Master Chen, a monk and wise man in the Southern Dynasties, lived in Huading and Tianfeng, giving up drinking and meditating, enjoying tea and sleeping peacefully.
His disciples hid their wisdom and treated the emperor Yang Di with tea.
Lu Yu, a "Cha Sheng" in the Tang Dynasty, recorded in the Book of Tea: "Those born in Chicheng were born in Quidditch", and "Shiqiao Mountain also produces tea, which is sweet and delicious, and it is forbidden to go to other counties".
Cloudy tea in Tiantai Mountain spread eastward with Buddhism.
In 804 AD, Japanese monks first came to Tiantai Mountain to learn from their teachers. After returning home, they brought tea seeds and planted them on Hiei Mountain, which is called "Riji Tea Garden".
In the Southern Song Dynasty, Rongxi came to the mountain for the second time, and the variety and preparation method of Wuyun tea, which is known as "Buddha's heaven and rain dew" and "Yuan Di's fairy pulp", were spread to the east again.
Rong wrote in "Drinking Tea for Health": "Climb Mount Tiantai, see the stone bridge Qinglong, worship the arahant to talk about the peak, and provide a cup of tea soup with wonderful flowers." "Tea is an elixir for health preservation and a wonderful technique for prolonging life".
He actively promoted the cultivation and consumption of tea and was known as Lu Yu of Japan.
Tea cultivation has a long history.
Tiantai Mountain is one of the most famous tea-producing areas in China since ancient times, which has a long history in the development of tea and tea culture in China.
"Danqiu jade people despise jade food and pick tea wings." Tea planting in Tiantai Mountain started from myths and legends. There is a story in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio by Wang Fu in the Western Jin Dynasty, which tells that Yuhong met Dan Qiu Zi when he entered Tiantai Waterfall Mountain.
Documentary records can be traced back to the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Ge Xuan Taoist's "Tea Garden has Arrived in Huading" has been around for more than 1700 years. This is the earliest place where tea is recorded in Zhejiang, and "Gexian Tea Garden" has become the source of Zhejiang tea culture.
In the Tang and Song Dynasties, tea trees were planted all over the county.
The Japanese monk Yuan Zhen (AD 8 14-89 1) recorded in the Travel Calendar that Tiantai Mountain was a "tea garden with clouds all over the mountains".
Cha Sheng Lu Yu once personally visited Tiantai Mountain and wrote in the book Tea Classic: "Those born in Chicheng, Fengxian County, Taizhou are the same as those in Zhangzhou."
The Song Dynasty's Chi Cheng Zhi and Sangzhuang's Ru Xu Zhi Pu say that there are three kinds of rooftop teas, Zi Ning is the best, Ling Wei is the second, and Xiaoxi is the second.
Zhang Tang Xinyou's Notes on Tea Making says: The water in Tiantai Waterfall Mountain is the seventeenth kind of water suitable for making tea in the world. Up to now, there are still "the 17th water in the world" cliff stone carvings on the cliffs near Zi Ning Waterfall.
Tea Road to the Sea
Tiantai Mountain is the birthplace of China tea, and tea culture has spread all over the world, especially to Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
It once "formed a tea" sea road "from the ancient Tiantai Mountain to the east of Gumingzhou (Ningbo) and through Shaoxing, the capital of ancient Vietnam. The tea varieties spread in Tiantai Mountain not only made the world-class famous tea' West Lake Longjing', but also became the source of tea planting and tea ceremony culture in Japan and South Korea. " (Liu Feng's "Zhejiang famous tea is fragrant everywhere")
As early as the Southern Dynasties, Xie Lingyun introduced Tiantai Mountain tea and planted it in Xianglin Cave, Lingyin, Hangzhou, which pioneered the cultivation of tea in Hangzhou and eventually formed the famous West Lake Longjing tea.
(The West Lake Longjing tea in the West Lake Encyclopedia began with Zhang's Tea Tree from the West Lake)
China and Japan are separated only by a strip of water, and the friendly exchanges and cultural exchanges between the two countries developed unprecedentedly in the Tang Dynasty. According to records, from the fourth year of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty (630) to the first year of Zhaozong (849), Japan sent 19 envoys to the Tang Dynasty, and many monks also went to the Tang Dynasty to seek dharma.
