Guangdong tea culture is one of the four major tea culture series in China. Including tea tasting techniques, appreciation of artistic manipulation methods, appreciation of the beautiful tea drinking environment, and the beautiful artistic conception of the entire tea tasting process. Below is the origin and development of Guangdong tea culture that I have carefully compiled for you. Let’s take a look.

The origin and development of tea culture in Guangdong

Guangdong is located in the subtropical zone, with long sunshine, high temperatures and a lot of sweating. People need to supplement a lot of water through diet. Drinking tea, like drinking water, is first and foremost a need for human survival. With the development of social economy, the connotation of tea culture has been continuously enriched. Since the Ming Dynasty, Guangzhou Tea Market and Chaozhou Kung Fu Tea, two wonders of Lingnan tea culture, have emerged. By the Qing Dynasty, Guangdong's tea culture entered its first prosperous period, reaching unprecedented levels in terms of tea markets, teahouses, tea sets, ways of using tea, and people's cultural mentality towards tea taste.

During the Kangxi and Yongzheng years of the Qing Dynasty, most of the books describing Guangdong's local people talked about "tea". Earlier works such as Qu Dajun's "Guangdong News" clearly pointed out that Xiqiao is known as the tea mountain. Since Caosong in the Tang Dynasty, Guzhu tea was transplanted on it. Today, people in the mountain take the lead in planting tea. He once traveled south to Guangzhou and introduced the famous Guzhu tea from Zhejiang to Lingnan when he stopped at Xiqiao Mountain. Qu Dajun also listed the producing areas of Guangdong tea, such as Henan Thirty-three Village, Xiqiao Mountain, Dinghu Mountain, Luofu Mountain, Chaoyang Fengshan, Qiongzhou, etc. in Guangzhou. Then there was Fan Duan'ang's "Seeing and Learning from Central Guangdong", which echoed Qu Dajun's views. In the 10th year of Yongzheng's reign (1732), Zhang Qu (a native of Wuqiang, Hebei Province), who served as the inspector-general of Guangdong, believed in "Guangdong Wenjianlu" that "Guangdong tea is generally inferior to that of central Fujian", but he also pointed out that Guangdong was not unproductive. Tea, in addition to the commonly used Guangzhou and Henan tea, there are also treasures such as Dinghu tea from Zhaoqing, Guan spicy tree tea from Shaoguan, Luofu tea from Huizhou, and glazed tea from Huazhou, etc. In fact, Guangdong has always produced tea, and tea production has developed rapidly. In modern times, tea has been exported from Guangdong. Cantonese people are addicted to tea, which has become an internal driving force for the development of tea production. The abundance of tea has also provided opportunities for the development of Guangdong tea culture. Provides reliable conditions

The emergence and development of Guangdong tea culture are determined by specific geographical and climatic conditions, and are also driven by the economic and cultural development of Guangdong. People are thirsty and need to drink water. This is human instinct, but people's requirements for drinking water have increased with the development of society. From the need for survival to the pursuit of comfort and enjoyment, people have also changed from drinking raw water to drinking boiled water. As for tea drinking, the tea culture in Guangdong has the same reasons as the tea culture in other regions. However, due to the frequent commercial activities along the southeastern coast of Guangdong, tea culture became more developed and distinctive, especially after the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Guangzhou people’s “morning tea” and Chaozhou people’s “Kung Fu Tea” are important cultural phenomena in Guangdong’s social and cultural life.

Tea-drinking habits of Guangdong tea culture

Tea-drinking

"Drinking tea" is called "drinking tea" in Cantonese. Mao Zedong had "drinking tea" Guangdong Hai cannot forget? Poetry. Cantonese people love to drink tea. Tea culture is both folk culture and food culture. In Guangdong, it has become a kind of etiquette for people to treat each other with tea. When a guest arrives, the first thing he does is offer him a cup of "good tea". The first sentence is "please drink tea" to express the host's enthusiasm. , friendly and polite. Since Lingnan has a "merchant" value orientation since ancient times, tea drinking has also moved from families to the market, giving Guangdong's tea culture a strong feature of the commodity economy. Residences where people gathered to drink tea first appeared in Guangdong, such as teahouses, tea houses, tea houses, tea houses, tea houses, etc., with many names and different forms. By the Qing Dynasty, the tea market in Guangdong gradually flourished, and a number of distinctive teahouses appeared. During the Republic of China, the prosperity of Guangdong's tea market continued unabated and lasted for a long time.

