History of tea in China

This article is about the history of teain China.

Tea in mythology

• Lu Yuwrote in Cha Jing: "Tea as a beveragewas originated from Shen Nong"
• A medicine book "Shen Nong Ben Chao" stated that "Shen Nongtasted hundreds of herbs, he encountered seventy two poisons daily, he used tea as antidote"
• In Chinese legend, Shen Nong died in Tea Hill (Cha Lin) county of Hunanprovince.

Origins of the tea plant in China

• In 760 AD, Lu Yu already noted: Tea is a grand tree from the South, tall from one, two, and up to several dozen Chi. Some with circumference up two meters.
• A. Wilson in his exploration of South East area of China discovered tea bushes tall up to ten feet in mountains in Sichuan
• In 1939, botanists discovered a 7.5 meter wild tea tree in Wuchuang county of Guizhou province.
• In 1940, on the Old Eagle mountain of Wuchuang county, a 6.6 meter tall wild tea tree was discovered.
• In 1957, a 12 meter wild tea tree was discovered in Cheshui county of Guizhou.
• In 1961, a one thousand seven hundred years old, thirty two meters tall and more than one meter diameter wild tea tree was found in the rain forest of Yunnan, this is the king of tea trees.
• In 1976, a 13 meter wild tea tree was found on Daozhen county, on a mountain at 1400 meter elevation.
• More wild tea trees were found in the mountains of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, many of them more than ten meters tall.

Tea in Chinese records

The origin of the word Cha

• Tea was called "tu" in the Chinese ancient classic Shi Jing (The book of Songs).
• Tea was also called 'jia' in the ancient Chinese classic Er Ya compiled during the early Han dynasty : " Jia is bitter tu". The word tu was further annotated by a Jin scholar, Guo Pu (276-324 AD): " Tu is a small plant, its leave can be brew into beverage".
• Tea was also called "She' in a West Han monograph on dialect: Fang Yian.
• During the Han dynasty, the word tu took on a new pronunciation, 'cha', in addition to its old pronunciation 'tu'.

The phoneme 'tu' later developed into 'te' in the Fujian dialect, and later 'tea', 'te'

The phoneme 'she' later became 'soh' in Jiangsu province, Suleiman's 'Sakh' also came from 'she'.

The phoneme "jia' later became 'cha' and 'chai' (Russia, India)

During the Suiand Tangdynasties, drinking tea became a widespread custom, then spread west to Tibet.

The first use of the word Cha instead of 'tu' for tea was in Lu Yu's Cha Jing, The Classic of Tea of 760 AD.

Periods in the history of tea

• From prehistoric time to Spring and Autumn Period(221 BC) Tu was used as sacrifice for ceremony
• According to Chinese historical record, ca 1000 BC, there were already tea farm in Sichuan and Yunnan
• From end of Spring and Autumn Period to early Western Han dynasty, Tu was used as vegetable food on table
• From the historical annal "Yianzhi Chunchiu": the prime minister of Chi (547 BC-490 BC) had egg and tea food on his table.
• Xia Zhong's Treatise on Food : "Since Jin dynasty, the people of Wu (now Suzhoucity) cooked tea leaves as food, and called it tea broth".
• From the beginning of Western Han to middle Western Han, Tu was used as medicine
• From the late Western Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdom Period, tea was imperial beverage
• From the Western Jin dynasty to Sui dynasty, the use of tea as beverage spread in the Chinese population
• From the Tang period onward, tea became one of the seven essentials of daily life
• During the Southern Song Dynasty a Japanese monk ???? Eisai(Yosai): came to Tiantaimountain of Zhejiangto study Chan(Zen) Buddhism (1168 AD); when he returned home in 1193 AD , he brought tea from China to Japan, planted it and wrote the first Japanese book on Tea:?????, Treatise on Drinking Tea for Health. This was the beginning of tea cultivation and tea culture in Japan
• In the Song Dynasty, tea was a major export good, through the Silk Road on land and Silk Road on the sea, tea spread to Arab countries and Africa.
• In the mid ninth century, traveller Suleiman mentioned that people in China drink "Sakh", sold in cities of Empire.
• Marco Polomentioned tea in his Travel
• In 1559, Giovanni Battista Ramusiomentioned "chai" in "Delle Navigatione et Viaggi," Vol 2.
• 1579, Two Russian traveller introduced Cha to Russia

Mass production of white tea

Modern-day white teas can be traced to the Qing Dynastyin 1796. Back then, teas were processed and distributed as loose tea that was to be steeped, and they were produced from "chaicha," a mixed-variety tea bush. They differed from other China green teas in that the white tea process did not incorporate de-enzyming by steaming or pan-firing, and the leaves were shaped. The silver needle white teas that were produced from the "chaicha" tea bushes were thin, small and did not have much silvery-white hair.

It wasn't until 1885 that specific varietals of tea bushes were selected to make "Silver Needles" and other white teas. The large, fleshy buds of the "Big White," "Small White" and "Narcissus" tea bushes were selected to make white teas and are still used today as the raw material for the production of white tea. By 1891, the large, silvery-white down-covered Silver Needle was exported, and the production of White Peony started around 1922.

The first tea monograph

The first tea monograph Cha Jing by Tang dynasty writer Lu Yuwas completed around 760 AD. This is more than four hundred years earlier than the first Japanese tea monograph by EisaiNo known ancient Indian monograph on tea exists.

There were about one hundred tea monographs from the Tang dynasty to Qing dynasty. This treasure about tea culture is only begin to attract the interest of western scholars.

See also

• Chinese Tea
• Lu Yu
• Tea Classics

References

• Cha Jing (????), ISBN 957-763-053-7
• The Classic of Tea: Origins & Rituals (ISBN 0880014164) Lu, Yu; Carpenter, Francis Ross; New York, U.S.A.: Ecco Press. 1995

External links

• Encyclopedia Americana, Tea

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article History of tea in China.