History of Tea in China
Could it be that people have always consumed tea in its original form as a food or as we take it today, as a beverage? We know it has been a part of Chinese culture for five thousand years. The account of its legendary beginnings date back to the Han Dynasty of China when the book “Shennon Ben Cao Jing” was written about the origin of tea and Shennong, the God of agriculture. Shennong was believed to have had the head of an ox and the body of a man. Shennong, also the inventor of Chinese medicine, tasted various herbs in his invention of herbal medicines and it is said he was poisoned 72 times a day and detoxified himself by eating tea leaves. Tea was a plant that originated in the Yun-Gui Plateau in Southwest China. There are still towering ancient tea trees in the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan, and it is currently produced from the thousand year old tea forests. Tea spread to the ancient Bashu states by river transport. The Bashu district was one of the earliest to produce it and was called “the cradle of Chinese tea”. The people of the Bashu states began to plant it about 3000 years ago. Tea was used to pay tribute to their Emperor, Zhou Wu Wang. It became very popular and a valuable commodity used in trade. In the Han Dynasty, tea drinking was very popular in the Bashu district and it began to be a commodity in commercial circle. Wang Bao was a Sichuan celebrity of the West Han Dynasty. In his document “The contract with servant" he wrote about brewing and preparing utensils. The document entitled “the contract with servant" was a document for selling servants (i.e. slaves) and has now become an important historical document about tea. Tea was grown along the Yangtze River. Ancient records indicate that the people of the Han Dynasty went to Yangxian to buy the plant. Teas were buried in tombs with the dead during the Han Dynasty. A celadon jar was unearthed from a tomb of the late East Han Dynasty in the town Huzhou. It was identified to be a tea container by the characters engraved on the shoulder of the jar. It was recorded in ancient books that tender tea leaves were plucked and made into cake shapes and the old leaves were mixed with rice gruel and then compressed into cake tea. The cake tea was baked to be deep brown in color and ground into powder. Then the powder was cooked with shallot, ginger and tangerine peel and made into a thick soup. Although the understanding of tea remained primitive, there was a manufacturing method at that time. The methods of cake tea processing and drinking were followed until the Tang and Song periods. The only change was that the processing was more careful and the drinking more meticulous. Historical literature indicates tea became popular in the Tang Dynasty and was that it was a trend in the Song Dynasty. Tea production was greatly promoted because of the development of the feudal economy and the increase in social productivity. The beverage then entered into the daily life of the common people as a major commodity. A lot of the more famous teas appeared during that time. It was also in this period that books on tea and taxes appeared. Tea drinking customs and techniques that began to take shape in the Tang Dynasty had great influence on the ages that followed. Lu Yu’s “Tea Classics” had great significance in the development of Chinese tea culture. Tea drinking customs spread quickly in the north of China on the basis of the developments in the south of China. Many people studied Buddhism and practiced meditation. They were encouraged not to sleep or to eat at night, but they could drink tea, it facilitated concentration, focus and awareness during meditation. Another important factor for the flourishing of tea affairs was the appearance of tribute teas for the imperial court. Tea drinking and ceremonies were popular in the imperial court of the Tang period. The imperial court attached great importance to tea production. Lu Yu (A.D. 728-804) was born in Jingling, Fuzhou of Tang. He was an abandoned boy who was later adopted by a Buddhist monk Zhi Ji. He became acquainted with the poet Jia Ran. Lu Yu sought quietness in that time of turmoil. He dedicated himself to the practice tea growing and production, and traveled the Jiangnan producing area to investigate tea growing. Based on his knowledge and tasting experience as well as the teachings of the forefathers, he wrote the "Tea Classics", the first book on the subject in the world. Lu Yu was respectively called the Father of Tea by the later generations of tea scholars, and the merchants worshipped him as a tea god. “Tea Classics” summarized and reviewed the popular tea customs at that time and discussed the origin, history, production, manufacture, brewing and tasting as well as various humanistic and natural factors, which made the science a special discipline.
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