Tea (6 page)

As processing methods evolved from raw leaf to baked brick, the taste improved accordingly, and tea enjoyed a surge of popularity throughout China during the T'ang dynasty. Tea was served not only at the imperial court, but almost everywhere else as well. Drinking tea soon became an essential part of everyday life for many people, from emperors to peasants. At this time, the tea drunk in China was green tea. The Chinese did not drink black tea until they began to process it for export to the West, beginning in the seventeenth century.

Those who could afford it drank only the finest teas, which at that time came from the regions of Xiashou, Guangzhou, and Huzhon and offered a complexity of flavors. Eventually, social status became associated with the type of tea one drank (or could afford). Not only did the tea itself have to meet high standards, but everything associated with it—the utensils, bowls, water, and tea caddy—all had to be of the finest quality.

The T'ang dynasty, which proved to be one of the greatest in China history, valued quality and beauty. It was a time of great sophistication, characterized by a love of learning and the arts. Poetry, painting, calligraphy, music, and landscape gardening all enjoyed popularity during this time, and inevitably, this environment of refinement influenced the culture of tea.

Naturally, people needed a place to get a bowl of tea, and teahouses and tea gardens soon sprang up in cities and towns across the empire. Many of these tea gardens became manifestations of the sophistication and refinement of the T'ang culture. Along with the search for the best teas came the development of the tea master, one who could find the highest-grade tea leaves from growers in the various regions, and who could prepare the most delicious teas. Tea masters were in great demand, particularly among the royalty and high officials.

LU YU, FIRST TEA MASTER

Of all the tea masters who lived during the T'ang dynasty, Lu Yu was the best known, so famous, in fact, that he has been called the “father of tea,” “deity of tea,” “sage of tea,” and the “immortal of tea.”

Although there is some question as to the exact date and place of his birth, Lu Yu was probably born in the district of Chin Ling some time between
728
and
733
. There are countless stories and legends about him, most of which say that he was abandoned as a baby and adopted by the Buddhist monk Zhiji, spending his early years in the monastery.

In spite of the surroundings of his youth, however, Lu Yu proved to be temperamentally unfit for the life of the priesthood. He was in a state of constant rebellion that caused the monks to punish him by assigning him difficult and menial tasks. The monks hoped that as Lu Yu performed these tasks, he would learn the necessary discipline and humility to continue with his priestly studies, but it was all to no avail. At the age of thirteen, Lu Yu ran away to join an opera troupe and fulfill his dream of becoming a clown. He seemed perfectly suited to this life and delighted audiences wherever he went, playing the fool and making people laugh.

In spite of his restlessness, however, Lu Yu exhibited an unusually keen intellect, and he soon became bored with performing with the troupe. Although he did not miss the austerity and simplicity of the life of the monks, he did miss his life as a student. Fortunately, one of Lu Yu's greatest admirers was an official who became aware of the young man's intellectual yearnings. His patronage allowed Lu Yu to further his education by studying the ancient writings while he continued with his profession.

Then, in
760
, an armed rebellion forced Lu Yu to leave the district where he was performing with the opera troupe. Along with many others, he took refuge in the village of Huzhou, in present-day Zhejiang Province—an unexpected turn of events that proved to be fortunate for this clown-turned-scholar. Among other things, the climate of this region was perfect for growing tea. The weather was warm, there was plenty of moisture, and the ground was rich and fertile. Tea gardens and teahouses were in abundance.

Like other young men, Lu Yu was attracted to the tea-houses, where, as was the custom of the day, men gathered. These establishments throughout the country were places where friends and scholars came together, not only to drink and talk about tea, but also to discuss art and listen to music. In the best teahouses, the air was perfumed with rare incense and flowers, and only the finest teas were served. In such an atmosphere, one could relax and enjoy the most subtle nuances of aesthetic pleasures, including an appreciation for the taste of the best-quality teas.

After a time, Lu Yu became friendly with a man named Jiao Ran, who owned one of the teahouses of the Zhejiang region, and before long Lu Yu grew fascinated, then obsessed, with tea. It was here in the teahouse of his friend that he found the perfect outlet for his scholarly ambition. He was soon not only running the teahouse for Jiao Ran, but also learning as much as he possibly could about tea.

Lu Yu's
Tea Classic

Tea became the focus of Lu Yu's life. He was relentless in his quest to learn everything there was to know about tea. The result of this consuming passion was the three-volume, ten-part book called
Ch'a Ching
, the
Tea Classic
, published in
780
.

