A strange book of names.
However, unlike later generations, in ancient times, tea drinking was mostly medicinal. Hua Tuo's "The Classic of Food" mentioned that strong tea can withstand repeated brewing and has the function of clearing brain and improving thinking ability.
During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, tea drinking by literati gradually rose. Tea broke away from the general form of medicine and food and entered the category of food culture, and there were allusions such as Huan Wen and replacing wine with tea. This unique tea ceremony is really attributed to a famous cultural person in the Tang Dynasty, who was called Cha Sheng by later gods.
In the late autumn of 733 AD, on the outskirts of Jingling, while walking by the lake, Master Zhiji of Longgai Temple accidentally picked up a thin and ugly baby and brought it back to the temple to raise it, and named the poor orphan "Lu Yu".
In a blink of an eye, Lu Yu Jr. has grown to his preteens. At this time, it was the early years of Tang Xuanzong from Kaiyuan to Tianbao. The world is peaceful and the people are full, and Xiao Luyu's childhood is carefree.
Master Zhiji takes little Lu Yu with him every day, carefully teaches him Buddhism, and strives to cultivate him into a generation of monks. However, it seems that Lu Yu is not interested in Buddhist classics, but secretly cultivates Confucian knowledge. When the Zen master was depressed, he decided to force Lu Yu to convert to Buddhism and assign him coolies such as fetching water and chopping wood to sharpen his mind.
Of course, teenagers can't stand the days of the ancient Buddha, and finally one day they escaped from Longgai Temple while others were unprepared.
Lu Yu, who escaped from the temple, has been living in rivers and lakes ever since. First, he went to a troupe to make a living. Although he is ugly and stutters, he is very popular with the audience because of his humorous talent, and his popularity is just like that of today's popular little star.
Wu, the satrap of Jingling, watched his performance at a banquet. His excellent acting skills won the appreciation of the satrap, so Wu Ricky recommended him to study with Zou in Huomenshan. Seven years later, Lu Yu graduated from the mountains at the age of 19, and started his lifelong career-tea ceremony.
Lu Yu lived before and after the Anshi Rebellion, and the Central Plains became a battlefield for rebels and loyalists. Our local officials also used the opportunity to quell the rebellion for the imperial court to expand their military strength.
Lu Yu despises powerful people and likes to travel around. His "Six Odes" included in "All Poems of the Tang Dynasty" is a true portrayal of his character.
Don't envy the golden thunder, don't envy the white jade cup,
Do not envy entering the province, do not envy sunset Taiwan;
Thousands of people raised the Xihe River and went to Lingcheng.
According to legend, Sun Shi, the 10th Xie Lingyun of the Southern Dynasties, lived in seclusion all the year round in Miaoxi Temple in Jue Mountain, Huzhou. Lu Yu became friends with Jiao Ran when she was engaged in tea world activities in Huzhou.
Although Jiao Ran lived in seclusion, he had many contacts with Gao Shi, a famous monk at that time, which inadvertently broadened the depth and breadth of Lu Yu's study of tea affairs. With the help of Jiao Ran, Lu Yu began to write The Book of Tea.
After the Anshi Rebellion, although the mountains and rivers in the Tang Dynasty were no longer as rich and graceful as those in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, they remained stable for some time.
Tang Daizong Li Yu, the grandson of Xuanzong, likes drinking tea, so he can be said to be an expert in tea tasting. In the mouth of Jingling Jigong monk, Emperor Daizong heard the name of Lu Yu brew tea, so he sent officials from the DPRK to look around and announce him to the palace.
After Lu Yu fried the tea collected before Qingming with spring water, the emperor picked up the tea bowl and felt a faint fragrance. The smell of Tang Daizong was so fragrant that Emperor Daizong appreciated Lu Yu very much and left him in the palace to train a court tea teacher. However, Lu Yu, a wild crane in the cloud, didn't like the shackles of palace rules after all, and finally returned to Tiaoxi to concentrate on writing his own tea classics.
Historically, in order to write the Book of Tea, Lu Yu once settled in Zhou Shu and Huzhou in the south of the Yangtze River for a long time, and often traveled across mountains and rivers, keeping company with local tea people every day. He not only summed up what he saw and heard, but also personally planted tea.
The Book of Tea consists of three volumes and ten articles:
"One Source" studies the origin and characteristics of tea, "Two Devices" records the tools used in tea picking, "Three Innovations" records the methods and types of tea picking, "Four Devices" records the instruments used in tea making, "Five Boils" records the methods of brew tea, "Six Drinks" records the customs and habits of drinking and tasting tea in various places, and "Seven Things" summarizes the tea ceremony. Eight Fruits lists the origin of tea and the advantages and disadvantages of various teas. "Nine Outline" means that the rules of tea ceremony can be changed according to conditions, and there is no need to stick to one model. Ten pictures shows the process of tea picking, processing and drinking in the form of silk drawings, which is clear at a glance.
In the Book of Tea, Lu Yu not only described in detail the origin, planting, picking, making techniques and tasting methods of various teas, but also recorded many famous teas he found. This is the most complete tea book in ancient China, and the production of tea has a relatively complete scientific basis.
Although the Tang Dynasty in China was civilized in folk customs, unlike the later Ming and Qing Dynasties, people still regarded Confucian classics as the right way for scholars, while the knowledge of tea ceremony learned by Lu Yu was classified as "miscellaneous studies".
Compared with other Confucian scholars, Lu Yu not only intensively studied Confucian knowledge, but also dabbled in it, drifting away from it, not sticking to books, but integrating Confucianism into tea art.