The birth and development of tea, from raw boiled soup to six major types of tea, has undergone thousands of years of evolution.
It was once a medicinal herb for clearing heat and detoxification, was also the subject of literati writing, and was once an important strategic material for stabilizing the frontier.
Such a long history of Chinese tea is too time-consuming to fully understand, you may wish to briefly review the historical development of tea with 8 key points.
Tea for medicinal purposes
Tea was first used as a medicinal herb before it entered the homes of the people.
The Shennong Hundred Grass Sutra says, "Shennong tastes the hundred herbs... Seventy-two poisons are encountered every day, and they are solved." Di is the early tea.
Shennong's taste of herbs and chewing on fresh leaves inadvertently discovered the medicinal value of tea. Therefore, the earliest tea is to eat fresh leaves raw to obtain medicinal value.
Tea for soup
Raw food is the most primitive, with the progress of productivity, tea into the period of soup drinking.
In fact, there are still some ethnic groups that have retained the custom of using tea into dishes. For example, the Kino people in Yunnan still have the habit of eating "cold mixed tea", and the fresh leaves of the tea tree are mixed with yellow fruit leaves, garlic, peppers and other cold mixes.
This custom of boiling soup and drinks continued to be popular until the Tang Dynasty.
Tang Shi had learned to rough process tea: fresh leaves were grilled over fire. Then break the tea leaves and cook them together with seasonings.
What onions, ginger, peppercorns, mint, salt... Add it all in, it's called a hodgepodge! Cooked well, come, entertain the distinguished guests to come to a bowl of "tea porridge", count high to see you!
Pristine sunburn
Once people have the concept of rough processing of fresh leaves of tea plants, they begin to use their brains: can it be preserved for a long time?
So there is a rough, primitive sunburn, using the sun to dry the moisture in the fresh leaves, into a "dry tea" to collect.
From sun to steam
Since I thought of the method of drying, naturally, the way of steaming and baking was also invented.
When there is no sun, you can use utensils such as koshiki to steam tea leaves, steam and dry them, and harvest "dry tea".
This original processing of steamed green and sun-dried green is originally loose tea.
Cake tea appears
By the time of the Tang Dynasty, the upper classes were dissatisfied with the simple rough processing of tea, so steamed green tuan cake tea began to appear and become popular.
Steamed green cake tea is not simply a shape of loose tea, but has a complete set of preparation methods and grade judgments.
The "Tea Classic" records that steamed green cake tea is made through seven processes and is divided into eight grades according to appearance, uniformity and color.
Steamed green dough cakes continued from The Tang to the Song, and the emergence of Dragon and Phoenix Tuan Tea pushed tea to an aesthetic peak. In the Song Dynasty, from emperors to ministers, from wenshi to commoners, playing tea played out an artistic realm, that is, the "tea order" in the traditional tea art.
The popularity of tea ordering has made tea more and more popular.
And tea began to have a class division: there are small dragon groups worth thousands of dollars, and there are also coarse teas and end teas suitable for civilians to drink.
The strike group dispersed
The Ming Dynasty was a turning point for Tuancha to loose tea.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the ming ancestor of the poor, did not have a good feeling for the extravagant tuan cake tea, and ordered "the dragon group to be destroyed, only the tea buds are picked to advance", and since then the loose tea has become popular on a large scale.
In the Qing Dynasty, all kinds of loose leaf tea continued to develop, under the technical requirements of tribute tea excellence, famous teas around the world continued to emerge, and the tea industry really appeared the development of a hundred flowers.
Clear drinking is popular
After the Ming Dynasty boycotted and dispersed, the popular trend of tea has actually moved from luxury to practicality.
At this time, the production process of tea has also been continuously improved, and the modern sense of "fried green" has emerged.
People found that why grind and boil that set, simple brewing is more convenient, and the taste is good, so the drink began to become popular.
Blossom
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was a period of prosperity and development of Chinese tea and a hundred flowers, with frequent famous teas and technological innovation.
In addition to green tea, the five basic tea categories: yellow tea, white tea, black tea, green tea, and oolong tea all emerged during this period.
Green tea, black tea, yellow tea
White tea, green tea, black tea
Yellow tea
The production of yellow tea is an improper evolution of the green tea system, and the history of this evolution is recorded in the book "Tea Shu" in the Ming Dynasty, so the emergence of yellow tea should have begun in the Ming Dynasty.
Black tea
Black tea appeared around the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and the original birth of black tea was for border trade: sold to border areas in exchange for horses.
white tea
During the Qing Xianfeng Guangxu years, the large white tea tree was first discovered in Zhenghe, Fujian, which had large buds, many, dried raw, white as silver, and came out with white tea in the modern sense.
black tea
Black tea probably appeared in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the earliest black tea production began with a small black tea in Chong'an, Fujian Province, and gradually evolved into Gongfu black tea. Later, the production method of black tea spread from Fujian to Anhui, Jiangxi and other places, and went abroad to shine.
oolong
The appearance of oolong tea is probably also in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. According to the early Qing Dynasty "Tea Theory" record, at that time Wuyi tea production method was unique, after making "half green and half red", this Wuyi tea, is the prototype of oolong tea.
Popular around the world
After modern times, tea has really entered the homes of ordinary people.
People also have a variety of ways to drink tea, and tea houses and tea rooms have risen, and the atmosphere of drinking tea is strong.
Not only that, the expansion of tea overseas has also spread with the maturity of ship technology in the era of great navigation.
British afternoon tea is popular throughout Europe, british botanist Robert Fujun, he secretly introduced Chinese tea plants to India to plant successfully, which led to today's Assam black tea, Darjeeling black tea.
Today, tea has become recognized as one of the world's top three health drinks.
Picture: Sucha Network, Photo Network
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Burning incense and sipping tea is self-satisfied, how to use a green jade pot.