"Tea is for drinking, and it originates from Shennong", which was put forward by Cha Sheng Lu Yu in Tang Dynasty according to Shennong Materia Medica. For a long time, Cha Sheng's views have been recognized and supported by future generations of tea lovers and tea researchers. According to the analysis of the existing historical data, before the Tang Dynasty, tea did not form a large-scale cultivation, production and drinking situation, mainly concentrated in Bashu and parts of the south of the Yangtze River. The number of tea drinkers in the north was small, and the people had almost no habit of drinking tea except dignitaries and nobles.

However, this situation changed obviously during the Tang Dynasty, especially after the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The planting area of tea has rapidly expanded from Sichuan, Shaanxi and Henan to Zhejiang, Anhui in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi in southern China. There are 8 provinces, 43 States and 44 counties in China that produce tea. According to today's geographical division, tea trees are widely planted in about 13 provinces. According to the records, the total value of tea in the Tang Dynasty (793) was 4 million tons, and the output of tea was 8, tons. When converted into today's measurement unit, the annual output of tea in the Tang Dynasty was about 4, tons, and the per capita consumption of tea was 1.76 kilograms. Therefore, the tea production in the Tang Dynasty had a great development. With the popularity of drinking tea among ordinary people, the way of drinking tea has also been greatly changed, from the stage of cooking porridge with famous vegetables to frying tea, and a set of special tea-making utensils has been formed. Today, Popo Tea Party will talk with you about the development history of tea sets in the Tang Dynasty.

First, the prototype and origin of tea set

The ancients said, "Water is the mother of tea, and the pot is the father of tea", which shows the close relationship between tea drinking and tea set. According to the modern scientific explanation, tea set is the appliance for drinking tea, including teapot, teacup, teacup and so on. The ancients called tea sets "tea ware" or "Ming ware". Gu Yanwu, a famous scholar in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, once put forward in the Record of Japanese Knowledge that tea drinking began when Qin people took Shu. Before the pre-Qin period, tea was mainly chewed raw or "boiled porridge with tea", and there was no special tea set. The value of tea was mainly reflected in medicinal and edible aspects, and the processing and production depended on kitchen cooking or decocting utensils. In the history of our country, the earliest record of tea set appeared in Wang Bao's "Yue Yue" in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, saying, "brew tea has all kinds of things", "Lead dogs to sell geese, and Wuyang to buy tea".

This is the earliest record of drinking tea, buying tea and tea sets in the history of the world. In other words, from the Qin and Han dynasties, utensils specially used for drinking tea began to appear. On the whole, however, before the Tang Dynasty, tea ware, which was specially used for drinking tea, was rare and its application scope was narrow. In most cases, the aristocratic class still uses food containers or wine containers as temporary tea drinking utensils. For example, in Lu Lin footballer's "Four Kings Uprising" in the Southern Dynasties, it is recorded: "Hui Di is dusty and returned to Luoyang, and the Yellow Gate serves tea in a earthen bowl, and it is better to drink it at night." It means that after Emperor Jinhui returned to the palace, the eunuch served him tea in a crock. It can be seen that there was no special tea set at that time, and the emperor used a crock with vegetable rice to drink tea.

In addition, there was no large-scale professional tea ware before the Tang Dynasty, which was also related to the tea drinking habits at that time. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Yi of the Three Kingdoms recorded in Guangya: "Tea was picked between Jingba and Bashan to make cakes, and it was made from rice paste. If you drink it, you should first roast it until the color is red, then put it in porcelain, pour it with soup, and stir it with ginger ..." This shows that during the Three Kingdoms period, the way of drinking tea was still relatively extensive, belonging to the category of soup drinking, that is, you should bake the tea cakes with fire before drinking tea. By our standards today, this way of drinking tea is not drinking tea at all, but a soup before and after meals.

However, with the popularization of tea production and drinking, tea drinking utensils began to break away from the category of wine containers and food containers and become specialized tea ware. From the historical point of view, the large-scale appearance of specialized tea ware should be in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, especially after the great development and prosperity of tea in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, tea sets ushered in their own "big era".

Second, the prosperity and development of tea sets in the Tang Dynasty

Pi Rixiu, a writer in the Tang Dynasty, once specifically discussed the problem of tea sets, and pointed out that there were 1 kinds of tea sets in the Tang Dynasty, namely "tea dock, tea man, tea bamboo shoots, tea chaff, tea house, tea stove, tea baking, tea tripod, tea ou and cooking". In fact, from our modern point of view, it is not very scientific for Pi Rixiu to include tea planting, craftsmen, tea-making places and tea-making activities in tea sets. However, it can be attributed to the fact that tea culture was in the stage of germination and origin at that time, and the classification was not detailed and in-depth, which can also be a normal phenomenon.

in 78 ad, the world written by Lu Yu, a generation of Cha Sheng, was the first monograph on tea science, Tea Classic, which became an encyclopedia that influenced the world tea culture. Among them, in the fourth article "Tea Apparatus", Lu Yu specially introduced a set of tea drinking utensils, the number of which reached 24 kinds. Specifically, they include: air furnace, stove, charcoal stove and fire stove. ,, bed, clip, paper bag, grinding, Luo He, Ze, water side, water bag, ladle, bamboo? , cooking pots, bowls, bowls, cups, zags, polyester squares, towels, rows, baskets, etc. "Friends of Yunxi" says: "Twenty-four things about Lu Yu making tea sets". At this time, tea ware has got rid of the separate existence of wine vessels and food vessels.

