Shennong era is an extremely ancient period in the growth history of the Chinese nation. The discovery and application of tea should be regarded as the historical activity of the whole Shennong tribe era. Relevant research shows that in the development of tea culture in China, the period before the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties should belong to the enlightenment and germination stage of tea culture. A large number of data confirm that the southwest of China is the center of tea production in the world, or more precisely Yunnan Province, but the starting point of tea culture is in Sichuan, because the economy and culture of Sichuan Bashu were more developed than Yunnan at that time. About the end of Shang Dynasty and the beginning of Zhou Dynasty, Bashu people had been drinking tea, and in BC 1066, when King Wu of Zhou Dynasty cut down the rice, Bashu people had already regarded their own tea as a "tribute" treasure. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty (53 BC), Master Puhui (common name Wu Lizhen) of Kanluoji in Mengding Mountain began to plant tea trees artificially. Before the end of the 4th century, due to the worship of tea, Bashu people were named after tea, and people were named after tea. It can be said that Bashu area in China is the place where people first drank and planted tea. In the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, drinking tea became popular in Jiangnan. Moreover, drinking tea began to enter the literary and spiritual fields during this period, and China's earliest tea poems also appeared during this period, which was represented by the Fu written by Tu Yu in the Western Jin Dynasty.
By the Tang Dynasty, the tea culture in China had basically taken shape. It is embodied in the following aspects: first, tea is rich in substances, and tea production and processing have reached a certain scale; Second, tea science has formed a relatively complete system, and tea activities have risen from practice to theory; Thirdly, drinking tea has a perfect embodiment in the spiritual field, such as putting forward that tea ceremony, tea ceremony and tea culture are closely combined with China's philosophical thoughts of Confucianism, Zen and Taoism; Fourth, there are many tea culture works and tea poems. Fifth, as a superstructure, tea politics began to appear.
During this period, the world's first monograph on tea and tea culture, Tea Classic, came out. It was written by Lu Yu in the Tang Dynasty in 780 AD. The Book of Tea is a rich encyclopedia of tea. It involves biology, cultivation, tea making, taxonomy, ecology, mathematics and so on. At the same time, it also records different myths, fables, history books, poems, biographies, geography, mathematics and other books about tea before the Tang Dynasty, which is a treasure in the cultural treasure house of China and even the world.
From the Song Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty, the development of tea culture in China reached its peak. So we said, "Tea flourished in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty." During this period, tea products began to develop from group tea to loose tea, which broke the situation that group tea and cake tea dominated the world, and at the same time, group tea, cake tea, loose tea and end tea appeared. The tea area has also moved southward in a large area, making the tea industry listed one month in advance. In this historical period, tea culture is unprecedentedly prosperous. In the first year of Daguan (A.D. 1 107), Song Huizong and Evonne took the lead in writing Daguan Tea Classic. By the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the traditional tea-making methods in China were basically available. At the same time, more scholars dabbled in tea, such as Huishan Tea Talk by Wen Zhiming, Tea Cooking Map by Lu Yu, Tea Tasting Map and Tea Making Scroll and Shiming Map by Tang Yin.
In the Qing Dynasty, the tea culture in China developed further, and tea was closely combined with people's daily life. For example, at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, urban teahouses rose and developed into activity places suitable for all walks of life. It combines tea with folk cultural activities such as folk art, poetry, drama and riddles, forming a special "teahouse culture", and "guests come to worship tea" has also become the etiquette virtue of ordinary people. Due to the development of tea production technology, the Qing Dynasty basically formed six kinds of tea today. In addition to the original green tea, white tea, yellow tea, black tea, black tea and green tea (oolong tea) appeared. The increase of tea, the difference of tea-making skills and the regional and ethnic differences in China make the expression of tea culture more colorful.
Throughout the formation and development of tea culture in China, we can see that the connotation of tea culture is extremely rich. Generally speaking, tea culture is the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth about tea created by human beings in the process of social and historical development. The structural system of tea culture includes three levels: material culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture. The material forms of tea culture are historical relics, relics, poems, paintings, songs and dances, various famous teas, teahouses, tea sets, tea drinking techniques and tea performances. The spirit is manifested in cha de, the spirit of tea ceremony, entertaining guests with tea, keeping honesty with tea, keeping health with tea, and blindly following tea. There are also intermediate forms of expression, such as tea policy, tea law, tea ceremony rules and tea customs, which belong to the category of institutional culture.