Original title: Teaspoons and tea baskets in song dynasty tea: roll up a nest of fragrant snow
"The vessel is the father of tea, and the water is the mother of tea", the relationship between tea sets (or tea utensils) and tea is close and delicate. The development of tea sets, along with the changes in the way of drinking tea in the past, some tea sets in history have gradually disappeared due to the degradation of practical functions, and some tea sets will continue to be active in various tea activities with the transformation of functions. It can be said that the development and change of tea sets is the best footnote to the tea culture of an era.
In addition to inheriting the Sencha method of the Tang Dynasty, the Song people's tea drinking method is a symbol of the tea culture of the Song Dynasty. The so-called tea is to place the finely ground tea in the tea bowl, inject boiling water with a soup bottle, and then mix it in the bowl with a teaspoon or tea basket to form a "tea soup". This article discusses the special tea sets used in the tea ordering process - "teaspoons" and "tea rafts".
The tea order method was a unique way of drinking tea in the Song Dynasty. The tea set used in this tea drinking method includes more than ten kinds of utensils such as mills, luo, bottles, cups, spoons, and flutes. Among them, the tea basket and teaspoon are one of the utensils directly used to order tea, and with the rise, prosperity and even disappearance of the tea ordering method, the tea raft and teaspoon have also undergone a series of changes. From the original cleaning utensils, the tea raft has been continuously changed to become the core utensils for tea ordering, and finally with the disappearance of the tea ordering method, it has withdrawn from the historical stage. The teaspoon has evolved from the original measuring tool to a tea dispenser, and its function has been continuously transformed with the change of tea drinking. At the same time, the spread of teaspoons and tea rafts in the Song Dynasty continued to play an important role in the Japanese tea ceremony through the sea route.
Figure 1 Xuanhua Liao tomb Zhang Shiqing tomb tea preparation
Figure 1.1 Xuanhua Liao Tomb Zhang Shiqing Tomb Tea Preparation Partial Enlarged Figure
teaspoon
The appearance of teaspoons can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. Tang Dynasty tea drinking is mostly decoction method, is to grind the tea cake into the tea powder and then put into the tea kettle to boil, at this time the teaspoon used is mainly used as a tool for measuring, so it is also known as tea. Lu Yu's "Tea Classic, Four Instruments" records:
"Then, in the genus of sea shells and oyster clams, or in copper, iron, bamboo, daggers, and the like." Then, the quantity also, the quasi also, the degree also. "Tang Dynasty tea soup also needs to be stirred in the process of boiling, the main role of stirring is to make the tea powder evenly distributed in the soup, the Tea Sutra contains tools for this time are "bamboo pods" strips, "bamboo pods, or peach, willow, pu sunflower wood for it, or persimmon heart wood for it." It is one foot long, and silver is wrapped at both ends." The usage is to "ring the heart of the soup" with bamboo pods at the second boil, so that the tea is put into the soup under the center. In addition, in the poetry of the Tang Dynasty, it can also be seen that "箸", or "spoon", is also used. Bai Juyi's "Xie Li Liu Lang Zhongxin Shu Tea Poem" "The last knife Gui stirs the qu dust", "Dao Gui" is the name of the measuring instrument of Chinese medicine, which is also a tool used to stir tea soup.
During the Five Dynasties period, the tea ordering method gradually prevailed. The teaspoon (then) mainly used to measure the tea powder in Sencha adds the function of blowing the tea soup, and the meaning of "blowing" is also different from the previous function of simple "stirring". Written in the "Records of tea and tea" written in the early Song Dynasty of the Fifth Dynasty, "Tea Hundred Plays" says: "In recent times, there are soup luck daggers, do not use magic tricks, so that the soup pattern water veins become objects, animals, insects, fish, flowers and birds, and the weaving is picturesque." The dagger is the spoon, that is, the use of the "teaspoon" to make the tea soup water vein form an object image.