The book deals with the following aspects of tea:

1. Origin of the tea plant
   
2. Tools for gathering the leaves
   
3. Production and manipulation of the leaves
   
4. Description of the twenty-four implements
   necessary to serve and enjoy tea
   
5. How to make a cup of tea (methods of infusion)
   
6. Rules for drinking tea
   
7. Historical summary of tea and its usage
   
8. Sources of tea, plantations, and so forth
   
9. Nonessential tools
   
10. Illustrations of tea utensils
    

Farmers and agriculturists interested in learning to cultivate tea found an unlikely hero in Lu Yu, the man who'd gone from monk to clown to scholar to tea master. With an increased demand for tea came a corresponding demand for information about how to grow it. Although tea had been cultivated in the Szechwan district for hundreds of years, by the mid-tenth century, the practice of growing tea had spread through the Yangtze Valley and along the coast as well. With a growing market, farmers planted tea wherever they could find a patch of land, and by this time, tea cultivation was common and widespread. Nonetheless, knowledge about how to grow the plants and harvest the leaves was still spread only by word of mouth, passed from one generation to the next or from one neighbor to another.

There was a resulting need for information about how
to propagate and care for tea plants, how to prune the shrubs, harvest the leaves—in short, how to take tea from a shrub to a valuable commodity. In his
Tea Classic
, Lu Yu provided this information in written, accessible form.

The work begins with a description of the tea plant and its habitat. Lu Yu reports that tea plants growing naturally on the hills and beside the streams in the province of Szechwan are “sometimes so big that it takes two men to encircle them with their arms.” He goes on to say that the flowers of the tea plant are like “white cinnamon roses” and the seeds similar to those of the coconut palm. After describing the plant, he offers advice as to the best places to grow it: The most favorable is in “the soil of disintegrated stones,” the next best is where gravel is present, and the least favorable soil is yellow clay.

As for taste, Lu Yu decidedly prefers the leaves of the wild plants to those of trees growing in “confined spaces”—a comparison impossible for modern tea drinkers to make, since any wild tea trees that may still exist are extremely rare. During Lu Yu's lifetime, cultivation of tea was not, of course, as widespread as it is today.

He advises tea growers to pick the new shoots, which he thinks are better than buds (in contrast to modern growers, who cherish the buds), and he considers the curled leaf tips to be superior to those that are uncurled.

The Tea Classic
offers specific advice for harvesting the leaves, suggesting that harvest take place only when the weather is clear. Tea leaves four or five inches long should be picked during March, April, or May. Perhaps the following is the best-known quote from
The Tea Classic
: “The best quality leaves must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like fine earth newly swept by rain.”

Lu Yu's masterful work covers the full spectrum of tea in Chinese culture. In Part Five, he says, “After baking . . . [the tea brick] should be put in a paper bag so that it will not lose its fragrant flavor” (a clear indication that paper bags were in use in China during the eighth century!). Much of his impressive expertise at preparing tea concerns the careful selection of water. One oft-told story is that Lu Yu could determine from a cup of tea precisely where the water to make it was collected—either along the shore of a river or midstream. As for his water preference for tea, he says the water from a mountain spring is best, then the water from a river, while the water from a well is of the lowest quality.

Lu Yu's explanation of how to determine the best water temperature for making tea is nearly poetic: “When the water first boils, there appears something like the eyes of fishes on the surface, and a little noise can be heard. Then appears something like a spring rushing forth and a string of pearls at the side, this is the second boiling.” The tea, which has been broken off the baked brick and ground into a powder, is added to the water after the “second boiling.” The appearance of the “waves and breakers” is called the third boiling. A dipper full of cold water is added at this point, to “revive the youth of the water” and to enhance the flavor of the boiling tea. If the tea is left in the pot after the third boiling, it is considered “overboiled,” and Lu Yu advises against using it, if one wants superior taste.

Part Six gives instructions for drinking, and begins with the statement that all beings, including birds and animals, have to drink to live. Lu Yu suggests that this is what water is for, and that wine is used to drown sorrows, but that tea is drunk to avoid sleepiness.

Tea should be drunk, according to Lu Yu, four or five times a day for those who are “depressed, suffering from headache, eye-ache, fatigue of the four limbs or pains in the joints.” He also writes that bitter tea, combined with the roots of small onions, is good for “children who are frightened and tumble without apparent causes.”