Chinese Taoist tea and Chinese Buddhist tea are known as China’s two famous religious tea. Buddhist tea has Zen and Taoist tea has tea theory. Chinese tea culture has a profound religious and cultural foundation. It can be said that without this foundation, tea can not form culture. How did Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism act on tea culture and make Chinese tea culture form a grand atmosphere.
Today is undeniably the era of visual media, short video, Vlog and other we media have become popular all over the world, Podcast we media as network broadcast audio, compared with video shooting, podcast post production is relatively simple. Many European tea people choose podcasting to chat about tea. The audience does not have to sit in front of the computer or listen to it in real time. They can open the podcasting anytime and anywhere, especially when they are drinking a cup of tea. They are far away from the bombardment of visual media and the rest of vision, they are more focused on the enjoyment of smell and hearing. Because of this, the tea podcasting is very popular with tea audience.
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in the May 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, “国际茶日-欧洲茶人的线上狂欢”.
On May 21, when searching for #tea related topics on major social media and websites, people will find that international tea people post online to send each other their best wishes, which is a special way of celebration since the outbreak. European tea merchants usually receive new teas from Asian countries in May. With the popularity of international tea day and the freshness of tea, online sales discounts and lucky draw activities are full of joy. Several international tea associations hold online tea fairs or lectures on the day of international tea day. During the epidemic period, such large-scale online tea fairs have no regional restrictions, and the number of participants is often too large, so it is difficult to get one ticket, and the servers are full.
After the Han Dynasty, until the Tang Dynasty, there was no strict boundary between tableware and drinking utensils. In most cases, they were shared. However, as a ceramic tea set, after the development of the Western Jin Dynasty and the southern and Northern Dynasties, to the Tang Dynasty, Lu Yu’s <tea classic 茶经> contains 20 kinds of tea sets, which shows that the Tang Dynasty tea set has complete shape, complete supporting facilities, and special tea sets have been established.
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Huishan- Hui Mountian Spring 惠山泉, was tasted by Lu Yu, the “tea sage” of Tang Dynasty, according to legend, therefore, Huishan spring was named Lu Zi spring, honored as “the second spring in the world” by Qing Emperor Qianlong. The spring is now located in Xihui park at the foot of Hui mountain in the western suburb of Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province. Because Huishan spring water is famously good, so many ancient tea experts came to taste and discuss. Li Shen, a poet in the middle Tang Dynasty, “茶得此水，皆尽芳味也 once tea has this spring water, it will give off all its fragrance of this tea”. Zhao Mengfu, the great calligrapher of the Yuan Dynasty, wrote “the second spring in the world 天下第二泉” for Huishan spring, which is still well preserved on the back wall of the spring Pavilion. In Song Dynasty, the famous poet, Su Shi was well versed in his poem, he brought the best tea cake to try the second spring in the world. After drinking, he repeatedly praised the wonderful.
Based on historical data, there are 67 tea producing areas in Tang Dynasty, 8 tea producing areas mentioned in Lu Yu’s <Tea Classic 茶经>, 43 states (counties), which are equivalent to 13 provinces today. In Tang Dynasty, there were more than 50 kinds of famous tea, most of which were steamed green cake tea, and a small amount of loose tea, including green tea and yellow tea. At that time, Guzhu Purple Bamboo Shoot tea from Wuyue (Jiangsu and Zhejiang) and Mengshan Purple Bamboo Shoot tea from Xishu (Sichuan) were the most popular products of the Tang emperor. Tang tribute tea producing house is located in Hutou Cliff on the side of Guzhu mountain, Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, which was founded in 770. It is the place to supervise the production of tribute tea Guzhu tea in Tang Dynasty, it is also the first tea processing factory in Chinese history. Read More
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in the February 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, “德国茶里寻年味儿”.