Cai Xiang's "Tea Record" (written about the third year of the Emperor's reign, that is, in 1051) contains the "teaspoon": "The teaspoon should be heavy, the blow should be powerful, gold should be the top, and the world should be made of silver and iron." Bamboo is light, and the tea is not taken. At this time, it can be seen that the main function of the teaspoon has changed to "flicking", and the function of "measuring" has weakened or even disappeared. Cai Xiang admires the metal teaspoon because the effect of a teaspoon with a certain weight will be better. The poems of the two Song Dynasties often depict tea soup with a tea spoon, Ouyang Xiu's "Taste New Tea presents Shengyu" "Stop the spoon and test the water road"; Mao Huan's "Xie Ren Sends Dense Cloud Large and Small Clusters" "The old smell is used as a spoon with gold, and the blow needs gold to be powerful". These poems also highlight the "blowing" role of the teaspoon in the process of ordering tea.
Xuanhua Liao Tomb Zhang Shiqing's tomb was built around 1116, and its mural tea preparation shows two men, one man holding a soup bottle in his hand seems to be about to fill the soup, and the other man holding a teaspoon and a tea cup with a tray in both hands. The enlarged details of the figure show that the teaspoon held by the man is swallowtail-shaped and decorated with strings. The Tang Dynasty copper teaspoon (Fig. 2) in the Collection of the China Tea Museum has a similar style.
Figure 2 Tang copper spoon in the collection of the China Tea Museum
In the tea preparation diagram (Figure 3) of the tomb mural of Zhang Kuangzheng in Xuanhua (1093), a teaspoon can be seen on the table, and the spoon handle has a knot-like decoration, and the table top also has a brown broom, a basket, a bottle and a cup.
Figure 3 Part of the mural painting of Zhang Kuangzheng's tomb in Xuanhua, Hebei
Figure 3.1 Partial enlargement of the mural painting of Zhang Kuangzheng's tomb in Xuanhua, Hebei Province
The mural of Tomb No. 6 of Xuanhua Liao Tomb (Figure 4) is in the Da'an period of the Liao Dynasty, and a teaspoon is also placed on the table in the picture, which is not decorated, and there are also tea sets such as brown brooms, baskets, baskets, and lid jars. The three Xuanhua Liao tomb murals are all painted with teaspoons but no tea spoons.
Figure 4 Mural of Tomb No. 6 of Xuanhua Liao Tomb in Hebei Province
Figure 4.1 Enlarged view of the tablework of the mural of Tomb No. 6 of Xuanhua Liao Tomb
The China Tea Museum has two Song copper teaspoons (Figures 5 and 6), one teaspoon is 10.1 cm long, the spoon surface is shovel-shaped, slender handle, and one-third of the handle has three string patterns as decoration. The other teaspoon is 10.8 cm long, the spoon surface is peach-shaped, and the center is hollowed out.
Figure 5 (Song) Copper Spoon (Collection of China National Tea Museum)
Figure 6 (Song) Copper Spoon (Collection of China Tea Museum)
tea whisk
The function of the tea basket is a further development of the flicking function of the teaspoon. Regarding the origin of the tea raft, Guan Jianping proposed that the tea raft was developed from the washing tool "broom", and the time was pushed to the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The above-mentioned book cai xiang's "Tea Record" only records the use of tea spoons, and there is no mention of tea spoons. Written during the Daguan period (1107-1110), the Treatise on Tea in the Daguan Tea Treatise mentions tea rafts for the first time, and the book records that "tea rafts are made by the old man with bamboo sticks." The body desires to be thick, the desire to be loose, the desire to be strong and the end will be broken, when it is like the spine of the sword. The cover is thick and heavy, so it is powerful and easy to use. If the sword is as strong as the spine of the sword, it will blow and the foam will not grow." According to this, the appearance time of tea basket should be earlier than this time, and the appearance time is roughly in the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty.
