Han Liping Cartography
Themed landscape of the Chronicle of the Departure of the Tea Road on the Sea.
Contiguous Fukusen Mountain Tea Farm.
This edition of photography Zhu Armament
Reporter Zhu Armament
Spring is the tea picking season, Fuquan Shantou Tea Mining and Zen Tea Base Listing, the 16th "Magic Dalan" Tea Culture Tourism Festival, the "A Pot of Tea between Flowers - Fenghua Tea Culture Exhibition" in Fenghua Museum, the Zhonggongmiao Street Tea Tourism Cultural Festival in Songjiang Tea City and other tea festivals and tea celebrations followed; Fenghua "Tea and Health" Tea Culture Lecture, Jintian Vocational and Technical Training School Tea Party in Jinzhong Tea City and other tea events were colorful...
May 21 this year marks the second International Tea Day, as determined by the United Nations. The establishment of "International Tea Day" is of great significance to the promotion of tea culture.
Tea departed from China and followed the Tea Horse Trail and the "Silk Road" to the world. The aroma of tea wafting from China and Ningbo spans thousands of years and fragrances the world. Ningbo tea culture has a long history, and contemporary people still need to vigorously inherit and carry forward.
Ancient tea trees were found in Siming Mountain
"Tea Man, Southern Jiamuya." Tea is used for use, the taste is cold, and it is the most suitable for drinking. The "Tea Classic" has a cloud: "Tea is for drinking, and it is sent to the Shennong clan." ”
China is the homeland of tea. So far, the earliest written record of Ningbo tea is also the "Tea Classic": "Zhejiang East: Yuezhou Shang" (original note: Yuyao County Sheng Waterfall Spring Ridge Yue Xian Ming, the big is different, the small one is the same as Xiangzhou).
The "Tea Classic, Seven Things" is a full quotation, and the text of the "Tea Classic, Four Instruments" is simpler, and the content is much the same: in Yongjiazhong, Yu Hong, a Yuyao person, entered the waterfall mountain to collect tea, and met a daoist cloud: "Wudan Qiuzi, pray that he has a day to have Ou Yu, and begs to bequeath." "It can be seen that the xianming of Yuyao Waterfall Mountain existed in the Jin Dynasty.
From the perspective of tea plant growth conditions, Ningbo belongs to the northern subtropical humid monsoon climate zone, the mountain ranges in the territory are mainly Siming Mountains and Tiantai Mountain Remnants, mostly hilly mountains, the highest peak is nearly 1,000 meters, the average altitude is 400 to 500 meters, although the mountain is not high, but the east is bordered by the sea, the climate is mild and humid, the four seasons are distinct, the rainfall is abundant, there is a good tea growing environment, and there are many wild teas everywhere.
In the spring of 2008, a large number of well-grown shrub-type ancient tea trees were found in Yuyao Waterfall Spring Ridge, with the largest bust circumference of more than 10 cm and a height of more than 3 meters. In May of the following year, the Ningbo Municipal Government erected the Waterfall Spring Ridge Ancient Tea Monument in the local area, recording the thousand-year history of Tea in Ningbo.
So far, the city has 218,000 mu of tea gardens, distributed in Yuyao, Ninghai, Fenghua, Yinzhou, Haishu and other places.
With the prevalence of tea drinking, tea sets have become indispensable utensils, which has effectively stimulated the production of Porcelain Tea Sets in Yuezhou and Mingzhou. The area around Shanglin Lake at the foot of Xiqu li mountain in Cixi Minghe Town is one of the three centers of Yueyao celadon porcelain, and the tea set is one of the main products of Yueyao celadon porcelain.
Tang and Song Mingzhou tea culture flourished
Tea culture means the cultural characteristics formed in the process of tea drinking activities, including tea ceremony, tea morality, tea spirit, tea union, tea book, tea set, tea recipe, tea poetry, tea painting, tea science, tea story, tea art, etc. Zhu Jifa, a tea culture scholar and researcher at the Ningbo East Asian Tea Culture Research Center, said in the article "Shangshan Ruo Tea, The Most Suitable for Drinking": "There is a tea drinking saying in ningbo, my hometown, which echoes this: Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Qing dynasties, drinking from ancient times to the present. "Because in the Tang Dynasty, the tea in the spring area of Simingshan Waterfall has become a recognized famous tea, tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Ming, and Siming camellia are well-known treasures, and most of them are tributes." The "Beitang Shuqian Tea Chapter" compiled by Yu Shinan, a heavy minister of the early Tang Dynasty and a famous calligrapher, collected 12 tea events.
