Translation of the Tea Sutra and Three External (Revised Edition)
[Tang] Lu Yu waited
Song Yiming Translation
Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House
Tea, pure heart, clean intestines, nourish qi. When I drink tea, the calm breath soaks my heart. Love tea, and love yourself when drinking tea.
In 2019, UNESCO adopted a resolution to designate 21 May as International Tea Day. Tea culture originated in China, tea was first picked by Shennong, and was used as a medicine during the Qin and Han dynasties. During the Tang Dynasty, the custom of drinking tea was introduced to Korea and Japan, and after the 16th century, it was introduced to Europe. According to the book "Tea Empire: Asian Leaves Conquering the World", the London upper class did not see the magical fried buds of "tea" until the end of the 17th century. The earliest tea leaves that entered Europe originated in Xiamen, Fujian, China, and the Hokkien word "tea" is pronounced as /te/, which is the source of the typical foreign word "tea" in English. In modern times, tea has become an important world traded goods. Around the world, the vast majority of people choose between tea and coffee, two refreshing beverages. Drinking tea is not only a habit of life, but also an elegant taste, or a ritual performance.
Three volumes of the Tea Classic, written by Tang Luyu. Lu Yu (陸羽), also spelled Hongwei (洪升升), was a diseaser, a character for Ji Lingzi, a native of Jingling (present-day Tianmen, Hubei), who lived during the reigns of Emperor Zhongtang and Emperor Dezong of the Middle Tang Dynasty. When he was young, he was adopted by the monk Zhiji Zen Master of Jinling Longgai Temple. Because he was an outcast, his surname, first name, and size were all taken by himself. He grew up in the temple, but did not become a monk, traveled all over the world all his life, befriended literati, poetry and character were appreciated, and sang and sang with Yan Zhenqing, Huang Furan, Liu Changqing, Dai Shulun, Meng Jiao, Quan Deyu, Zhang Zhihe, etc. The New Book of Tang included him in the Hermitage. Lu Yu has suffered a lot in his life, but his biggest hobby is tea. After the "Tea Classic" was written and became popular, the tea shops and tea house industries in the world all enshrined Lu Yu's clay body as a tea god. This custom has been passed down to this day, and Lu Yu is recognized as a "tea saint".
Tea maker, Nanbu No.D. Akiya. One foot, two feet or even dozens of feet.
In the Gorge of the BaShan River, there are two people who hug each other and cut it down.
Its trees are like melon reeds, its leaves are like gardenias, and its flowers are like white roses,
It is like a chestnut, the stem is like a clove, and the root is like a walnut.
Melon reed wood out of Guangzhou, like tea, to bitter.
Chestnut, the genus of puhua, its son resembles tea.
Walnut and tea, roots are pregnant, trillions to rubble, seedlings pumped.
Translation:
Tea trees are excellent tree species in the south. The height varies from one foot to two feet, up to dozens of feet.
In the bashan gorge area, there are two people hugging such a thick tea tree, and they have to cut off their branches to pick the tea leaves.
The appearance of the tea tree resembles melon reed wood, the leaves resemble gardenia leaves, and the flowers resemble white rose flowers,
The fruit resembles a chestnut, the stem resembles a clove pedicle, and the root resembles a walnut root.
Produced in Guangzhou, melon reed wood looks like tea and tastes extremely bitter.
It is a plant of the catfish type, whose seeds resemble tea seeds.
The roots of walnut and tea plants both grow downwards, splitting the soil,
Reaching into a solid layer of gravel soil, the seedlings grow upwards.
(The Tea Sutra: The Source of One)
As a plant, tea plants first existed in rich and lush wild forms. The Wild Tea Trees of the Bashan River Gorge of the Tang Dynasty no longer exist in modern times more than a thousand years later. But deep in the Hengduan Mountains of Yunnan Province, botanists have found many wild tea trees over the age of 1,000 years old, which is enough to support the records of the Tea Classic.
Tea is used, tastes cold, for drinking, the most suitable for people who are frugal.
If the heat and thirst are stagnant, the brain is painful, the four branches are annoyed, and the hundred knots are uncomfortable,
Talk about four or five sips, and compete with Daigo and Manna.
From time to time, it is not refined, it is mixed with recklessness, and drinking becomes a disease.
The effect of tea: the sexual taste of tea to cold, as a drink,
It is best for people who are meticulous and thrifty to cultivate morality.
If you feel hot and thirsty, headache, sluggishness, limbs, and joint discomfort,
Drinking a little four or five sips is like drinking Daigo and nectar.
If the tea is not picked according to the season, the production technique is not fine,
Mixed with weeds, you will get sick after drinking.
In the Tang Dynasty, the picking and processing of tea did not have much experience and industry standards, and most tea drinkers used it as a medicine. Most of the people who practice frugality are people who are born outside the world, such as high monks, old masters, hermits, famous doctors, and of course, literati and bachelors are also among them. Now the tea planting is a special tea field, will not be mixed with weeds, early tea production is more inclined to the wild collection, then it is possible to mix with the evil grass.
