Ancient Chinese Tea Culture

Different from its Western counterpart, Chinese traditional art is primarily centered on calligraphy and painting, both of which exist as independent artistic forms. Tea-related poetry, painting and calligraphy works are common in China.

Western arts build upon architecture, while sculpture and painting both act as affiliation for architecture. Different from its Western counterparts, Chinese traditional arts are primarily centered on calligraphy and painting, both of which exist as independent artistic forms. As a consequence, Western sculptors and painters always have to take consideration of the spatial relationship between their works and the architecture, while Chinese calligraphers and painters never have to bother themselves with such concerns. Traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting works are either made into hanging scrolls to hang in the hall or into handscrolls to observe at a closer distance. Each form has its unrivaled merits. The bondage with calligraphy, painting, and tea is deep-seated in the Chinese culture.

For quite a long time in Chinese history, poetry reigned over all the other literary forms and served as sources of inspiration for calligraphers and painters. In addition to poetry, calligraphy, and painting, tea became another significant factor in the life of a man of letters.

POETRY

Most Western readers assume that the “tea ceremony” is a Japanese notion. However, the truth is that China is the de facto birthplace for tea ceremony. This notion first made presence over twelve centuries ago in a poem by a Tang poet named Jiao Ran. It was not until eight centuries later that Sen no Rikyu, the hugely influential figure in the Japanese tea ceremony, brought up this term. One of Jiao Ran’s poems, “Drinking Tea,” was improvised when the poet was savoring tea with his friend named Cui Shishi. This poem depicts the shape and color of tea leaves, the tea-brewing scene, and the drinkers' personal experience. Besides, this poem has also established tea-drinking practice as important as wine drinking. Jiao’s poem has actually interpreted the notion of tea ceremony from three perspectives, including the tea itself, tea-drinking practice and tea-savoring enjoyment. No matter whether the definition is flawless, Jiao has made a breakthrough.

Jiao Ran has not only been recognized as an influential figure that had contributed to the definition of tea ceremony but also known for his friendship with Lu Yu, who is respected as the Sage of Tea in China. Their profound friendship which was a product of their common passions about tea was noted in Jiao’s poems and other historical documents. Some scholars have affirmed that Jiao Ran was a mentor for Lu Yu. Lu could never have finished “The Classic of Tea” without instructions and enlightenment from Jiao. Both of them lived in the Tang Dynasty, which was a booming age for the Chinese tea culture. If someone is too obsessive to make a distinction between the two, he would find that Lu Yu was more focused on the pragmatic aspects. His “The Classic of Tea” has covered systematic tea brewing methods. Jiao Ran was more interested in the spiritual domain. He maintained that the tea-drinking process can be translated into a Zen-practicing ritual. However, compared with their differentiated focuses, their recognition of talents in each other and their contribution to Chinese tea culture trigger more interests among scholars, who believe that they had scored glorious accomplishments in tea-related poetry and treatise respectively. Their close relationship also exemplified how resonance between poetry and tea culture reached an unprecedented height in the Tang Dynasty.

As one of the most influential figures in Chinese poetry, Li Bai, who was celebrated as “Poet Transcendent,” was also known as “Immortal of the Wine Cup,” since the wine seemed to be an efficient catalyst for his inspirational outbursts. Therefore, he had produced a large number of poems themed on wine. Actually, his poems on tea were equally impressive. One of his poems was intended to express his gratitude for an accomplished Buddhist monk who had gifted him cactus tea. The poem was set in a Taoist wonderland. According to the poet, the cactus tea must have been in the exclusive possession of deities and thus has the magical power to restore the youth. Marked by a fusion of narrations and sentimental expressions, this poem is actually the first one themed on tea and also the earliest one concerning the functions, which indicates that tea culture was already established in the Chinese society back then.

Pyramid the poem is one of the most interesting kinds of poetry. The whole poem takes the shape of a pyramid since each line has more Chinese characters than the previous one. A pyramid poem by the Tang poet Yuan Zhen describes the shape and color of tea leaves, and what fun it is to brew and drink tea in floral fragrance in the moonlight. The last line of the poem argues that tea is effective to reduce the influence of alcohol. This argument is questionable in the scientific sense. In the Tang Dynasty, which was over one thousand years ago, both wine and tea were brewed in different ways from today. Therefore, tea liquor might be useful to relieve discomfort caused by excessive drinking. Nowadays, it is certain that this argument does not hold water. Scientific findings have proven that having tea after drinking wine will relieve drunkenness temporarily because tea can help accelerate the excretion of alcohol from the liver. But the burden on the kidney and stimulation to the heart will increase during this process. Therefore, it is not a wise move to have tea while or after drinking wine.

