"A dream of the Red Chamber, full of paper and tea leaves." The classical masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber" describes tea culture in a wide range of pages, subtle details, and far-reaching meanings, which is rare in the history of Chinese novels.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" describes the tea culture of Zhong Mingding Food and Shi Li Miao's House, and the elegant tea affair appears rich and luxurious. Rich and noble families drink tea, and they drink the best tea. In the book "Dream of the Red Chamber", drinking tea pays the most attention to fame. Among the Chinese are "Lu'an Tea", "Lao Junmei", "Pu'er Tea", "Qianhong Yi Cave", "Maple Dew Tea", "Longjing Tea" and so on.
In the 41st episode of the novel, "Tasting Tea in Li Cui'an", in the section where Grandma Liu enters the Grand View Garden, Jia Mu leads everyone to Miao Yu's Li Cui Nunnery, and Miao Yu is busy greeting Jia Mu and his party to drink tea, at which time Jia Mu asks "I don't drink Lu'an tea". The Lu'an tea here is one of the famous teas of the Qing Dynasty, Lu'an tea is produced in Lu'an Huoshan Mountain, and is named together with Longjing and Tianchi, all of which are Qinggong teas.
Miao Yu heard Jia Mu say that she would not eat Lu'an tea and said, "You know, this is Lao Junmei." Miao Yu, who is good at tea, chose Lao Junmei for Jia Mu, which she carefully considered. Lao Junmei's name has the beauty of congratulating longevity, which also shows Miaoyu's intention for Jia Mu, and then considering that Jia Mu is old, she cannot drink too strong drinks, and only then has she eaten greasy food, which needs to be dissolved and consumed.
Miaoyu is the old Junmei specially prepared by Jia Mu, which is generally believed to refer to the Junshan silver needle produced in Dongting Lake, and its quality is characterized by the dark color of the soup, the rich flavor, and the ability to digest and dissolve the grease; this is a rather fashionable tea in the Qing Dynasty, and the people of the time also called this tea "Shoumei", and the Qing Dynasty also used it as a tribute tea.
"Famous tea must also be well brewed." In "Dream of the Red Chamber", the water of cooking tea is particularly exquisite, and it is known as the vast elegance. Jia Baoyu's poem "Winter Night Scene" says: "But the waiter knows how to try tea, and sweeps the new snow in time to cook." Miao Yu entertained Dai Yu, Bao Chao, and Bao Yu to drink tea, and the water for cooking tea was the plum blossom snow she harvested 5 years ago. Drinking tea has reached such a refined realm, which shows that the Chinese tea ceremony is not ordinary.
With famous tea and good water, we must also pay attention to the art of cooking tea. "Dream of the Red Chamber" also describes this: "Miao Yu fanned water from the wind stove and made another pot of tea. "Famous tea brewing to master the boiling water temperature, generally should be brewed with 70 or 80 degrees Celsius boiling water, can make the tea mellow and fragrant, tea quality is not damaged." These descriptions can't help but marvel at the author's deep understanding of how to drink tea.
The way of drinking tea also pays attention to the combination of cups, pots and plates for a complete set of tea sets. "Dream of the Red Chamber" describes a variety of exquisite tea sets in many places, which can be described as an exposition of ancient and modern tea set culture. First of all, the general tea set, almost every rich man in the novel has a set of exquisite tea sets in the home room. For example, in Jia Mu's flower hall, there are small teacups of old kiln assortment in the foreign lacquer tea tray. In the second room where Madame Wang is sitting, there are also tea bowls and bottles of tea. The maids use exquisite tea trays to support the tea cup to deliver tea to the host and guests, such as Baoyu's maid raiders who use "serial foreign lacquer tea trays" to send tea.
Even more commendable is the tea set in myo-yu-kuri-a. When Jia Mu, Bao Yu and Dai Yu came to Li Cui'an alone, Miao Yu took out 10 different tea sets to entertain the guests. The first is the "Begonia Fancy Carved Lacquer Filling Golden Yunlong Xianshou Small Tea Tray" used to offer tea to Jia Mu; the second is that this small tea tray contains a small cup of five-colored lids for the kiln, which is a tea set produced by the Jingdezhen Guanyao kiln in the Ming Dynasty; the third is that the tea cups for everyone who came with Jia Mu are "one-color official kilns to fill the white lid bowl"; the fourth is the wind stove for boiling tea; the fifth is the teapot for boiling tea; and the sixth is the "grimace green" tea urn where Miaoyu stores plum blossom snow water.
"Dream of the Red Chamber" has a lot of tea poetry and tea associations, with tea into poetry, unique style, full of strong breath of life. For example, "The boiling tea gradually boils, and the boiling wine leaves are difficult to burn." "Baoding tea is still green because of the smoke, and the window chess is still cold." These chanting tea poems (lian) push the tea ceremony in "Dream of the Red Chamber" to a climax.
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