This article is about tea's history in China. Tea leaves in a gaiwan. ...

Tea in mythology

• Lu Yu wrote in Cha Jing: "Tea as a beverage was originated from Shen Nong"
• A medicine book "Shen Nong Ben Chao" stated that "Shen Nong tasted 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 Hunan province.

Tasting tea

A statue of Lu Yu located in Xian Lu Yu (陆羽) (733 – 804) is respected as the Sage of Tea for his contribution to Chinese tea culture. ... The word drink is primarily a verb, meaning to ingest liquids, see Drinking. ... Shennong (Traditional: 神農; Simplified: 神农; Pinyin: Shen2 nong2) is a legendary emperor and culture hero of Chinese mythology who is believed to have lived some 5,000 years ago and who taught the ancient peoples of the practices of agriculture. ... An antidote is a substance which can counteract a form of poisoning. ... Hunan (Chinese: 湖南; Hanyu Pinyin: ) is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning south of the lake). Hunan is sometimes called 湘 (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province. ... Download high resolution version (684x1168, 131 KB)Tasting tea File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese tea ... Download high resolution version (684x1168, 131 KB)Tasting tea File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese tea ...

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 the south east area of China discovered tea bushes up to ten feet tall 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.

Events Maya civilization city of Dos Pilas is abandoned. ...

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 Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese: 漢朝; Simplified Chinese: 汉朝; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Han Chau; 206 BC–AD 220) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. ...

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 Sui and Tang dynasties, drinking tea became a widespread custom, then spread west to Tibet. The Sui Dynasty (Chinese: 隋朝; Hanyu Pinyin: 581-618) followed the Southern and Northern Dynasties and preceded the Tang Dynasty in China. ... For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ...

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 Suzhou city) 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 明菴栄西 Eisai (Yosai): came to Tiantai mountain of Zhejiang to 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:喫茶養生記, 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 Polo mentioned tea in his Travel
• In 1559, Giovanni Battista Ramusio mentioned "chai" in "Delle Navigatione et Viaggi," Vol 2.
• 1579, Two Russian traveller introduced Cha to Russia

The Spring and Autumn Period (Chinese: 春秋時代; Hanyu Pinyin: ) represented an era in Chinese history between 722 BC and 481 BC. The period takes its name from the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the period whose authorship was traditionally attributed to Confucius. ... Suzhou (Simplified Chinese: 苏州; Traditional Chinese: 蘇州; Pinyin: SÅ«zhōu; Wade-Giles: Su-chou; sometimes seen transliterated as Su-chow, Suchow, or Soochow) is a famous city on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Taihu in the province of Jiangsu, China. ... Myōan Eisai, founder of the Rinzai School of Zen, 12th century. ... Tiantai (天台宗, Wade-Giles: Tien Tai) is one of the thirteen schools of Buddhism in China and Japan, also called the Lotus Sutra School because of its emphasis on the supremacy of that scripture. ... Zhejiang (Chinese: 浙江; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Che-chiang; Postal System Pinyin: Chehkiang or Chekiang) is an eastern coastal province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Chán is a major school of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism. ... Bodhidharma, woodcut print by Yoshitoshi, 1887. ... Marco Polo (September 15, 1254, Venice; or Curzola, Venetian Dalmatia — January 8, 1324, Venice) was a Venetian trader and explorer who, together with his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo, was one of the first Westerners to travel the Silk Road to China (which he called Cathay) and visited the...

Mass production of white tea

Modern-day white teas can be traced to the Qing Dynasty in 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. The Qing Dynasty (Manchu: daicing gurun; Chinese: 清朝; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: ching chao), sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty, was a dynasty founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China, expanded into China proper and the surrounding territories of Inner Asia, establishing the...

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 Yu was completed around 760 AD. This is more than four hundred years earlier than the first Japanese tea monograph by Eisai No known ancient Indian monograph on tea exists. A statue of Lu Yu located in Xian Lu Yu (陆羽) (733 – 804) is respected as the Sage of Tea for his contribution to Chinese tea culture. ... Myōan Eisai, founder of the Rinzai School of Zen, 12th century. ...

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

The varieties of Chinese Tea are extensive with many different types grown during each Chinese dynasties. ... A statue of Lu Yu located in Xian Lu Yu (陆羽) (733 – 804) is respected as the Sage of Tea for his contribution to Chinese tea culture. ... // Chinese Tea Classics Tea as a beverage was introduced to China no later than the fifth century BCE. The earliest extant mention of tea in literature is in the Shih Ching or Book of Changes, written circa 550 BCE. Although the ideogram used (Tu) also can designate a variety of...

References

• Cha Jing (《茶经》), 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