Judging from the description of the tea raft in the book, the tea raft is already an important tool in many tea sets, and Zhao Tuo believes that the tea raft needs to be "thick" and easy to use, and the tea spoon should be "loose", so that the tea soup that has been hit is "not foamy". It can be seen that at that time, there were already certain standards for the function of the tea raft. Although the tea raft occupies a very important position in the tea set of the Song Dynasty, because the tea raft is mostly made of bamboo, there is no physical retention at present, but there are relevant materials such as literature and images to support it.
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, there were many poems dedicated to tea rafts, such as Han Ju's "Xie Ren Sending Tea Baskets": "Look at the true dragon species of Junmei Yu, and understand the horizontal battle snow Tao." "Han Ju was a poet of the Jiangxi poetry school at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty. Liu Guo's "Good Thing Near Wing Cha Flute": "Roll into the depths of the waves, and raise a nest of fragrant snow." Shi Dehong's "Empty Seal with New Tea" "To see the snow milk stop sharply, spinning jade dust deep into the soup." Yuan Xie Zongyuan's "Tea Basket": "This Jun's section is flawless, and he listens to the pine sound at night." ”
The Southern Song Dynasty's "Yi Jian Zhi" is a Zhi Wei novel, which mostly reflects the customs and habits of the Song Dynasty, and an article in "Hubei Lingyi Ghost" mentions: "A soldier of Fuzhou, a young Dengke, did not marry ... The father of the priest made a living from the tea basket. "During the Southern Song Dynasty, buying and selling tea rafts was already a profession, which shows the large amount of tea rafts used at that time.
Written around 1269, The Book of Tea Sets lists twelve major tea sets of the Song Dynasty, of which "Zhu Vice Marshal" is a tea spoon, and there is no teaspoon mentioned in the book. The tea raft is flattened and whisker-shaped, which can be echoed with other image materials.
Figure 7 Zhu Vice Marshal of the Tea Set Tuzan, that is, the tea basket
Fig. 8 Part of Liu Songnian's "Tea Drawing" (the person who injected the soup had a tea basket in his hand, and the shape was flattened, which was consistent with the depiction of the "Tea Set Tuzan")
Figure 9 Partial close-up of the mural painting of the SongJin family cemetery in Donglongguan, Fenyang, Shanxi (the man in the painting is holding a flat tea basket and is ordering tea)
Figure 10 Southern Song Dynasty "Five Hundred Luohan Tu • Eating Tea Diagram" (in the picture, it can be seen that the servant is holding a tea basket in one hand and a pot in the other hand, but the shape of the tea basket is not clear)
Figure 11 (Song) Lu Xinzhong's Sixteen Arhats (Xiangguo Temple Collection)
Figure 11.1 (Song) Lu Xinzhong's "Sixteen Arhats" partial enlargement (the table top is placed with tea rafts and tortoiseshell lid boxes, the shape of the tea raft is very clear, almost the same as the tea rafts in Liu Songnian's "Tea Drawings", it can be faintly seen that this tea raft has spotted ornaments, which may be a set of tea sets with tortoiseshell tea boxes)
Some sources mention that "in the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a round split whisker tea raft", and the so-called round split whisker shaped tea raft is relatively close to the round tea raft used in the Japanese matcha ceremony now, and the remaining image data can be corroborated.
In the partial enlarged view of li song's "Cargo Lang Diagram" (Figure 12) of the Southern Song Dynasty, it can be seen that there is a tea raft on the penultimate layer, which is a round ball three-dimensional whisker-shaped system.
Figure 12 (Southern Song Dynasty) Partial enlarged view of Li Song's "Cargo Lang Tu" (Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei)
In the Southern Song Dynasty Anon. "Bucket Pulp Diagram" (Figure 13), a tea basket can be seen inserted in a basket, which is no longer flattened and whiskered, but has a spherical shape under the handle. The tea rafts that appeared in the murals of the Yuan Dynasty after that were also mostly of this type, and it was rare to see the tea rafts that were flattened and divided, and the reason for this was that the maturity of tea ordering skills promoted the reform of tea utensils.