Drinking morning tea

is the most distinctive and important part of Guangdong tea culture. The habit of morning tea is spread among all classes, from dignitaries to carriage drivers and coolies. Tea drinking places are spread all over cities and towns, and Guangdong has the largest number of teahouses in the country.

Morning tea highlights the breakfast characteristics of Lingnan culture. Lingnan, early spring; Lingnan people. Getting up early is the specific geographical and climatic environment that has made Cantonese people develop the habit of getting up early. Correspondingly, they have the habit of taking advantage of the early market (catch the early market) and drinking morning tea. Cantonese people drink morning tea surprisingly early. They get up at around 4 o'clock in the morning, walk to the teahouse, have a cup of tea and two snacks (a pot of tea, two snacks), and slowly sigh (enjoy it). Drinking tea with snacks or fried noodles or noodles is a characteristic of Guangdong morning tea, and it is also the distinguishing feature of Guangdong tea series from other tea series. Chinese people mostly drink tea without food, but this is not the case for Cantonese people, who always drink tea with snacks. I don’t know whether it’s because drinking tea alone is too monotonous, or because the climate is so hot that it’s hard to swallow snacks without tea. I don’t know when Guangdong people started to have this habit. It’s impossible to know whether it was influenced by Western diet. .

Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, due to the development of the commodity economy, tea drinking has become more common and the tea market has flourished.

The first thing that the commodity economy brings to people is competition, and the key to competition is whether they can save time. Although Cantonese people cannot rationally understand that "time is money", they actually have to speed up the pace of life. The traditional concept of time Changes have begun. The old concept of working at sunrise and resting at sunset has been shaken. People cherish time everywhere, and drinking morning tea in their diet is in line with the principle of cherishing time. ?Drinking morning tea? is to use your free time at work to drink tea and clean your stomach; eat snacks to feed your stomach; chat, communicate information, and connect with feelings; stroll to the tea house (tea house) early in the morning to absorb the fresh air and exercise. It can be said that Gaining multiple benefits with one fell swoop, why not the savvy Guangdong people?

Tea, refreshments, teahouses

Cantonese people drink morning tea and pay attention to good tea, snacks that go with the tea and the environment of the teahouse. In the teahouses of the Qing Dynasty, teacups, teacup lids and teacups were placed on the tea table. Desserts and candies were placed in a small window cabinet next to the tea table for tea guests to pick up and settle the bill after eating.

Cantonese people like to drink Longjing, Guanla, Narcissus, Pu'er, black tea, etc. The snacks provided by Guangdong teahouses were relatively simple at first, with only egg rolls, pancakes, shortcakes and the like. Since modern times, Guangdong has become a window for the integration of Chinese and Western cultures. Guangdong’s teahouses have also accepted snacks introduced from the West, such as various breads, cakes, etc. During the Republic of China, the dim sum in teahouses showed a trend of diversification, with the addition of various Lingnan-style buns, as well as Lingnan-specific "siomai" made with meat, such as red bean paste buns, hemp buns, coconut buns, barbecued pork buns, Sausage rolls, as well as pork ribs siomai, dry steamed siomai, etc. Cantonese tea snacks range from simple to rich and colorful, which not only reflects the rich cultural connotation of Guangdong people's tea drinking, but also marks the gradual entry of Guangdong tea culture into a prosperous period. At the beginning of the 20th century, tea snacks in Guangdong became more and more abundant, and the competition in the tea market became more and more fierce. Cantonese dim sum combines the advantages of Chinese and Western dim sum to form its own characteristics. The main features are: wide selection of materials, unique shapes, novel styles, fine production, and thin skin. Refreshments have also become an important part of Guangzhou cuisine

Cantonese people pay attention to the environment when drinking tea. Cantonese people call teahouses "tea houses", and they come in different grades. A superior tea house has a splendid entrance, hanging calligraphy and paintings indoors, famous tea brewed in porcelain cups, high-end snacks, and famous singers singing. This is a place for dignitaries; the lower-level tea houses, tea rooms, and fried noodle restaurants do not have tea cups. , use porcelain teapot, consumption level is low, thin tea is enough to quench thirst, chatting can communicate information, connect feelings, entertainment and rest. The tea market in Guangdong has always been very prosperous. It was bustling with people early in the morning, even during the Anti-Japanese War. It can be seen that "drinking tea" has become an indispensable part of the food and cultural life of Guangdong people.