lu yu cooking tea/ Cooking tea in Tang Dynasty/ Tasting tea
chajing
except from chajing
Tea is a magnificent tree growing in the South. Tea trees range from one or two feet to tens of feet tall. In Bashan (巴山)and the river gorges of Sichuan there are tea trees growing to such a size that it would take two people hand in hand to embrace their circumference. Because these trees are so very tall, the branches need to be cut down to harvest the leaves. The shape of tea trees resembles those of other camellia. The leaves look like those of a gardenia and the little white flowers are so many lovely rosettes. Tea seeds are like those of palms with stems like clover, while the root system is similar to walnut trees.
There are three different ways to interpret the char- acter tea, “cha (茶)” in Chinese. It could be categorized under either the “herb (艹)” radical, the “tree (木)” rad- ical, or both “herb” and “tree” radicals. There are four other characters that have also denoted tea through history other than “cha (茶)”. They are “jia (檟) ”, “she (蔎)”, “ming (茗)” and “chuan (荈).”
Tea grows best in eroded, rocky ground, while loose and gravely soil is the second best and yellow earth is the least ideal, bearing little yield.
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Cultiviate ourself through tea
"If you were cold it would warm you,
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if you were hot it would cool you,
if you were weary it would refresh you,
if you were stressed it would relax you.
It protected you against countless ills and ailments and provided endless hours of leisure, friendship, sociability, and conversation."
Lu Yu completed The Book of Tea in the Chinese Year 3458, or 760 CE.
Lu Yu was not China’s first tea lover. The tea plant had already been known for thousands of years. At first, it was food and medicine, and then a tonic of sorts before becoming a beverage. Tea became a drink only by degrees, therefore, over centuries, and gradually the drink made from the succulent leaf of this camellia, like the plant itself, spread from China’s interior down the length of the Yangtze River to the Yellow Sea. Like the farmers, Daoist and Buddhist monasteries throughout this vast stretch of China took up tea cultivation, much the way Roman Catholic monastics planted the wine grape everywhere they went in Europe. In Asian culture we may as well consider tea a sort of Taoist and Buddhist communion: A shared yet wordless transmission of peace; A Mirror of Soul.
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As you allow stillness to perme- ate your life, you more and more recognize the movement towards softness, and you grow more and more sensitive. The breath naturally becomes softer and softer as the mind quiets—it does this, not you. It is a natural movement of Nature, requiring no human interven- tion. You just observe—be an open space, awareness—ready for what- ever arises, like the empty cup. Your mind may wander. Let it. There is nothing to do...just be and let what- ever happens occur on its own. Tea in every way epitomizes the traditional Chinese attitudes toward Nature, the seasons and changes. There is a time for rest and sensitivity to it, ignored at the peril of your health. Though Lu Yu discusses tea’s virtues in terms of such health, praising it for the alertness it offers, etc., it was this subtlety, sensitivity, and stillness that were at the heart of his devotion to tea. Lao Tzu also said that the Tao was a return to softness.
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Reference：The Global Tea Tut/ Tea and Tao magazine