Tang Dynasty witnessed the birth and boom of tea poems, a large proportion of which were ex exquisitely worded. By the Song Dynasty, tea poetry was themed on a wider range of subject, including the spring to brew tea, tea property, the savoring process, teaware, the tea party, figures and anecdotes about tea, related treatise, hills forested by tea trees, tea snacks, and production technologies.

In ancient China, it was a common practice for talents to travel around the country to live up to their aspirations. Therefore, homesickness might be the most popular subject in ancient Chinese poetry. A Song poem by Su Shi has integrated his meditation over tea with his yearnings for his hometown in a seamless way. The first part depicts what unfolded before the poet’s eyes when he looked into the distance on a towering terrace in North China, while the second part makes it clear that this poem was composed following the Cold Food Festival. This traditional festival is associated with a tragic story in Chinese history. Back in the Spring and Autumn Period, Chong’er, prince of the Jin State, was once cornered by his enemies into isolated mountains and nearly starved to death. His servant Jie cut down flesh from his own thigh to feed Chong’er. Later, Chong’er returned to the Jin State and was enthroned, while Jie retreated into a secluded life with his mother in mountains. In order to force his loyal servant to return to his side, Chong’er set the mountains on fire to drive out Jie.

However, Jie still adhered to his original decisions and chose to be burnt alive with his mother under the tree. This tragedy landed Chong’er in such enormous grief that he ordered that no one was allowed to make a fire on the day when Jie died in scorching flames. From then on, people had to stand cold food on that day, which explains why this festival is named the Cold Food Festival. Following the Cold Food Festival is the Qingming Festival when people have to return to their hometown and visit the graveyard to pay their respects to their lost family. Newly produced tea also starts to be supplied around this festival.

However, Su could not return to his birthplace in South China. Therefore, he sighed over his own experience after drinking wine: Talking to my friends about my yearnings for my hometown would make me even more homesick. Thus, I could do nothing but console myself by brewing tea newly produced in my hometown in South China. This poem gives full expression to a life philosophy: life is ridden with sorrows; we can do nothing but seek joy amidst these sorrows.

Just like Su Shi, I myself was brought up in Sichuan, one of the most renowned tea production areas in China. Fortunately, it is much less challenging nowadays to transport spring tea from South China to North China within days, which is a great relief for me. Because I cannot feel the arrival of spring unless immersing myself in the aroma of the newly produced tea from South China. Its aroma which I can identify with my hometown thus serves as a kind of compensation. Therefore, I can totally understand what Su felt back then since I am also one of those who relieve their homesickness with tea from their hometown.

Another celebrated Northern Song poet Huang Tingjian also wrote a poem on tea. The beauty of this poem is that the poet vividly detailed the tea brewing and savoring process, and accurately captured the joy that is difficult to put to words when drinking tea. In the Song Dynasty, Dragon and Phoenix Tea Cake was a predominant category of tribute tea. Tea leaves would be compressed into cakes, sealed with wax and then stamped with motifs featuring dragon or phoenix.

The first half of this poem describes the tea brewing process. The poet halved the phoenix cake and smashed it when it suddenly occurred to him that he had just separated a couple of phoenixes on the cake. Then, he ground the smashed cake into jadelike ashes and put them into the teapot. When the boiling water sounded like the raving of pine forests, the poet poured it into the pot.

The second half of the poem is concerned with the joy that surged in the poet’s veins the moment he was submerged in the overwhelming fragrance which he found himself speechless when trying to describe. It was as if a friend had just returned from a long trip, but would like to talk with the poet the whole night despite his fatigue. The poet might have exhausted his words but could not find the right expressions for such a delight. The poem brilliantly related tea savoring to meeting with an old friend after a long time, which has accurately captured the feelings that thousands of tea drinkers have experienced.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, poetry constantly lost influence until the Chinese literary landscape was dominated by novels. However, this change should not be interpreted as a decline in literati’s interests in tea. Actually, they just resorted to another form. In the novel “A Dream in Red Mansions,” readers can find a lot of descriptions of tea.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, tea was in short supply and it involved complicated processes to brew tea when tea culture was closely associated with the court and the literati. For example, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty authored “Treatise on Tea,” which gives a detailed portrait of the tea production industry back in the Northern Song Dynasty. By the Ming and Qing Dynasty, tea drinkers had simplified the tea brewing process, after which tea leaves were just steeped in hot water. This transformation in tea brewing methods led to the popularity of tea drinking practice — even the civilians would not find it time-consuming to brew tea. However, renowned tea varieties were still monopolized as tributes to the court. Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty wrote a poem to delineate blossoms on the tea trees, which was quite creative since tea blossoms had never made a presence in a Chinese poem, though tea leaves constituted a common subject.

