Chinese tea culture

Tea set and tea-drinking are tightly connected. Many historical records and materials have proved that tea-drinking hasn’t appeared until the turn of Qin Dynasty and Han Dynasty. Chinese tea culture sprouted during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, during which the usages of tea existed in various ways, including food, medication, beverages, and so on. Among all, tea has been mostly taken as a kind of beverage. According to the "Guangling Xiaolao Zhuan", there has already elderly women who sold tea for a living on the markets in the Jin Dynasty. It was quite a competitive business with numerous pedlars as well as customers. From such phenomenon, it can be seen that drinking tea was highly prevalent at that time. At the time under the governance of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, Wangbao has written "武阳买茶 (buy tea in Wuyang)" and "烹茶尽具 (cook tea and prepare clean tea sets)" in his book "Tong Yue (僮约)", this is the earliest record of tea drinking and buying in China. In modern times, a celadon urn, carved with the character of "Cha (茶, tea)", with a height of 33.5 centimeters was found in a tomb in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, which was built in…

Chinese tea culture emerged in the Tang Dynasty. In the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, tea culture was deeply developed on the basis of inheriting the tradition, and tea-drinking customs with different characteristics and styles emerged successively, such as Jian Cha (煎茶, tea cooking), Dian Cha (点茶, tea whisking), Dou Cha (斗茶, tea tasting), and Pao Cha (泡茶, tea brewing ). With the progress of society, tea culture is developing continuously.   The rise of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty According to historical records, as early as the Western Han Dynasty, it was common to drink and grow tea in Sichuan, China, and tea have already become an important commodity at that time. After the Six Dynasties, the trend of tea drinking rose in the south, and tea drinkers gradually increased in society. The establishment of the unified country in the Tang Dynasty, made it possible to have regular economic and cultural exchanges between the north and the south, which laid the foundation for the further popularization of tea-drinking customs and the continued development of tea culture. Tea drinking in China has a history of more than 4,000 years, and it was not until the Tang Dynasty that…

What is a tea ceremony? The book "Chinese Tea Ceremony", is explained as a cultural art that embodies the perfect combination of tea and culture, a means of cultivating oneself. However, when people mention tea ceremony, many think of the Japanese tea ceremony. Yet this ancient way of drinking tea has actually retained many Chinese Tang and Song dynasty customs. Over the past two thousand years, the way people drink tea has been constantly changing from simple to complex. It took Chinese people more than one thousand years to evolve from simplicity to complexity; then another one thousand plus years to return back to simplicity. Let us explore the Chinese tea ceremony by savoring a cup of warm tea soup while searching for flavors once tasted by our ancestors.   1 Tang Dynasty: The Art of Jian Cha Ceremony The most primitive way for Chinese people to taste tea was by eating it. Ancient people originally used tea leaves for medicinal and food purposes, boiling fresh leaves and consuming the liquid directly. Gradually, they discovered that tea had a refreshing effect on the body, leading to the development of cooking tea as a dish with added seasonings such as scallions,…