He left more than 80 tea poems in his life, and at the age of 73, he also personally boiled tea in the river water, and there is still a tea named after him in Meishan, Sichuan.
Today, let's talk about the legendary story of Su Dongpo, the idol in the literati's heart, making tea, loving tea, writing tea, and fighting tea.
Portrait of Su Dongpo
Tea fighting was popular in the Song Dynasty, and it was the favorite entertainment program of literati and ink writers at that time, and Su Dongpo was a master of tea fighting.
Legend has it that when Su Shi was 28 years old when he was appointed to Hangzhou Futai, he was young and vigorous and fought tea with Cai Xiang, a university scholar. The two were next to the second spring in Huishan, Wuxi, and cooked tea separately. In the end, the tea foam in Cai Xiang's cup was snow-white and long-lasting, while the tea foam in Su Shi's cup was white, but it soon began to slowly fade.
After losing the first battle, Su Shi wrote in a poem of self-punishment: "The silver bottle of Epsom soup is the second, and I don't know the meaning of the ancients to fry water." ”
So Su Dongpo learned a lesson and improved the sencha method. In the second tea fight between the two, although the tea products were comparable, Su Shi won with the faint bamboo fragrance in the tea.
Ancient tea fights
Once Su Shi got good tea, and then took it to fight with others, and he won steadily.
Sima Guang deliberately embarrassed him, and asked with a smile: "Tea wants white, ink wants black, tea wants heavy, ink wants light, tea wants new, ink wants Chen." Why do you love both at the same time?"
Su Shi replied: "The strange tea is wonderful and fragrant, do you think it is true?"
In the eyes of everyone, two things that are completely unrelated, Su Dongpo's simple sentence, the two strange interests will end up in the same way. In the spiritual world of the literati, just like the gentleman's temperament and taste, they are intertwined and intrinsically linked.
As a tea addict, he loves and understands tea, and even his name is related to growing tea.
During the period of degrading Huangzhou, he personally cultivated a piece of wasteland in the east of the city to plant grain and tea trees, and named it "Dongpo".
And composed a poem "Seek my five acres of garden, mulberry wheat bitter." Don't let an inch be idle, but also beg for tea art. "
Su Dongpo's life of exile, his daily life is either drinking tea, or on the way to drinking tea, and even dreaming of drinking tea.
He said in "Two Palindromes of Remembering Dreams": "On December 15, when the snow began to clear, the dreamer cooked a small group of tea with snow water. ”
Huanggang (Huangzhou) Yiaihu Park Su Dongpo Memorial Park
As a great writer, writing tea poems is an indispensable creation for Su Dongpo. He left more than 80 tea poems in his lifetime, second only to Lu You and Emperor Qianlong.
One of the most famous tea poems is "Jijiang Sencha", which has been regarded by tea people as an eternal chapter of tea poetry for nearly a thousand years.
This seven-law tea poem was written by Su Dongpo when he was relegated to Danzhou, Hainan when he was 73 years old. The poem reads:
"Living water must also be cooked by live fire, and it is deep and clear from the fishing stones.
The big scoop stores the moon and returns to the spring urn, and the small ladle divides the river into the night bottle.
The snow milk has been fried, and the pine wind suddenly makes a sound.
枯肠未易茶三碗，卧听山城长短更。 ”
When this poem was written, it was only a year before his death. But from the poem, we can see Su Dongpo's requirements for the sense of ritual of drinking tea, bowing to the tea, personally stepping on the stone to get living water, dividing bottled water, personally sencha, and feeling the fun of cooking tea.
The artistic conception of the whole poem is sad but not complaining, sad but not sad, but it is long and evocative to read. It is no wonder that Yang Wanli, a famous poet of the Song Dynasty, called this poem "every sentence is strange".
Diagram of Kijiang sencha
Hainan Danzhou Dongpo Academy
Nowadays, in Meishan, Sichuan, where Su Dongpo was born, there is a green tea called "Dongpo Cuizhu", which is rumored to have been created by Su Dongpo in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Su Dongpo took the fresh leaves collected from his hometown and made them into high-quality tea after careful frying, kneading, roasting, drying, drying and other production processes.
When he returned to Beijing to take up his post, he gave this tea to his mentor Ouyang Xiu. After Ouyang Xiu tasted it, he was full of praise. And said to Su Dongpo, "You like bamboo all your life, just call it Dongpo Cuizhu." And Su Dongpo and Cai Xiang won the second tea fight, relying on Meishan Cuizhu.
Dongpo hometown Meishan Sansu Temple
Cuizhu tea on the eastern slope of Meishan Mountain
Su Dongpo, the tea god of the Great Song Dynasty, tasted the true meaning of life in tea. Just as he wrote, "The taste of the world is pure joy", he used his love and pursuit of tea to bring endless thoughts and comfort to future generations.
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