No matter rich or poor, every family has to eat dumplings in the new year’s festival. It is an important feast that can not be replaced by any delicacies on New Year’s Eve, it means “happy reunion 喜庆团圆” and “good luck 吉祥如意”. Tea can not only be added to the stuffing of dumplings to make delicious tea dumplings, but also has the allegorical saying of tea and dumplings, “when you cook dumplings in a teapot, you can’t pour them out. 茶壶里煮饺子，有口倒不出 It’s a metaphor that you want to say, but it’s hard to say. Or it means knowing in the heart but not saying it in the mouth. “. Tea food needs to match the tea, salty and sweet taste is different, tea food is exquisite, just as safflower and green leaves complement each other. A good cup of tea, with delicate snacks, tasting tea is more interesting. A teapot of good tea, some tea food, coupled with a completely relaxed mood, can taste the charm of good tea. Read More
Article Wenzhuo Liu, Photos Maren Thobaben
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in the April 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, “中国茶与德国烘培的偶遇” page 40-45.
In China, in fact, there are many kinds of tea food, and because of the types of tea, personal preferences and differences, it is a general principle to match sweet tea food with green tea, sour and sweet tea food with black tea, and salty and alkaline tea food with oolong tea, the so-called “sweet with green, sour with red, melon seeds with oolong 甜配绿，酸配红，瓜子配乌龙“. When it comes to tea food, in fact, it’s easy to think of Engliand afternoon tea food and Japanese tea food, the beautiful tea snack is not too greasy and crooked only when it is paired with tea. In Germany and Europe, there are only a few tea food that use tea as ingredients, Earl Grey tea shortcake and tea nougat, which are very common in Europe. These improved tea versions of European cuisines from Maren Thobaben, French tea macarons and Italian tea pasta, seem to open up a new European tea food world. Read More
Tea’s bitterness can clear the heart, Qin’s low and deep sounds can calm the mind down “茶苦可清心，古琴低沉可静心“, playing Qin (Guqin), tasting tea… several tea friends listen to the dialogue between Qin and tea, tuning Qin, boiling water and infusing tea. In a certain sense, there are many similarities between these two kinds of treasures with profound cultural heritage. Tea has a very long history, even before the beginning of human civilization, Qin, one of the oldest plucked string instruments in China, it has been popular since the time of Confucius with a history of more than 4000 years. Because Qin music style belongs to the quiet, virtual quiet, deep quiet, and so on static beauty. This is why Guqin is most suitable for playing in the dead of night, because such an environment can match the style of Qin music and the artistic conception it pursues. Tea and Guqin have very similar temperament, so in a tea ceremony performance, Guqin is generally chosen. When we clean our hearts, we do not simply drive away the external fatigue, but use Qin, emotion, tea, and Tao to drive away the turbid Qi in our hearts, and then cultivate our body and mind, so as to achieve a truly transcendent spiritual enjoyment. Ancient Chinese literati loved Qin and tea, playing Qin and drinking tea became a vivid portrayal of the life of literati and scholars, both of them can cultivate people’s character, temperament and sentiment, and meditate on Buddhism and Taoism, so as to achieve spiritual enjoyment and personality’s transcendence.
In China, there has always been a saying that tea and wine compete for merit. But in the minds of Chinese literati, the status of tea is still above wine. Throughout the status of tea and wine in the poets’ minds, there is a process, a leading wine poetry first, tea and wine on an equal footing, to the tea dominating position. In the early Tang Dynasty, the poets used wine to boost their spirits. With the emergence of tea drinking groups such as Lu Yu and Jiao Ran, more and more poets of Tang Dynasty became associated with tea. The tea loving monk, Jiao Ran not only knew, loved and enjoyed tea, but also wrote many charming poems about tea, he thought that wein was far from tea “The elegance and purity of this tea is unknown to the world, people relying on drinking alcohol is to deceive themselves and others. 此物清高世莫知，世人饮酒多自欺 – <饮茶歌诮崔石使君>”. Jiao Ran discussed the art of tea drinking together with Lu Yu, the sage of tea, and advocated the tea tasting atmosphere of “replacing wine with tea”. He made great contributions to the development of tea culture in Tang Dynasty and later generations. Bai Juyi’s attitude towards tea and wine is more typical, “when there is no alcohol for guests to drink, 聊将茶代酒 for the moment, make do with tea instead of alcohol – <宿蓝溪对月>”, “We can know the strength of an alcoholic drink when we drive away the sorrow, we can see the effect of tea when we break the drowsiness 驱愁知酒力，破睡见茶功 – <赠东邻王十三>”, it was Bai Juyi who added a large amount of tea into the poetry world and made tea and wine keeping abreast of the world of poetry. From his poems, we can see the gradual rise and transformation of tea among literati.
