Someone once said: Chinese's blood flowed with two drops of water, one drop is ink, the other drop is tea. Chinese tea culture has a long history, the earliest can be traced back to the ancient Shennong period, different generations of tea drinking methods are also very different, our current "tea brewing method", in fact, in the Ming Dynasty began to gradually popularize...
Tea is a medicine, chewing raw is simple and efficient
The earliest story about the leaf of tea dates back more than 4,000 years.
It is recorded in the Huainan zi xiu wu xun that Shennong was the first religious people, tasting the taste of a hundred herbs, and at this time, he encountered seventy poisons in one day. Speaking of the ancient Shennong clan, seeing that the people of the tribe often accidentally eat poisonous plants, there is no cure for illness, in order to save the tribesmen from water and fire, he decided to taste all the herbs for everyone to identify which plants can be eaten and which are poisonous.
Legend has it that one day he was tired and sat under a tree and boiled water in a clay pot, and a few leaves just floated down from the tree and fell into the clay pot and boiled with water. After drinking the water in the clay pot, Shennong found that he could quench his thirst and refresh his spirits, and this leaf was called "荼".
Later, in the process of tasting hundreds of herbs, Shennong accidentally took a very toxic small grass, he remembered the leaf "Di" he had found before, and hurriedly picked a few pieces of it, and the toxicity was successfully dissolved.
Since Shennong discovered that "荼" can detoxify, the ancestors would collect tea leaves, dry them as medicines, and whenever they felt uncomfortable, they would grab a handful of chews and eat them dry.
Medicine and food are of the same origin, and cooked food tastes better when eaten
However, the taste of dry chewed tea is really not good, and by the Wei and Jin dynasties, everyone has begun to realize the influence of fire on the taste of dishes, and the major leap in cooking methods and methods has greatly improved the quality of people's diets, and new trends have emerged in diet.
Regarding tea, people in the Wei and Jin dynasties also invented a new way of eating: diet therapy. Boiling fresh tea leaves and grain together and eating them as tea porridge has continued to this day. Ethnic minorities such as the Dai, Hani, and Jingpo ethnic groups on the southwest border of the mainland have always retained the habit of eating tea as a dish, and they will use unique cooking methods to make tea leaves into "bamboo tea" and eat them as vegetables.
Play some tricks, cook and drink higher grades
Perhaps because there were not too many entertainment activities in ancient times, everyone began to think about tea, and simply eating tea felt a little bit interesting, whether it was taste or appearance, so they figured out a new trick: drinking tea. Rather than chewing tea leaves dry and eating them as food, it seems that it is better to cook tea leaves and drink them.
The Tang Dynasty Lu Yu's "Boiling of the Five Tea Classics" says: "Or with onions and ginger, dates, orange peels, cocoons, mint, etc., boiling hundreds of boils, or Yang Ling slippery, or boiling to remove foam, si ditch between the water ears, and the custom has been."
The Late Tang Dynasty Fan Shu 's Book of Barbarians" records: "Tea comes out of the silver to generate the mountains of the boundary, scatter the harvest, and there is no early method of harvesting." Meng Sheman drank it with pepper, ginger, cinnamon and cooking."
In the Tang Dynasty, tea was boiled, often with salt, green onions, ginger, cinnamon and other condiments. The exact taste is unknown, but since then, tea has changed from a medicine to a food.
Sencha was popular in the Tang Dynasty and tea in the Song Dynasty, and the difference between the two is actually just the difference in processing methods, and the final taste is essentially not bad. However, thanks to the vigorous promotion of the Song Huizong at that time in the Song Dynasty, tea became a popular beverage in the country, and tea was also popular throughout the country.
According to Cai Jing's "Records of the Banquet of the Taiqing Lou", it is recorded: "Sui Yu Xi Wei, personally mixing tea, distributing left and right. Although Emperor Huizong of Song was the honor of the Son of Heaven, he was proficient in tea art and had ordered tea for his ministers many times. Passionate about tea, he also wrote a special book "Daguan Tea Theory" to advertise tea, which also detailed the detailed operation method of tea ordering in the Song Dynasty.
Fully evolved, brewing and drinking forced Graman
In the Ming Dynasty, due to the emergence of a workaholic emperor - Zhu Yuanzhang, who was not born well, he was most unaccustomed to extravagant pleasure.
According to the Records of the Ming Dynasty, "Gengzi Zhao. Jianning years to pay tribute to tea, listen to tea households to pick in, there is a division not to be with. Where the world produces tea, there is a quota for the years. And Jianning tea is the best, and those who enter it will be crushed and kneaded. Pressed to silver plate, large and small dragon balls. The Upper Labor force of the people, strikes the dragon regiment, but picks tea buds to advance..."
Dragon Ball Wind Cake
The Kind of steamed Qingtuan Cake Tea invented during the Ming Dynasty at that time prevailed in the Tang Dynasty, and after paying tribute to Zhu Yuanzhang as a tribute, he lamented that the finely crafted Dragon Tuan Feng Cake Tea was too laborious and hurtful, so Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that in the future, I would drink fried Qingshan tea and not allow me to recreate the tea cake, which is the famous waste tuan tea under a famous paper order in history.
Affected by this incident, the ancient tea drinking method was also changed from cooking to brewing, which is also a huge leap in the history of mainland tea drinking.
Brewing and drinking method is not only simple to operate, drinking is also very convenient, more importantly, you can also intuitively see the change process of tea, which is loved by literati and ordinary people, and has been used until today.
In general, the evolutionary history of Chinese tea drinking is actually the history of changes in Chinese national culture. A small leaf runs through the development history of the Chinese nation for thousands of years.