There is a long record of tea drinking in Chinese history. It is impossible to pinpoint exactly when it happened, but there is a general idea of ??the era. And we can also find evidence that the habit of drinking tea in many parts of the world was indeed passed from China. Therefore, many people believe that tea drinking was pioneered by the Chinese, and that tea drinking habits and tea growing habits in other parts of the world were directly or indirectly passed on from China.
However, some people can find evidence to point out that the habit of drinking tea was not only invented by the Chinese, but also in other places in the world, such as India and Africa. In 1823, a major of the British invading army discovered a large wild tea tree in India, and some people began to believe that the birthplace of tea was in India, at least in India. Of course, there are also records of wild large tea trees in China, which are concentrated in the southwest region. The records also include individual areas in Gansu and Hunan. Tea tree is a very ancient dicotyledonous plant that is closely related to people's lives.
In China, there is also a debate about the earliest origin of tea tree, and there are several theories. Many people today believe that it is in Yunnan. After careful research and textual research, a scholar asserted that Xishuangbanna in Yunnan is the origin of tea trees. The earliest written records of artificially cultivated tea trees began with Mengshan tea in the Western Han Dynasty. This is recorded in "Sichuan General Chronicles".
Actually where exactly it is now doesn’t matter to us tea drinkers. Maybe culturally significant. We can first take a look at some academic opinions:
The origin of tea drinking
1. Shennong period: Tang Dynasty Lu Yu's "Tea Book" says: "Tea as a drink originated from Shennong." In the history of Chinese cultural development, the origin of everything related to agriculture and plants is often attributed to Shennong. Once you get back here, you can no longer push up. It is precisely because of this that Shen Nong became the God of Agriculture.
2. Western Zhou Dynasty: "Huayang Guozhi·Bazhi" written by Chang Xu of Jin Dynasty: "When King Wu of Zhou defeated Zhou, he actually gained the masters of Bashu,...tea and honey...all paid tribute." This Records show that when King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty conquered Zhou, the Ba Kingdom had already paid tribute to King Wu of Zhou Dynasty with tea and other precious products. "Huayang Guozhi" also records that there were artificially cultivated tea gardens at that time.
3. Qin and Han Dynasties: Western Han Dynasty. Wang Bao's "Tong Yue": "Everything is ready for cooking tea" and "Buying tea in Wuyang". After testing, this tea is the current tea. In recent years, in the Western Han Dynasty tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha, it was found that the burial inventory contained "?一笥" and "?一笥" bamboo slips and woodcut inscriptions. It was verified that "?" is a variant of "槚", indicating that tea drinking was widespread in Hunan at that time. .
We are still drinking the same drinks as our very ancient ancestors such as Jiang Taigong, which is indeed very exciting. It can give us a lot of daydreams.
The place where tea drinking originated
The exploration of this point often focuses on the study of the birthplace of the tea tree. There are several theories about the birthplace of tea tree:
1. Southwest said: "Southwestern my country is the origin of tea trees and the birthplace of tea." This statement refers to a large range, so it is more accurate.
2. Sichuan said: "Rizhilu" written by Gu Yanwu of the Qing Dynasty: "Since the Qin people took Shu, tea drinking began." The implication is that before the Qin people entered Shu, tea drinking was known in Sichuan today. In fact, Sichuan is in the southwest. If the Sichuan theory is established, then the southwest theory is true. Sichuan's theory is more "precise" than Southwest China's, but the risk of accuracy is greater.
3. Yunnan said: It is believed that Xishuangbanna in Yunnan is the birthplace of tea trees. This area is the kingdom of plants, and it is entirely possible that native tea tree species exist. However, this statement has "humanistic" risks, because tea trees can be native , and tea is the fruit of revitalizing labor.
4. Eastern Sichuan and Western Hubei said: Lu Yu's "Tea Classic": "In the Bashan Gorge, there are two people hugging each other." The Bashan Gorge is today's Eastern Sichuan and Western Hubei. There are such outstanding tea trees in this place, but there is no evidence that anyone has used them to make tea.
5. Jiang Zhe said: Recently, some people have proposed that it originated from the ancient Yue culture represented by the Hemudu culture. Jiangsu and Zhejiang are currently the areas with the most developed tea industry in my country. If history can take root here, it would be a very meaningful topic.
In fact, I think there must have been tea trees of natural origin in more than one place in ancient times.
Where there are tea trees, the custom of drinking tea may not necessarily develop. As mentioned earlier, tea was invented by Shen Nong, so where was it active? If we find the intersection between the "original land of tea trees" and the "site of Shennong's activities", we may have the answer, or at least the "value range" of the answer will be narrowed.
Inventing the way to drink tea
How did humans invent the habit of drinking tea? Or how did tea originate? Research on this issue has always been a "basic issue" in tea science. Because as any tea scholar or tea scholar, if you can't even explain "how does tea come from", then it's not enough. Now there are many answers to this question:
Sacrifice theory: This theory holds that tea and some other plants were first used as sacrifices, and later some people discovered that they were edible. While it is harmless, it "becomes a sacrifice, then a vegetable, then a medicinal use", and finally becomes a drink.
Medicine theory: This theory holds that tea "originally entered human society as a medicinal product." "Shen Nong's Baicao Jing" wrote: "Shen Nong tasted a hundred herbs, encountered seventy-two poisons every day, and obtained tea. And solve it”.
Food theory: "In ancient times, people ate grass and drank water."