The combination of Zen tea brings tea culture to the spiritual level. During the Tang and Song dynasties, Mingzhou was famous for its Tiantong Zen Temple, Ashoka Temple, Xuedou Temple, Ruiyan Temple, Jin'e Temple, and Kaiyuan Temple in the city. These holy places where Buddhism spread is also a famous temple where Zen tea is integrated.
According to the "Chronicle of Jin'e Temple", the Tang Dynasty monk Baizhang Huaihai Zen Master was the founding ancestor of the temple. The "Baizhang Qing Rules" formulated by him, completed in the first year of Tang Zhen (785-804), was a law that regulated all the behavior of Zen monks, and listed sitting meditation and drinking tea as a zongmen paradigm, and since then the Buddhist tea ceremony has officially appeared.
In the Tang Dynasty, Mingzhou's Tiantong Zen Temple, Ashoka Temple and other famous temples not only have tea gardens (fields) specializing in the production of tea, but also the integration of Buddhist tea in the temple is extremely prosperous, that is to say, tea drinking has been improved from the technical to the height of the spirit, and Buddha and tea, Zen culture and tea culture have finally intersected.
In the Song Dynasty Mingzhou Tiantong and other monasteries, there is a set of solemn and solemn temple tea ceremonies and tea banquets. At the beginning of the tea feast, the crowd sat around, and the abbot brewed fragrant Tea Buddha Tea according to a certain procedure and handed it to everyone to taste in turn. So "eat tea to go" became the French of Zenlin. "Eating tea" in Zen people's practice is sitting meditation and talking about Buddha. Drink tea to get the Tao, tea has the Tao. The Chinese word "tea ceremony" was first coined by Zen monks.
Zhang Ruan, a professor at Ningbo University, pointed out in the "Cultural History of Ningbo in the Southern Song Dynasty" that during the Southern Song Dynasty, the tea drinking style in the Siming area was more popular than that of the Northern Song Dynasty, and ordinary people generally had tea leaves. The drinking method of tea is also diverse, or ordered or fried or brewed, all three at the same time. Treating guests with tea has become a social trend, and in order to drink tea, the Southern Song Dynasty Siming opened many tea shops in crowded places. The tea drinking of monks and scholars is the most cultural.
Ningbo is the starting place of the "Tea Road on the Sea"
Among the large number of materials exported in ancient China, silk, porcelain, tea, etc. are bulk commodities, and Chinese envoys and merchants who go to sea are indispensable to bring some tea, and later there were special tea transport groups that specialized in trafficking tea, forming a "sea tea road" and "land tea horse ancient road". In particular, merchants from the Arab and Persian regions came to Mingzhou by sea and gathered in the east gate of the city of Mingzhou, called "Persian Lane", with Persian regiments stationed. These merchants not only sold silk, tea and porcelain, but also scattered utensils such as Yue kiln tea sets in the coastal port cities and cities they visited, and the large number of excavated utensils is the best physical evidence of the "Sea Tea Road".
According to historical records, after the opening of the route from Mingzhou to Japan in the Tang Dynasty, in the twenty-first year of Tang Zhenyuan (805), when the Japanese monks most returned to China after studying Buddhism in Mingzhou (present-day Ningbo), they brought tea leaves and tea seeds and planted them in Omi (present-day Shiga Prefecture), Japan, which is the earliest record of the spread of Chinese tea seeds overseas. After that, senior monks such as Konghai and Yongzhong in the Tang Dynasty, and senior monks such as Rongxi, Nanpu Shaoming, Xixuan Daoyuan, and Yuan'er Jianyuan of the Song Dynasty all returned to Japan from Mingzhou Port with Chinese tea or tea seeds.
In the Song Dynasty, the Goryeo Embassy was established in Myeongju, which specialized in official exchanges with Goryeo (present-day Korean Peninsula).
And maritime silk, tea and other trade affairs, the site still exists on the shore of Yue Lake. In the first year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1078), Ningbo had built two 600-ton Shenzhou, which was the largest tonnage in the world at that time, mainly for official overseas trade.
During the Qing Dynasty, Liu Junzhou, then deputy director of the Ningbo Tea Factory, was invited by the Russian royal purchaser Popov to lead 12 tea technicians to purchase a large number of tea seeds and seedlings in Ningbo, plant tea in Georgia by sea, and succeeded, creating another "sea tea road" from Ningbo to Georgia, Russia and even the entire CIS in modern times.