Figure 13 (Southern Song Dynasty) Partial enlarged view of the anon. "Bucket Pulp Map" (Heilongjiang Provincial Museum Collection)
Throughout the Song Dynasty tea ordering tools from teaspoons to tea spoons, the tea raft shape system developed from flat whiskers to three-dimensional round whiskers, the most important reason is because of the pursuit of tea in large quantities, which is also a significant symbol of tea drinking throughout the Song Dynasty. Tang Dynasty Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" contains "Yu Rao, Tang Zhi Hua Ye", believing that Mo Yu is the essence of tea soup, and the Song Dynasty inherited the drinking habits of Tang Dynasty cake tea, and it is even more refined in the pursuit of tea soup. Especially during the Northern Song Dynasty, tea fighting was popular. At first, Doucha was mainly to compare the quality of tea, and then evolved into a social trend that the Song people were keen to participate in. The quality of the tea leaves, the thickness of the tea milling, and the clumsiness of the blowing skills are all factors that affect the results of tea fighting. Therefore, in Cai Xiang's "Tea Record" and Song Huizong's "Daguan Tea Treatise", there are discussions on the "blowing" technique, and the tool of blowing, that is, the teaspoon or tea spoon, is extremely important. The round three-dimensional whisker-shaped tea raft has a larger contact surface and is easier to penetrate a large amount of air, so that the tea powder dissolves in the water to form an extremely delicate and smooth sativa, and this kind of tea is the key to the success or failure of the tea. Second, some scholars believe that "metal teaspoons are easy to damage tea bowls", bamboo tea spoons do not hurt tea bowls, but also the advantages of tea spoons. Third, it is also related to the evolution of the tea cup system in the Song Dynasty. Jianzhan can be said to be a tea set born from the order of tea, and the Jianzhan type is used here as an example. In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, the jianzhan had the shape of the mouth, and compared with the early Northern Song Dynasty, the inclination of the cup wall became smaller, and the breadth of the mouth gradually became smaller. Due to the verticality of the cup wall and the smaller breadth of the mouth, the three-dimensional round ball-shaped tea raft is easier to handle than the teaspoon or flat tea spoon.
Ming Dynasty "teaspoons" and "tea spoons"
Zhu Quan's "Tea Recipe" (written in about 1430~1448) in the Ming Dynasty also has articles for "teaspoons" and "tea spoons". "The teaspoon should be blown vigorously, the ancients took gold as the top, the present people used silver and copper as the top, and the bamboo was light." To taste the coconut shell for the best", "tea raft, cut bamboo for it, Guang, Gan made the best, five inches long, spoon tea into Ou, pour soup basket, waiting for the waves to float into the clouds rain foot is stopped". Zhu Quan proposed: "The method of cooking tea is taken from the old cause, the tool of the last tea, the new reform is changed, and it becomes a family of its own." Zhu Quan no longer used the tea cakes of the Song Dynasty, but used leaf tea, but the tea drinking utensils still used tea sets for tea. This passage is more difficult to understand, from the context of Zhu Quan's mention of the teaspoon and tea raft are used to order tea, and the actual operation of the process of tea ordering tools actually only need one, and the tea spoon ordering effect is significantly better than the teaspoon. In addition, the text also mentions "spoon tea into The Ou", the function of "spoon" is mainly to measure rather than "blow".
The Ming Dynasty was already the time when strips of loose tea were in full swing. In the twenty-fourth year of Ming Hongwu (1391), Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the abolition of Tuan Tea and the change of Gongye Tea (Loose Tea), and Tuan Cake Tea was only reserved for side sales. The tea sencha in the Ming Dynasty tea book is mostly the ancient behavior of the literati doctor, which is also subtly similar to the literary style of the Ming Dynasty at that time, "Wen Bi Qin Han, Poetry Bi Sheng Tang". It can be seen in many image materials reflecting the tea activities of the Ming Dynasty that the tea sets of the Ming Dynasty are mostly a combination of pots and cups, and it is difficult to see the traces of tea spoons or tea spoons. However, the physical object of the Teaspoon in the Ming Dynasty has survived, which is related to the transformation of the function of the teaspoon again.