In the Qing Dynasty, a poet brilliantly selected one line from two poems by Su Shi respectively, and made them into a poetic couplet, hanging the scrolls on the Hangzhou Tea House. The couplet means “The West Lake looks like the fair lady at her best, good tea always reminds us of pretty girls.” A celebrated calligrapher and painter Zheng Banqiao also wrote a couplet on tea, exclaiming “I want to brew the newly produced tea with river water, and buy all the mountains across the country as my personal landscape screens.' Both of the couplets have exemplified that the Chinese literati bear a universal interest in tea.

CALLIGRAPHY

The earliest tea poem that we can find in historical documents was written in the Tang Dynasty. In contrast, the first calligraphy works on tea were much time-honored. We could identify the Chinese character for tea on blue-glazed vessels in the Eastern Han Dynasty, though it looked different from the character in common use today. It should be noted the Chinese characters have undergone a gradual evolution in form since their birth. The “tea” character in modern Chinese language was not established until the publication of Lu Yu’s “The Classic of Tea.” Even after its establishment, other forms of characters for tea were still used concurrently.

Calligraphy is always of overriding importance in traditional Chinese arts. It has evolved from the oracle bone script, stone drum script, great seal script, lesser seal script, clerical script to the cursive script, regular script and running script. Chinese calligraphy builds upon the pictographic Chinese written language, encapsulates the Chinese culture and aesthetics, and transforms into a unique artistic form. The Chinese calligraphy challenges the established Western appraisal norms. To a Westerner, the value of a calligraphy work lies in how exquisitely it was manipulated. They valued the forms of letters over meanings of the words. For a Chinese calligrapher, calligraphy is based on the language, which is meaningful and functional. Therefore, the connotations of the words are also taken into account when a calligraphy work is appreciated.

It is an established practice to name the calligraphy scrolls by accomplished calligraphers after the first two Chinese characters in the text or a keyword in the passage. This rule applies to the “Ku Sun Tie” by Huaisu in the Tang Dynasty. Translated into modern language, the text means “the bamboo shoots and tea are quite tasteful. You can bring me more.” The text indicates that tea was a common and treasured gift in the literati class. Interpreting from the text, it is evident that this scroll was originally intended as a letter or a message, which might be the earliest on tea that has been discovered. From the artistic perspective, the work exemplifies the unrestrained calligraphy style of Huaisu.

In the Song Dynasty, calligraphy was closely related to personal edifications of the calligrapher. “Jing Cha Tie” (Jing Cha, literally translated as selected tea leaves) by Cai Xiang was named after the subject of the scroll. Cai Xiang himself was quite an expert on tea. His treatise “Notes on Tea” has crystallized his understanding and expertise of tea. In addition, he made innovations by reducing the size of Dragon Tea Cake, which was a tribute to the emperor.

We mentioned Su Shi in the former passages. Su was also recognized for his expertise in tea. He had discovered the health care functions of tea long ago, documenting how to take care of teeth by use of tea. He was also the inventor of the loop-handled teapot, which he designed for brewing tea. The legacy from Su Shi does not only include a number of tea poems, but also quite a considerable quantity of calligraphy scrolls on tea. “Yi Ye Tie” is one of them, in which Su mentioned how he gifted a friend a tea cake. His records make it clear that the custom of taking tea as a treasured gift is deep-seated in the Chinese culture.

The Ming and Qing Dynasties witnessed further development of calligraphy, when there was still an impressively large quantity of calligraphy works on tea. “Seven Procedures to Brew Tea” by Xu Wei, a Ming scholar, was a gem in the Chinese calligraphy arts. The original text of this scroll was selected from a treatise by Lu Tong in the Tang Dynasty. Lin Zexu, who launched a massive campaign to eliminate opium trade in China, was also a tea lover. He once wrote a couplet, “brewing tea by using the dew crystallized on the bamboo leaves in the pine grove, reading, painting and reciting poems in the shades of phoenix tree in the rain,” which expresses his personal aspirations as a typical scholar.

