Tea drinking began in China. Tea is washed with boiling water, which is natural, elegant and tasteful. Seeking the inherent taste of tea, we should focus on artistic conception. This is the characteristic of tea tasting in China. Tea of the same quality, such as different water, different tea sets or different brewing techniques, will have different effects. China has attached great importance to tea brewing since ancient times and accumulated rich experience. To make tea well, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of various teas and master the scientific brewing technology, so as to fully display the inherent quality of tea.
People in China pay attention to the word "quality" when drinking tea. "Tea tasting" is not only to identify the advantages and disadvantages of tea, but also to daydream and appreciate the taste of tea. Making a pot of strong tea in your busy schedule, choosing a quiet place and taking a sip by yourself can relieve fatigue, relieve boredom, refresh yourself, sip slowly, enjoy beauty and sublimate the spiritual world to a noble artistic realm. The environment for tea tasting is generally composed of buildings, gardens, furnishings, tea sets and other factors. Drinking tea requires quietness, freshness, comfort and cleanliness. China's gardens are world-famous, and the scenery is even more numerous. Use gardens or natural mountains and rivers to set up tea rooms, so that people can rest and be full of interest.
China is an ancient civilization and a country of etiquette, which attaches great importance to etiquette. When the guests come, the etiquette of making tea and offering tea is essential. When guests come to visit, you can argue and choose the best tea set that best suits the taste of the guests. When offering tea to guests, it is also necessary to mix tea properly. When drinking tea with guests, the host should pay attention to the tea residue in the guest's cup and pot. Generally speaking, tea is brewed in a teacup. If you have already drunk half of it, you should add boiling water to make the concentration of tea basically the same and the water temperature appropriate. When drinking tea, it can also be properly accompanied by tea, candy, dishes and so on. To achieve the effect of regulating taste and snacks.
The Formation and Development of Tea Culture in China
China is the hometown of tea and the first country in the world to discover, utilize and cultivate tea trees. The origin of tea trees is at least 60,000 to 70,000 years old. Tea has been discovered and used by human beings for about four or five thousand years.
The utilization of tea was originally conceived in the field collection activities. The ancient legend "Shennong is exquisite and can see its lungs, liver and five internal organs". The reason is, "if it is not exquisite, it will encounter twelve poisons in one day. How do you solve it? " He also said, "Shennong tasted a hundred herbs and encountered twelve poisons every day, so he solved it with tea." Although neither theory can be fully believed, a vague message is worth noting: in the long-term consumption process of "tea", people pay more and more attention to its medicinal properties. This reflects a lost story in the flood era.
According to the Book of Songs and other related documents, in early history, "tea" refers to all kinds of bitter wild plant food raw materials. In the historical era of the integration of food and medicine, it is not difficult to find the medicinal functions of tea vegetable oil, such as quenching thirst, refreshing, promoting digestion, resolving phlegm and relaxing bowels. But there must be some special factors, that is, some specific needs in people's real life, in order to develop from general drugs to conventional special drinks. Bashu area has become a "smoky place" with frequent diseases and epidemics. "Fan people live on tea, and they will get sick without tea." (Qing Zhou's Travels of the vassal States, Volume II) So Bashu people often eat spicy food, which has been accumulated for thousands of years and still exists today. It is this geographical and natural condition and people's eating habits determined by it that makes Bashu people take "fried tea" at the earliest time to get rid of miasma and detoxify. After long-term use, the medicinal purpose gradually disappears, and tea becomes a daily drink. When Qin people entered Bashu, they probably regarded this custom of drinking tea as a daily drink.
Tea has changed from medicinal to habitual beverage, and there has been a strict sense of "tea", whose typical symbol is the appearance of "tea" sound. Guo Pu notes the cloud in Er Ya Shi Mu: "A tree is as small as a gardenia, and it has leaves in winter, so it can be boiled and drunk. Tea was harvested early today, tea was harvested late, and one was bitter tea. " It can be seen that the word "tea" in the Han Dynasty has been pronounced specifically for the beverage "tea", and "tea" has been separated from "tea" and embarked on an independent development path. However, the emergence of the word "tea" is accompanied by the development of tea affairs and the increasing frequency of commercial activities. It was not until the middle Tang Dynasty that the word "tea" changed in people's social life after the emergence of new symbols.
There are different opinions about when China started drinking tea. There were official documents about drinking tea in the Western Han Dynasty, and the starting time of drinking tea should be earlier than this. As a cultural phenomenon, tea appeared in the Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Tea culture in a broad sense is divided into two aspects: the natural science of tea and the humanistic science of tea, which refers to the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth related to tea created by human society in historical practice. In a narrow sense, paying attention to the humanity of tea mainly refers to the spiritual function and social function of tea. Because the natural science of tea has formed an independent system, the tea culture that is often said now focuses on humanities.