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The Classic of Tea is the very first monograph on tea in the world. It's a great contribution to the tea industry and to China's cultural spread.
Lu Yu (734 - 804), also named Hongjian, is from FuZhou (today’s Hubei province, China).
Because
of the masterpiece of "Classic of Tea", he was referred to and was
known as "Tea Saint," "Tea Ancestor", "Tea Fairy" or" God of Teas".
He
was born in a poor family. Since childhood, he has been studying hard
and are interested in multiple areas. In age 19, he has already
travelled to BaShan, Xia Zhuo to study the teas by himself.
In
22-year-old, he devoted himself to research and write about tea.
Through 760, he started to hermit in the HuZhou County to collect
first-hand materials about tea picking, tea processing and tea
drinking. Four years later, based on his survey across the 32 different
provinces, the first draft of the ‘Classics of Tea’ has established.
Afterwards, after a great amount of efforts on refining and revising,
the ‘Classics of Tea’ became book and was published in 780.
The
"Classic of Tea" is very rich in contents, with more than 7,000
characters, including everything regarding tea planting, tea picking,
tea processing and tea drinking. For example, those chapters describing
tools and utensils describe not only the technical aspects but also the
cultural evolution and cultural differences.
The Classics of Tea includes 9 sections: |