In the twentieth year of Zhenyuan (804), Japanese monks first entered Tang Qiufa and went to Tiantai Mountain National Assembly Temple. When they returned to China the following year, they came to Tiantai Mountain with tea leaves and tea seeds, and planted them beside the Riji Shrine at the eastern foot of Bi Rui in Shiga County, which became the oldest tea garden in Japan.
For example, today, a tall monument of Riji Tea Garden stands in Chishang Tea Garden near Jiji Temple, which records the clearest history of bringing tea seeds back to Tiantai Mountain for garden planting, and is also the earliest document record of China tea seeds spreading abroad.
Konghai, another Japanese monk who entered the Tang Dynasty with his ancestors in the same year, first returned to China to study dharma at Qingliu Temple in Chang 'an, and then came to Tiantai Mountain National Temple from Chang 'an in 806. After returning home, he also brought the tea seeds of Tiantai Mountain back to all parts of Japan, and the tea drinking method and tea culture in the Tang Dynasty took root in Japan.
Wannian Temple, located in Wannian Mountain of Tiantai Mountain, was once listed as one of the five major Buddhist temples in China, which played an important role in spreading tea and tea culture in Tiantai Mountain to Japan. In the 14th year of Xichun in the Southern Song Dynasty (1 187), Master Rong Xi came to China for the second time and studied in Wannian Temple in Tiantai Mountain, where he stayed for two years and five months. At the same time, Rongxi went deep into the tea areas of Wannian Mountain and Liang Shi.
In the second year of Shao Xi (1 19 1), Rong Xi brought a lot of tea seeds from Tiantai Mountain and planted them in Pinghu, Feiqian and Bodo. Rongxi also gave the tea seeds to Minghui in Kokura Temple at the end of Kyoto, and Minghui planted them beside the temple.
Three years after the founding of Japan, Rong Xi wrote the book "Eating Tea for Health" in Chinese, which is known as the "Tea Classic" of Japan. He strongly advocated drinking tea for health preservation, and was praised as the "Cha Sheng" of Japan by later generations, which laid the foundation for today's Japanese tea ceremony.
At present, there is a "tea garden with the remains of Zen Master Rong" next to Fuchun Temple in Yin Mu Street, Hirado City, Japan, and a monument of "the oldest tea garden in Japan" stands in Thumb Xiaozang Temple in Kyoto Prefecture.
In the second year of Duanping (1235), Japanese monks went to the Song Dynasty to seek dharma, went to Tiantai Mountain to seek roots and worship their ancestors, and brought back Tiantai Mountain tea seeds, which were planted in Shizuoka, Japan, becoming the largest tea producing area in Japan today, with an annual output of about half of the total tea production in Japan.
According to the earliest Korean historical document, The History of the Three Kingdoms (1 145), Volume 10, Silla Book, in the third year of Silla Xingde (828), Tang Wenzong summoned Jin Da, an envoy of the Tang Dynasty, to Linde Hall and gave tea seeds to Tiantai Mountain. Jin Dalian brought them back and planted them in the geographical mountain of Jeollanam-do, South Korea.
From 65438 to 0999, Li, a Korean student studying in the Tea Department of Zhejiang University, took "Comparison of Tea Tree Morphology between Tiantai Mountain in China and Zhiyi Mountain in Korea" as the topic. After three years of research, he finally came to the conclusion that the tea tree in Zhiyi Mountain in Korea originated from Tiantai Mountain.
1978-65438+February, People's China magazine published a special article-"Tea to the East and Monks in Rongxi", which described that Zen master in Rongxi, Japan, visited China twice more than 800 years ago to seek dharma, spread the tea varieties and drinking customs in Tiantai Mountain to Japan, and highly praised his outstanding contribution to the friendly exchanges between China and Japan.
1In March, 988, Shizuoka TV made a special trip to Tiantai Mountain to shoot the TV feature film "The Road to Tea" to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the station and to remember the achievements of Zuicheng, Rongxi and Yuanbianyuan in bringing tea seeds to Japan. In 2002, Fukuoka Branch of the New Youth Liaison Association planted the "Imperial Tea Memorial" tea garden next to the Seven Buddha Pagodas in Guohou Temple.
Tiantai Mountain Yunwu Tea has become a symbol of friendly exchanges between the people of China, Japan and China and South Korea.