In the history of tea culture in the mainland, there are three god-level figures, all of whom lived in the Tang Dynasty, namely Lu Yu, the "Saint of Tea", the poet monk Jiaoran, the "Father of the Tea Ceremony", and Lu Tong, the "Tea Fairy".
For tea lovers, the Tang Dynasty poet Lu Tong is most widely praised by later generations for his "Seven Bowls of Tea Poems", which won him the reputation of "Tea Fairy".
Today, although there are many people who talk about the "Seven Bowls of Tea Poem", this article still wants to talk about the experience and feelings of drinking tea in this poem.
A bowl of throat kisses. This is thirst quenching;
Two bowls of broken loneliness. This is the relief of troubles;
Three bowls of dry intestines, only 5,000 volumes of words. This is the surge of thought after being inspired;
Four bowls of light sweat, life injustice, all to the pores. It's a kind of sudden freedom and freedom;
Five bowls of musculoskeletal clearing. It is the joy of being otherworldly, reborn;
Six bowls of fairy spirits. This is the unity of heaven and man, the lightness of being at ease;
Seven bowls can't be eaten, but the two armpits are used to the breeze. It's an epiphany that sees through everything.
The poem of Seven Bowls of Tea expresses the seven realms and experiences of drinking tea.
Yang Wanli, a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, once used "Tong eats seven bowls, and Po can't help but have three bowls" to ridicule Su Dongpo, the first person in tea poetry.
Although it is a joke, it also says seven of the feelings of drinking tea, which can not be experienced casually.
Su Dongpo loved tea all his life and left more than 80 poems related to tea. When he was 73 years old, he wrote in the poem "Jijiang Sencha" that "dry intestines are not easy to ban three bowls", which means that Su Dongpo thought that after drinking three bowls of tea, he did not reach the realm of searching for dry intestines.
So, how much influence does this seven-bowl tea poem have on tea culture?
After this poem was transmitted to Japan, the Japanese started with Lu Tong's "Seven Bowls of Tea Poem" at the beginning of learning the sencha ceremony, and became the essence of the Japanese tea ceremony, and Lu Tong was also regarded as the originator of the Japanese tea ceremony.
Gao Youwai, a Japanese monk and pioneer of the sencha ceremony, commented on Lu Tong in "Meishan Tea Cultivation Spectrum": "Planting tea in Shennong, to Tang Lu Yu's scriptures, Lu Tong's songs, all over the world. ”
The realm of tea drinking and the feeling of tea tasting depicted in the poems of Seven Bowls of Tea have brought countless creative inspirations to later literati and artists.
In the Tang and Song poems that have been handed down to this day, there are more than 5,000 poems that mention Lu Tong and his poems.
For example, the Northern Song Dynasty poet Su Shi said: "Why should Emperor Wei take one pill of medicine, and use all Lu Tong for seven bowls of tea."
Even Emperor Qianlong was deeply influenced by him, and wrote "Xing into Lu Shifeng full of armpits, and the book is poured on the side of the belly and rings the car".
Lu Tong also had a profound influence on the field of ancient painting art, and "Lu Tong Cooking Tea" has become a favorite creative theme for painters of various dynasties.
In the two National Palace Museums in Beijing and Taipei, there are many versions of Lu Tong's tea cooking pictures by many famous painters of the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, and there are countless works by unknown painters.
Lu Tong, who is a god, can also deter the evil behavior of the invaders during the war.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese army swept villages in the Jiyuan area of Henan, burning and looting along the way. When they invaded the village where Lu Tong was born, and saw a stone tablet erected at the entrance of the village engraved with the four big characters "Lu Tong's hometown", these murderous invaders actually cleaned up their military uniforms, bowed respectfully three times to the stone tablet, and then walked around the village, avoiding the tragedy of a village massacre.
Why can Lu Tong be a god in the history of Chinese tea?
He lived in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, when tea culture was just beginning to flourish, and although he only lived for 40 years (about 795-835 AD), he seemed to be born for tea and lived for tea.
He is the grandson of Lu Zhaolin, one of the "Four Masters of the Early Tang Dynasty", and his excellent family genes have endowed him with a compelling talent, coupled with hard study, romantic and treacherous poetry style, and a language style of its own.
Lu Tong was upright by nature, he couldn't get used to the darkness of officialdom, and eunuchs were rampant, and the court wanted to recruit him as a counselor, but he refused twice. When he was less than 20 years old, he lived in seclusion in Songshan Shaomu Mountain, accompanied by books and tea, and only relied on neighboring monks to send rice to survive.
Although life is very hard, he studies how to grow tea, how to harvest and make, how to brew and taste all day long, and is known as "Tea Fairy" by the world because of his "Tea Recipe" and "Seven Bowls of Tea Poems".
Lu Tong, in the end, just like what he wrote in his "Seven Bowls of Tea Poems", the two armpits gave birth to a fresh breeze, and in the name of "tea fairy", the spirit of the tea ceremony will live forever in the world.
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