha first re-selects tea and milling, and also pays attention to the choice of water. The utensils of doucha or gold and jade carvings, or the famous porcelain produced in official kilns, pay attention to extraordinary. Finally, the color, aroma and taste of the tea are determined. The victory or defeat of this tea fight is not insignificant, and the victory over the Immortals is defeated, and its honor and disgrace are so great. A tea fight, like a ball game or chess battle today, has been widely concerned by the audience. Fighting tea has promoted the improvement of tea picking technology.
Song Dynasty Doucha
Ming and Qing dynasty tea affairs
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict on the grounds of reducing the labor of tea households: "Provide tea on the year, strike the dragon group, and listen to the tea households only pick bud tea to advance." "Reform" to "pre-spring", "tanchun", "second spring", "flag gun" and "stone milk", "ling bud" and other loose tea. This kind of loose tea that does not enter the product number and is simple to make was once the daily drinking tea of ordinary people, and the Ming Taizu Zhao gong tea was also made according to this, which objectively played a positive role in breaking the traditional shackles of tuan tea and cake tea and promoting the production of loose tea. In addition, in the production of tea, the general change of steaming green to fried green, which provides an extremely favorable condition for the further promotion of bud tea and leaf tea, and also makes some tea making processes such as stir-fried green reach the level of pure fire. To this day, many of its tea making processes and technical points are still used in the production process of various famous and high-grade teas in China.
The development of Ming and Qing bud tea and leaf tea is also manifested in promoting and promoting the development of other teas. Oolong tea is a newly created tea in this period. In addition, the production technology of various types of tea has also been enriched and improved. So far, the six major tea categories have coexisted.
Ancient Chinese tea science is mainly collected in tea books. Since the "Tea Classic", through the development of the Tang and Song dynasties, to the Middle and Late Ming Dynasties of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it has reached a peak. There were 31 kinds of tea books in the Song and Yuan dynasties, among which the representative works with different contents were Song Huizong Zhao Tuo's "Daguan Tea Theory", Zhou Dai's "Tea Supplement", Cai Xiang's tea art monograph "Tea Record" and The Old Man's "Tea Set Tuzan", the earliest tea law monograph in China's history is Shen Kuo's "Tea Law of the Dynasty" and Shen Li's "Fa Yi Lan". The Ming Dynasty was the period with the most written tea books, with 68 kinds of books published in 250 years, such as Zhang Yuan's "Tea Record", Xu Cishu's "Tea Shu", Zhu Quan's "Tea Recipe", Tian Yisuo's "Boiling Spring Sketch", Sun Dashou, Wu Dan's "Tea Classics and Water Debates", Xia Shufang's "Tea Dong", Yu Zheng's "Complete Tea Books" and so on. These classics are the result of the author's long-term study, inheriting the past and revealing the future, removing the false and preserving the true, enriching and perfecting. By the Qing Dynasty, there were 17 kinds of tea books, and most of them were excerpted and compiled, and there were few original tea books. Therefore, if the Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty were a prosperous or peak period of traditional Chinese tea science, then by the middle and late Qing Dynasty, traditional Chinese tea science was slowly moving towards the ultimate.
Similar to the decline of tea science, the most tragic history of Chinese tea history was staged at the same time.
As early as before the Opium War, Chinese tea swept the world, alone in the world tea market, when the only export of tea was China, with an average annual export of 22,500 tons of tea, accounting for about 60% of the total exports at that time, and was China's largest export commodity. By 1867, exports had increased to 65,500 tons, accounting for more than 90% of the world's tea exports. Exports in 1886 reached a record high of 134,000 tons.
Subsequently, China's tea exports deteriorated as the exports of black tea and Japanese green tea from India, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) continued to grow, and gradually divided the world tea market. By 1900, the share of Chinese tea in the world's tea trade had dropped to 50.9%. By 1900, the market share of Chinese tea was only 31.3%, in 1913 it fell to 21.3%, and in 1919 it fell to 10.8%.
Social unrest, political decline, the decision on Chinese tea prices was in the hands of the British. History tells us that weak tea is also cheap.