Talking about the "prosperity" of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty

First, the origin of tea

Tea is a tree in southern China, belongs to the camellia family, is an evergreen shrub or small tree plant, its leaves can be used to drink water with refreshing the brain, skin care beauty, prolonging life and other effects, the three emperors and five emperors had the story of Shennong detoxifying with tea. There are various theories about the origin of tea, some say it is Bashu, which is also a popular saying now. Sun Chu's "Out of Song" recorded: "Jiang Gui tea out of Bashu." Gu Yanwu's "Records of Daily Knowledge" also said: "Since the Qin people took Shu, there has been a matter of drinking tea." However, some people have done more detailed research and believe that "the discovery and use of tea began in western Hubei, but the drinking and cultivation of tea to processing, exchange and finally development into industry was after the Ba people migrated to Badi." [1] Some scholars believe that the statement that tea should originate in Yunnan and other places should be a personal opinion, so it will not be mentioned here.

Second, tea culture

"Tea culture means the cultural characteristics formed in the process of tea drinking activities, including tea ceremony, tea virtue, tea spirit, tea union, tea book, tea utensils, tea painting, tea science, tea story, tea art and so on." [2] "Tea culture reflects tea-related production labor, artistic creation, conceptual consciousness and customs; It is composed of two aspects: tea 'material' and tea 'spirit'. [3] Simply put, tea culture refers to the sum of the material wealth and spiritual wealth of tea created by human beings in the process of social history.

The advent of Lu Yu's "Tea Sutra" in the Tang Dynasty marked the formal formation of Chinese tea culture, for the tea culture of the Tang Dynasty, I use the word "prosperity" to summarize, let's discuss the reasons, performance, and influence of the "prosperity" of the Tang Dynasty tea culture.