The Ming Dynasty Gu Yuanqing's "Tea Recipe", which was written around 1535, was downloaded from the article "Tea Bottles, Tea Cups, and Tea Spoons" to damage the taste of tea, and must be cleaned first." Later in the text, the section on the six things of the tea set mentions "Guijie, bamboo raft (broom) also", "plucking clouds, bamboo teaspoon also". The main function of the bamboo raft in the book is cleaning, and it can be said that it returns to the earliest function of the "raft", that is, washing and cleaning. In the later Ming Dynasty, Gao Yuan's compilation of the Tea Ride records:
"Pluck the clouds, bamboo teaspoons also, to take the fruit." The function of the bamboo teaspoon is further explained, and another function of the teaspoon is proposed at this time, taking the fruit. Regarding this function, Yang Zhishui has also been analyzed in detail in his "Wine Affairs in the Golden Bottle Plum Words", and the form of fruit tea should be very common in the folk, and fishing for fruit in the tea soup with a hollowed-out teaspoon is also the main function of the teaspoon after the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Japanese teaspoons and tea spoons
When it comes to teaspoons and tea rafts, the teaspoons and tea rafts in the Japanese tea ceremony are inextricably linked.
Figure 14 Part of the Yuan Dynasty mural tomb in Luoyuantai Village, Hengshan, Shaanxi
Figure 15 Part of the mural painting of the Yuanbaoshan Yuan Tomb in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia [Life Map (East Wall)]
Figure 16 Japanese mid-14th century "Mugui Emoji"
Figure 16.1 Partial enlargement of the Mugui Illustrated Words of the Mid-14th Century in Japan
Figure 17 Bamboo Tea of the Taoshan-Jianghu Era, Japan (Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei)
Figure 18 Bamboo Tea of the Edo Period, Japan (Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei)
Figure 19 Feng Daozhen's tomb mural "Dao Tong Into Tea" in Datong City, Shanxi Province (there is a lid jar on the table in the painting, and a note "tea powder" is affixed, which can be clearly defined as a tea powder jar. This shape of the jar was a common vessel in China during the Song and Yuan dynasties)
Figure 20 Song Jizhou kiln green and white glaze carved folded plum branch porcelain lid jar (China National Tea Museum collection. The lid jar is very close to the can shaped system in the mural)
During the Northern Song Dynasty, due to the obstruction of communication, Tuan Cake Tea and the Tea Order method did not spread to Japan. After the Southern Song Dynasty, Sino-Japanese exchanges were frequent, Sino-Japanese trade flourished, and a large number of Japanese people came to China, brought back tea sets, tea, and tea books from China, and actively spread tea culture in Japan. During this period, tea drinking gained widespread popularity in Japan. Therefore, Japan first received the southern Song Dynasty drinking method, tea rafts were widely used as a tea point, and tea spoons were mostly used as tools for taking tea powder.
How was the tea raft shape system that first spread to Japan? No reliable information has been found. The Japanese mid-14th century "MuGui Emoji" is an image material reflecting the situation of Japanese tea sets at that time, and the tea basket can be seen on the trellis of the tea set in the picture scroll, and its shape is similar to the circular whiskered tea raft of the Song and Yuan Dynasties in China mentioned above.
The tea rafts used in contemporary Japanese matcha ceremonies are generally believed to have been originally made by Murata Jokuko Takayama, but the production of tea rafts is still prevalent today in Takayama Village, Nara Prefecture. Tengjun's "Sino-Japanese Tea Culture Exchange" also mentioned that because the tea raft after processing and restructuring by Japanese tea people is relatively wide, it cannot be waved in the traditional Chinese production of Jianzhan. Therefore, Qian Lixiu designed the famous Leyao tea bowl to solve this contradiction. The wide bottom and wide mouth of this tea bowl make it very convenient to use the tea bowl.