Why did the Tang Dynasty need so many tea ware for tea drinking? In the final analysis, this is related to the tea processing and drinking methods at that time. As we all know, the tea processing in the Tang Dynasty mainly used steaming green tea. According to Lu Yu's Tea Classic, tea mainly relied on "picking it, steaming it, pounding it, patting it, baking it, wearing it, sealing it, and drying the tea." When drinking, first put the tea on the stove and heat it to reddish brown, then crack it, grind it into fine powder with a mill, and make sure the amount of tea in Chaze, then pour it into a pot and decoct it with water. Such a complicated way of drinking tea will inevitably use more utensils to assist. This is why there were so many tea ware in the Tang Dynasty.

in Lu Yu's twenty-four tea ware, most tea sets are made of bamboo and wood products, such as "bamboo is used as the sandwich", "orange is used as the grinding material, followed by pear, mulberry and tung zhe as the mortar", "bamboo is used as the weaving material" and "water is made of wood, locust, catalpa and so on. Or take peaches, willows, cattails, sunflower trees, or persimmon heartwood as it "and so on. This kind of bamboo and wood products have a wide range of materials. It is relatively simple to make, saves time and labor, and has little pollution, no odor and low cost, so it is loved by the people. Even today, bamboo and wood tea sets are still one of the favorite utensils for tea lovers. Of course, in addition, another important material source of tea ware in Tang Dynasty was ceramic products. The Tang Dynasty was the first peak in the history of our ceramic development. White porcelain and celadon became the most famous porcelain at that time, known as "northern white and southern blue"

The prevalence of drinking tea, especially the noble class's high demand for tea ware's quality, greatly stimulated the great development and prosperity of porcelain. As the saying goes, "delicious food is not as good as beautiful utensils", tea sets have more cultural appreciation and collection value besides their practical value as tea drinking utensils. Lu Yu loves Yue kiln celadon best. He thinks that tea drinking utensils are "Yuezhou, Dingzhou, and Wuzhou." Yuezhou, Shouzhou and Hongzhou. " But in fact, in addition to the above-mentioned kinds of Tang dynasty porcelain, there are also Xing kilns, Quyang kilns and Gongxian kilns in the north, Jingdezhen kilns, Changsha kilns and Qionglai kilns in the south, and a large number of tea sets are also produced.

In addition, some tea sets in the Tang Dynasty were made of metal, clay and stone tools. For example, a set of gold-plated tea sets unearthed from Famen Temple in Fufeng, Shaanxi Province in the 198s proved to be the best in Tang Xizong. The appliances such as wind furnace, bamboo and charcoal are also made of copper and iron. Of course, folks will also use clay to burn relatively rough tea ware for their daily needs.

Third, explore the beauty of tea set culture in Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was the highlight period of Chinese poetry culture, and many literati such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei and Bai Juyi left us hundreds of classic literary poems. Among them, there are many poems related to tea, tea ware and drinking tea. For example, Lu Guimeng, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, specifically mentioned tea ware in "The General Record of Lingling": "The number of turns is not limited, and tea ware will be held in the competition." Bai Juyi is not willing to lag behind. "This disposal rope bed is next to the tea washer." Of course, when drinking tea, more poets described the uses and beauty of various tea ware in more detail.

The poets in the Tang Dynasty described Tea Ding the most, and Pi Rixiu specially wrote a poem called Tea Ding in his poem of singing with Lu Guimeng. In addition, the poet Jiao Ran wrote in the "Tea Song: Cui Shi makes the king": "The more people left me, the more golden buds were picked." Liu Zongyuan's Poem "A Master Picks New Tea from the Bamboo Grove to See the Reward" also says: "Call your son to Jinding, and the rest will be far away." According to the statistics of all Tang poems, there are no fewer than dozens of poems written by Tang poets. The reason is mainly because the tea pot is the most important tool for frying tea.

Secondly, the process of grinding and mashing tea before frying tea in the Tang Dynasty is also one of the favorite scenes described by poets. Huang Furan, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, said in "Looking for Chu Shi", "Sun medicine keeps bamboo houses warm, and tea leaves the courtyard deep." Zheng Ao's Tea Poem says: "Night mortar and smoke pounding, cold stove cooks snow." According to Lu Yu's "Tea Classic", if you want to cook tea, you should first make it red, then mash it and put it in porcelain. Therefore, pounding tea is one of the main ways to grind tea cakes in the Tang Dynasty. Grinding tea to set the silence in motion, and writing the beauty of drinking tea with the sound of pounding tea, even recording tea activities, is more poetic.

In addition, there is another kind of tea drinking utensil which is the poet's favorite, namely, the tea bowl and the tea ou. Bai Juyi said, "There is no reason to hold a bowl and send it to people who love tea." Liu Yuxi said, "The sudden rain comes into the tripod, and the white clouds are full of flowers." Meng Jiao also said, "Meng Ming and Yu Hua are exhausted, and the lotus leaves are empty." Because tea bowls and teapots are the main instruments for poets to taste tea, they will naturally be valued and loved. Porcelain products in the Tang Dynasty are represented by celadon represented by Yue Kiln in Zhejiang and white porcelain represented by Xing Kiln in Hebei. They are known as "blue in the south and white in the north" and are most loved by tea drinkers. Therefore, in poetry, celadon and white porcelain tea bowls are described the most.

The description of tea set in Tang poetry, on the one hand, provides us with valuable historical reference materials, on the other hand, reflects the prevalence of tea-drinking culture and the prosperity and development of tea set in Tang Dynasty. In a word, the development of tea production and processing in the Tang Dynasty stimulated the prosperity of tea sets and tea culture.