What deserves attention is that current research on Chinese calligraphy arts has prioritized the forms over the meanings. As far as calligraphy works on tea are concerned, tea culture and relevant information embedded in the text are in most cases slighted or even neglected. We should find a solution to this problem so that researches on Chinese calligraphy can become more fruitful and rewarding.

PAINTING

It is relatively challenging to identify elements of tea culture in paintings without textural messages. The researchers have to grasp a profound understanding of the social context in which the painting was crafted. Chinese paintings concerning tea can be roughly divided into two categories: the first category is centered on other subjects, but we can find some tea-related activities in it; the second category is primarily themed on tea-related activities.

In the “Scrolls of Exemplary Women,” which is attributed to Gu Kaizhi in Jin Dynasty, the vessels on the ground are believed to indicate that a tea ceremony is performed. “Xiao Yi Acquiring the Orchid Pavilion Preface by Deception” attributed to Yan Liben in the Tang Dynasty and “Playing the Zither and Drinking Tea” attributed to Zhou Fang both involve a scene of the tea ceremony. The former one is concerned about an episode in which Xiao Yi took possession of a renowned calligraphy work in an indecent but impressively brilliant way. In the lower-left corner of this painting, two servants are brewing tea. We can see clearly how the tea is tossed up and down in the boiling water as well as a rich variety of vessels for brewing tea and drinking tea. These vessels share a lot in common with court commissioned gold and silver teaware that was unearthed from the underground palace of Fa men Temple in Shaanxi Province. The painter included these elements to imply the hospitality on part of the host. Therefore, these elements were not placed in a prominent location in the painting. “Playing the Zither and Drinking Tea” presents what a carefree and cultured life that female nobility lived by spending time playing the antique zither and drinking tea. This painting delivers a message that tea drinking used to act as a significant token of social status and aesthetic taste in the Tang Dynasty.

“Literary Gathering,” by Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, might have captured the grandest tea gathering in ancient China when most gatherings were held in a quiet location with a limited number of attendees. The tea party depicted in the painting was already grand in scale. The impressively exquisite teaware on the giant table provided referential materials for historical studies. Emperor Huizong was an accomplished calligrapher and painter, and also an expert on tea. His “Treatise on Tea” showcases his brilliant and literati-oriented understandings of tea. “Preparing Tea” by Liu Songnian in the Southern Song Dynasty reflects a scene in which the servants are preparing tea to serve their master. Being a typical painting on the tea ceremony, this painting is suffused with a sense of tranquility and calmness.

Zhao Mengfu in the Yuan Dynasty selected a unique subject for his “Tea Fight.” Today, such activities have already evolved into appraisal and grading of various tea products. However, back in dynastic China, tea fights were primarily founded on tea brewing skills rather than the quality of tea leaves. The most renowned contest in history is the one which was presided over by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty. The contestants had to scent the tea cake, smash and grind it to ashes, toss the ashes into the teacups, and poured water into the cups. The more foams the contestant could produce, the more skilled he had proven to be. Other skills were also recognized. Some people could take good control of the exact amount of foams produced. They could make sure that the foams rose to the same height with the bowl edge without brimming over. Others could produce a certain pattern with foams in a flash. However, the tea fight in Zhao Mengfus painting depicts a tea-brewing competition between two rival groups of four tea traders in the market, who wanted to prove their products were better. The painter vividly portrayed the gestures and facial expressions of the characters, and also included a rich variety of teaware such as tea steamer, tea stove, teapot and teacup commonly used among civilian tea drinkers.

Many Ming and Qing paintings are also primarily concerned with the tea ceremony. “Yuchuan Brews the Tea” by Ding Yunpeng in the Ming Dynasty and “Yuchuan Brewing Tea” by Jin Nong in the Ming Dynasty both depict Lu Tong, a renowned tea expert in the Tang Dynasty, as the protagonist. The former painting was finished in brilliant colors. Yuchuan is seated in the shades of a banana tree, holding a fan in hand and with his eyes fixed on the stove. Behind him is a wide range of teaware including a kettle. A servant, who carries a kettle, seems to head for the spring, while the other servant, with the tea case in hand, comes from a distance. The latter painting is marked with elegant light-toned colors, an antique flavor, and a relatively simple character structure. There is a banana tree in the background. Yuchuan sits at a short desk with a stove, a pot and a bowl on top, while a servant is fetching water from a spring.

Just like poetry and calligraphy work on tea, tea-themed paintings have evolved into a complicated and thriving system and made a unique scene in the Chinese cultural landscape. I hope that works selected in the former passages can help readers to understand tea culture from multiple perspectives.