It can also be roughly speculated that after the Song Dynasty's tea raft was transmitted to Japan, it was transformed and shaped into a tea raft with today's double-layer structure, which is easier to hit the tea foam, and even because of the shape of the tea raft, it gave birth to the famous Japanese tea bowl. Depending on the tea ceremony genre, the intensity of the tea, and the use of the tea, the tea raft will vary in material, shape, and number of bamboo.
The teaspoon of tea powder was called a teaspoon after it was transmitted to Japan. Some sources mention that the "Classification of Grass and Wood" says: "In the past, tea spoons were made of ivory, and when they encountered tea pots and tea bowls, there was a sound, and the pearls began to make Zhu De cut bamboo and named it shallow grass." "The material of the tea during the Murata Pearl period shifted from ivory to bamboo. After this, Senritsu repeatedly experimented to produce a slender form of tea, and formulated rules for the structure of the tea, such as a knot in the middle of the upper and lower parts of the tea, a bamboo barrel, and a name of the author on the barrel, etc. Senritsu is also considered to be the stereotyper of the Japanese tea bud.
The change in the japanese tea palm system is due to the fact that matcha was a precious item at that time, and the amount of powder used at each time was very small, and the amount of powder used by Chinese teaspoons was larger; in addition, the container containing the tea powder changed. In the Song and Yuan dynasties of China, the cans containing tea powder were roughly straight-mouthed and flat-bottomed, and many of the tea pots of the Southern Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty were equipped with lotus-shaped lids, which were characterized by large mouths and convenient access to tea powder. However, the development of Japanese tea culture to the Senritsu period, tea ceremony activities especially prefer the Small Pots (Figure 21) of the Hongtang Kiln produced in fuzhou, China as tea cans, such small cans are generally small neck or mouth, the original Chinese traditional teaspoon to take tea powder is not suitable.
Figure 21 Song Hongtang kiln sauce glazed tea into (China National Tea Museum collection. This type of porcelain jar produced by Hongtang kiln is widely loved by Japanese tea people, and is characterized by curly or round lips, straight mouth, short neck or long neck, round shoulders, bulging abdomen, flat bottom or slightly concave bottom, and brown glaze of sauce inside and outside the vessel, which is sauce red or sauce black. After entering Japan from China, users will generally give these small cans with ivory lids)
However, in Lu Zhongyuan's "Luohan Tu" (Figure 22) of the Yuan Dynasty, a man can be seen taking something from a thin neck bottle with a spoon in his forehand, and from the situation that a man next to him is grinding tea and has a luo box and a brown broom and various tea sets with tea cups, the man is most likely to take the tea powder. The shape of this teaspoon has been completely different from the teaspoon of the Tang and Song Dynasties, the spoon body is slender, the top is rolled up, obviously for the purpose of taking powdery items and special utensils, the shape is largely close to the Qianlixiu reformed teapot, but there is no knot in the middle, it is speculated that it is not bamboo but ivory and other materials. Judging from these data, whether Murata Pearl and Senritsu's modification of Japanese tea leaves are influenced by similar artifacts in China deserve further discussion.
Figure 22 (Yuan) Part of Lu Zhongyuan's "Luohan Tu" (Nengmanyuan Collection)
Figure 22.1 (Yuan) Partial enlargement of Lu Zhongyuan's "Luohan Diagram"
conclusion
The tea ordering method of the Song Dynasty gradually faded out of people's sight with the disappearance of Tuanbi tea, and the tea spoon as the most direct tea vessel also disappeared in the long river of history, and the tea spoon tea set continued to play a role in tea activities because of its various functions. Combining pictorial and physical materials, as well as cultural retention in other countries, we can have a clearer understanding of the diversification of such tea sets and the transformation of their functions.
(Image from The Paper and the Internet)