Eastern Han Dynasty Celadon Tea Pot (unearthed in Huzhou)
In the Tang Dynasty, the tea leaves were cooked by steaming fresh tea leaves in water, mashing and pressing them into tea cakes. However, it is still mainly based on picking the leaves of wild tea trees. In the era of Lu Yu's life, Tang Dynasty Emperor Founded the Tribute Tea House in Changxing, Huzhou, specializing in growing tea to produce tea, and the production of tea began to be specialized and then commercialized. The establishment of the Changxing Purple Shoot Tea Tribute Tea House also has a lot to do with Lu Yu's promotion of purple shoot tea (see "Tea Classic: Eight Out of the Eight", "Huzhou in Western Zhejiang").
Tang Dynasty Guzhu Mountain Purple Shoot Tea Tribute Tea Courtyard Site
In Lu Yu's time, tea drinking has been positioned as an activity full of ritual and aesthetic enjoyment, and he has experience and experience in the storage vessel, cooking utensil, drinking vessel, and cooking tasting method of tea cake tea powder. Lu Yu believes that the green tea soup must be served in a celadon bowl to match it, and it can also be under the background of the color of the tea bowl, through the observation of the color of the tea soup to taste the advantages and disadvantages of the tea. Tang Tortoise Meng's "Yong Secret Color Yue Instrument": "The Nine Autumn Wind Dew opens the kiln and wins the thousand peaks of green color." Good to the mid-night feast, the common ji in the scattered bucket cup. That is, it describes this turquoise glazed tea bowl.
Luxury secret color porcelain bowl (excavated from the underground palace of Tang Famen Temple)
The Tea Sutra is only three volumes, but it has a pioneering position in the history of tea. The book "Tea Sutra Translation Notes On Three Kinds (Revised Edition)" also contains three kinds of single-line tea books in addition to the "Tea Classic". Song Dynasty's "Tea Record" and "Tea Tasting Essentials", the former was written by the Northern Song Dynasty minister and calligrapher Cai Xiang, who was a Mindi Immortal Tourist, "Tea Record" focused on the production of Fujian tribute tea "Xiaolong Tuan" and the song Dynasty's popular tea ordering and tea fighting techniques. The latter was written by Huang Ru, a native of Jian'an, Fujian Province, and focuses on the common drawbacks of tea making.
The last of these books, the Ming Dynasty Xu Cishu's Tea Shu, reflects the achievements of tea science in the Ming Dynasty, especially cake tea and loose tea, the latter of which is the historical trend of the various tea leaves commonly brewed and fermented today.
Qingming Valley rain, tea picking also.
Qingming is too early, summer is too late, before and after the valley rain, the timing is moderate.
If you are willing to be a day or two late, when its strength is full, it is especially fragrant and easy to collect.
The plum is not steamed, although it grows slightly, so it is a tender branch soft leaf also.
Hang customs like to pick up points in the cup, so it is extremely expensive, and it is not easy to be bothered.
Wu Song people are extremely expensive in Longjing, and those who are willing to buy the rain before the rain at a heavy price are in the past and have not solved the mysterious reason.
Qingming and guyu are the seasons for picking tea.
It was still too early in the Qingming Dynasty, too late in the summer, and before and after the valley rains, it was the most suitable time.
If you are willing to postpone it for another day or two, and wait until the tea leaves are fully grown, not only will the aroma of the tea be doubled, but it will also be easier to collect.
The yang does not rise when it rains, and although the tea leaves grow slightly, they are still tender and soft leaves.
The custom of Hangzhou, like to pick up tea in the tea bowl,
Therefore, attaching importance to the very fine tea buds is intended to eliminate boredom and relieve sorrow, and cannot be criticized casually.
WuSong people attach great importance to the Longjing tea in my hometown, and are willing to spend a high price to buy fine tea before the valley rain,
This is just a habit of sticking to the past, and I don't actually understand the subtle truth.
("Tea Picking")
It turned out that in the late Ming Dynasty, there was already a trend of respecting tea before the Ming Dynasty and before the rain, and this tradition continues to this day, and new teas are snapped up every year. The common feature of these new teas is that the buds are small, the soup is turquoise, and the fragrance is elegant and indifferent, but insiders do not think that the "early" expensive "small" is a good tea, Xu Ciyu believes that the tea leaves picked after the valley rain are ripe and fragrant, and they are not easy to get damp. The Zhejiang folk song "Tea Picking Dance" describes tea farmers as "picking tea like a phoenix nodding, picking green like a fish leaping net", the earlier the picking, the smaller the buds, the more need for tea pickers to be flexible and clever, which is a kind of heavy and unbearable physical labor that must be contested every second. The high price of new tea is largely inseparable from the sweat of labor condensed in it.
Eighteen imperial tea trees in Longjing Village, Shifeng Mountain, Hangzhou
Source: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House
Editor: Xu Nuo