Synchrony said: "The initial use of tea may be as chewable food, roasted food, and gradually also used as medicine." Comparison and comparison of these methods The best way is to accumulate and eventually develop into "drinking tea".
The most useless of the above arguments is the fourth. It adds the previous three arguments together and becomes its own "foolproof" explanation. Perhaps this explanation is the most appropriate.
Now we can prove that tea has been known and used in China for a long time, and tea trees have been planted and tea leaves have been harvested for a long time. However, it can also be verified that tea was widely popularized and drank by all classes of society, roughly after Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" was handed down in the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, there is a poem in the Song Dynasty that says, "Since Lu Yu was born in the world, the world has learned about spring tea." In other words, after tea was invented, it was not well known to the public for more than a thousand years.
In the "Tea Classic", Lu Yu listed the people who knew tea in ancient my country, such as Shennong, Zhou Gongdan and Yan Ying, etc., indicating that our country was the first country to discover and utilize tea. He quoted from "Shen Nong's Food Classic" " said: "Taking tea for a long time makes people strong and happy." He quoted "Erya" and said: "槧, bitter tea;" He quoted "Yanzi Chunqiu" and said: "When the infants were together with Jinggong, they ate millet rice. Moxibustion is just three-ge, five-egg, and Mingcai." It can be seen that the pre-Qin tea ceremony in my country has begun. However, some scholars believe that the works cited by Lu Yu were all written in the Han Dynasty. Moreover, the Chinese nation originated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. Although the ancient climate in northwest my country was relatively mild, tea has never been produced. So how could Shennong "taste hundreds of herbs and encounter seven kinds of grass every day"? Twelve poisons can be solved with tea. "They believe that the development of tea in my country was relatively late, so foreigners took the opportunity to claim that Chinese tea came from India. Later, it was proved that there was no tea in India in ancient times.
As early as before the Qin and Han Dynasties, tea drinking was popular in Sichuan, my country. During the Western Han Dynasty, tea was a specialty of Sichuan and was introduced to the capital Chang'an through tribute. It turns out that the east of Sichuan and the west of Hubei were the birthplace of tea trees in ancient my country, and this was where the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors first lived. Shennong is the leader of the "Sanmiao" and "Jiuli" tribes. In ancient books such as "Historical Records of Wu Qi" and "Shuoyuan", there are records of "the three Miao clan, with Hengshan Mountain to the south, Qishan Mountain to the north, the slope of Dongting on the left, and the Pengli River on the right." This shows the origin of the Shennong clan. In the mountainous areas of eastern Sichuan and western Hubei, this is the area where Shennongjia is today. In such an environment with lush vegetation and still rich in tea, it is entirely possible for Shennong to taste all kinds of herbs. Later, these tribes continued to move north or east, and the northwest became the political center of China.
By the time Emperor Shun abdicated to King Yu, the political center of the clan society had moved to Dengfeng, Henan. In the past few years, relics of the Xia Dynasty had been excavated in Wangchenggang there. Dayu took over the throne. It was all smooth sailing. At the beginning, we controlled the water along the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, diverted water into the sea, guided Tiao River and Yubu River into Taihu Lake, and overcame the flood problem. Later, they defeated the Fangfeng clan and gradually moved northward. Emperor Shun learned that Dayu had made great achievements in controlling floods, so he gave way to him. The descendants of the "Three Miao" were not convinced, so the "Historical Records of the Five Emperors" recorded that "the Three Miao were in Jianghuai, and Jingzhou was in chaos." Dayu controlled floods in the south of the Yangtze River, and there is evidence in historical records: after Qin Shihuang unified China, he once "went to Kuaiji to offer sacrifices to Dayu." When Sima Qian was 20 years old, he also "went to Kuaiji to explore Yu's acupoints."
"So today there are remains of Dayu in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Xia Yu originally gave way to "General Bai Chong" Boyi, but his son Xia Qi seized power. Qi had three sons, Taikang, Zhongkang and Shaokang. There were constant battles for the throne until Yu The sixth generation Sun Xia Zhu led his troops southward to find their roots and settled in the area of ??Yanluan Miao Peak in the southeast of Jindou Mountain in western Zhejiang Province. There are still some ruins such as the Xiawang Village in Bita City. It declined eight generations after Xia Zhu, and Lu Gui (Jie) was destroyed by Qi.
It is not difficult to see from the existing historical data. , the place where the "Three Miao Clan" in the clan society lived, and the tea production has continued throughout the ages. For example, in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Anzhou (today's Anlu, Hubei) was mentioned in "Liu Kun's Book of Tea Purchasing"; You were mentioned in "Tongjun Lu" Historical records from the Tang Dynasty mention that Jiangling, Nanzhang, Hubei, Pengjing, and An, Sichuan were all rich in tea. Jing, Qionglai and other places are rich in tea. Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" mentioned that among the eleven states where the quality of tea is unknown, Ezhou is now Wuchang, Hubei Province. It can be seen from the "Shen Nong's Materia Medica" that "Shennong tasted hundreds of herbs and met them every day for seventy years." "The two poisons can be solved with tea" should have happened in the Central Plains of my country. Even from the facts of drinking and selling tea recorded in "Wang Baotong Yue", before the Han Dynasty in my country, tea was produced and utilized in the eastern Sichuan and western Hubei regions. The industry has been quite developed. It is not difficult for people to imagine how long it would take to go from picking wild tea to artificially cultivating tea trees, and from self-sufficiency to "production, supply and marketing". Therefore, our ancestors have a long history of discovering and utilizing cultivated tea.