What kind of historical situation did tea drinking present in the Tang Dynasty?

Tea in the Tang Dynasty was drunk with tea leaves, and condiments such as salt and ginger were added, similar to today's porridge. Until the Ming Dynasty, tea was grated, until today.

The formation and prosperity of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty were mainly due to the characteristics of tea itself, religion, politics, social changes of the scholars, cultural orientation, economic development and other aspects. Generally speaking, the characteristics of tea itself are the material basis for the prosperity of tea culture, Buddhism Zen heavy tea has established tea culture, the royal court has provided institutional guarantee for tea culture, the aristocratic scholars have promoted tea culture, the literati and scholars have further improved the connotation of tea culture, and the economic system reform of the Tang Dynasty has made the development of tea culture have a solid social foundation.

The trend of drinking tea was prevalent throughout the country and appeared in the Tang Dynasty, because at that time there was a man named Lu Yu who was known as the "Tea Saint" and wrote a book on the Book of Tea.

Tang Dynasty - Tea Drinking Spread Throughout the Country After centuries of accumulation, by the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the tea drinking custom had spread throughout the country. There were already a number of states and counties in the south of the Tang Dynasty that produced tea, covering 13 tea-producing provinces and regions in the south today, so the pattern of China's tea-producing regions had been basically established in the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, tea production was developed, many famous teas appeared, and the tea-making technology in various places was also improving day by day, striving for excellence.

It was also during the Tang Dynasty that Chinese tea and tea drinking methods were widely spread abroad, especially to Japan and Korea. Therefore, the Tang Dynasty is an extremely important historical stage in the history of Chinese tea drinking and tea culture, a mature period of Chinese tea culture, and a milestone in the history of tea culture. Another reason for the prevalence of tea drinking in the Tang Dynasty was the prevalence of Buddhism.

The monk sits in meditation and stays awake all night, only by drinking tea to refresh himself. The prevalence of tea in Buddhism has driven good men and women to drink tea. Because tea drinking is closely related to Zen Buddhism, and the literati pursue the artistic conception of Zen in the process of tea tasting, there is a so-called "tea Zen taste".

The culmination of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty was Lu Yu and his famous book "The Book of Tea". The "Book of Tea" expounds the history of tea in the Tang Dynasty, the origin, the efficacy of tea, the knowledge and technology of cultivation, harvesting, decoction and drinking. The Book of Tea has developed tea culture to an unprecedented height, and is the world's first and most complete comprehensive work on tea science, which has played a great role in promoting China's tea production and drinking atmosphere.

Lu Yu was the first to advocate the art of drinking, and he integrated the spirit of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism with tea drinking activities, opening a precedent for the Chinese tea ceremony and providing a model for the development of tea culture in later generations. Lu Yu was also called the tea saint and tea god by later generations. The Tang Dynasty was a dynasty of poetry, and many famous poets were associated with tea.

There are more than 400 tea poems by more than 100 poets that have been circulated in the whole Tang Dynasty poems. Bai Juyi's famous work "Pipa Xing" has the famous sentence "businessmen value profit and ignore parting, and Fuliang buys tea in the previous month". Li Bai, Du Mu, and Liu Yuxi all have excellent works circulating.

In particular, Lu Tong's seven-bowl tea poem "Walking the Pen Xie Meng's Advice to Send New Tea" is famous, which vividly describes the physical and mental experience of drinking tea, and has become a masterpiece of poetry that has been sung throughout the ages. The whole poem is composed of three parts: the surprise of getting tribute tea Yangxian tea, the tea drinking process and experience, and the emotion of the common people. In addition, with Bai Juyi, who is called "Yuan Bai", the pagoda-shaped poem "One Word to Seven Character Poem Tea" is also quite unique.

In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the tea planting area was further expanded, gradually moving north from the southwest of China to the Yangtze River and Huai River basins, and the expansion of tea-producing areas, coupled with the improvement of tea processing technology, greatly promoted the prosperity of the tea industry economy in the Tang Dynasty. It was in this context that Lu Yu's "Book of Tea" came out. This is the first monograph to systematically introduce tea culture, detailing the origin, ecology, picking, manufacturing, processing, boiling and drinking of tea, and is an important milestone in the history of tea culture development.

Sencha was the main way to drink tea in the Tang Dynasty, and Feng Yan recorded in the "Feng Shi Wenjian Ji": "In the Kaiyuan Dynasty, there was a demon subduing Zen master in the Lingyan Jingzhou Temple of Mount Tai, and the Daxing Zen sect was ,......People carry their own coercion, decoction and drink everywhere, and since then they have become a custom, from Zou, Qi, Cang, Di gradually to the city of Jingyi, open more shops, and the sencha is sold ......It can be seen that sencha was quite common in the Tang Dynasty, and commercial activities with sencha as an industry appeared. To put it simply, the sencha of the Tang Dynasty crushed the tea cakes, screened the tea powder with a Luo sieve, set up the tea pot on the wind stove, put in the water, and burned it, and when the water in the pot was "boiling like a fish, with a slight sound" (the first boiling), an appropriate amount of salt flowers was added, and when it was "like a spring and beads on the edge" (the second boiling), scoop out a scoop of water and put it into the cooked bowl for boiling and Yuhua; Stir the soup in the tea pot with a bamboo clip, and then use the tea to measure the end of the tea into the pot and boil, and wait until the "momentum is like a rushing wave splashing foam" (the third boil), and then pour the scooped out tea soup back into the tea pot, which is called "saving the boiling Yuhua", the purpose is to avoid the tea soup in the pot being too old.

At this time, you can use a teaspoon to scoop out the tea soup from the pot and drink it into the tea bowl.

The Tang Dynasty was the first peak in the history of the development of ceramics in China. White porcelain appeared in the Northern Qi Dynasty, and the white porcelain of the Tang Dynasty was comparable to the celadon in the south, and there was a situation of "white in the north and green in the south". Of course, the prosperity of tea drinking also further promoted the development of the ceramic industry in the Tang Dynasty.

Lu Yu particularly admired the Yue kiln celadon, which reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty, and the work that reached the peak in the history of celadon appeared - "secret color porcelain". Lu Yu thinks that the tea bowl "is on Yuezhou, Dingzhou, and Wuzhou." Yuezhou, Shouzhou, Hongzhou.

And believes that "Yuezhou porcelain, Yue porcelain are green, green is good for tea, tea is white and red; Xingzhou porcelain white, brown red, Shouzhou porcelain yellow, brown purple, Hongzhou porcelain brown, brown brown, black tea, not suitable for tea. Of course, this is just Lu Yu's personal opinion and opinion. Archaeological excavation materials of contemporary kiln sites prove that in addition to Yuezhou kiln, Dingzhou kiln, Wuzhou kiln, Yuezhou kiln, Shouzhou kiln and Hongzhou kiln, Xingyao, Quyang kiln and Gongxian kiln in the north, Jingdezhen kiln, Changsha kiln and Qionglai kiln in the south also produced tea sets in large quantities at that time.