In the late Qing Dynasty, tea exported through the Ningbo port, especially green tea, accounted for half of the country's tea exports.
Contemporary Ningbo Port is still the main port of tea exports in China, accounting for more than 30% of the total national tea exports. By 2018, Ningbo's tea exports were about 26,400 tons, with an output value of 95.08 million US dollars.
For more than 1,000 years, Ningbo has been one of the major ports for China's tea exports. The long history of the export of tea in Ningbo (Mingzhou) Port, the largest number of tea, and the great influence are the most in China, and the historical status of China's tea port is self-evident.
Ningbo is recognized as the starting place of the "Sea Tea Road", which was confirmed by tea culture experts and scholars at home and abroad as early as 2007. Since 2011, the city's tea culture circles have put forward the new concept of "Yongwei Tea Port". Some experts believe that tea and porcelain (including tea sets) are the main commodities of the "Maritime Silk Road", so the "Maritime Tea Road" is an important part of the "Maritime Silk Road". Like the "Maritime Silk Road", the "Maritime Tea Road" is also composed of a number of coastal and river-along-river cities.
Polish the golden business card of Ningbo's tea culture
In 2003, Ningbo established the Tea Culture Promotion Association, since 2004 has successfully held seven sessions of Ningbo International Tea Culture Festival, "China Green Cup" famous tea competition has become the authoritative brand of domestic famous tea evaluation, including 7 theme seminars held by Ningbo East Asian Tea Culture Research Center, which has had a great impact on tea culture and tea industry at home and abroad.
From 2007 to 2013, the Ningbo Tea Culture Promotion Association and the Ningbo East Asian Tea Culture Research Center held the international seminar on "Maritime Tea Road, Yongwei Tea Port" four times, and in 2013, the "Maritime Tea Road, Yongwei Tea Port" Seminar Consensus was adopted.
In 2009, at the site of the main pier in Gumingzhou at the mouth of sanjiangkou in the urban area, the theme landscape of the "Sea Tea Road" departure site monument was built. On January 8, 2010, the China International Tea Culture Research Association awarded the first plaque of "Hometown of Chinese Tea Culture" to Yuyao City, and awarded Yuyao Waterfall Xian Tea the title of "Famous Tea of Chinese Culture". In 2019, the "Tea Estate", "Tea Tourism" and Ningbo Tea History Tea Affair Seminar were held to guide tea culture to better serve the tea industry.
In recent years, Zhejiang Commercial and Technical College, Ningbo City Vocational and Technical College, Dongqian Lake Tourism School, etc. have opened tea-related majors and trained a large number of tea artists. Ningbo Tea City has changed from a "butterfly" to a number of tea cities such as Admiralty Tea, 36 Tea House, Songjiang Tea City, etc., and tea events are frequently organized. The famous Yue kiln celadon and Yucheng kilns have been followed by others. The Long-proposed Ningbo Tea Culture Museum has once again been put on the agenda.
Since the beginning of the previous year, the Ningbo Tea Culture Promotion Association has taken the lead in organizing experts to compile the "Ningbo Tea Classic", which is divided into tea history dictionary, tea industry dictionary, tea character dictionary, tea poetry dictionary, tea book dictionary, tea customs dictionary, tea tea set dictionary and so on.
Tea is the national drink, and China is the origin of tea plants and the birthplace of tea culture.
At present, more than 60 countries and regions in the world produce tea, more than 2 billion people drink tea, and tea has become one of the three major drinks in the world. Tea drinking is not only accompanied by people's daily lives, but also has become a worldwide cultural symbol.
In December 2019, the United Nations General Assembly announced the designation of 21 May as International Tea Day to celebrate the economic, social and cultural value of tea and promote the sustainable development of global agriculture. This year, 21 May marks the second International Tea Day.
As a tea port and the starting point of the "Sea Tea Road", Ningbo has a lot to do in tea culture. For example, it is also possible to build a tea culture museum, increase the promotion of tea culture in Ningbo, and strengthen the close integration of tea and tourism.
Some experts have proposed that the "Sea Tea Road, Yongwei Tea Port" should be built as one of the main cultures of Ningbo, like "Hangzhou for Tea Capital", to enhance the image of the city, achieve social and economic benefits, and make it a unique urban cultural element with internationality.