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Chinese Tea—中国茶

(2010-02-20 17:40:27)
标签:

chinese

culture

learning

mandarin

汉语

教育

文化

学习

分类: 中国文化*Chinese-Culture

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It can be said that the Chinese tea lore places an emphasis on spirit and makes light of form. It also has different representations at different historical stages. Teas are also different but all embody the tea spirit of "clearness, respect, joy and truthfulness".

Drinking tea - Tea is taken as a beverage to quench thirst.

Tasting tea - Emphasis is placed on the color, fragrance and flavor of tea, water quality and tea set. When taking tea, the taster should also be able to savor tea carefully.

Tea art - Attention is paid to environment, atmosphere, music, infusing techniques and interpersonal relationships.

The highest ambit—— tea lore - Philosophy, ethics and morality are blended into tea activity. People cultivate their morality and mind and savor the life through tasting tea, thereby attaining enjoyment of spirit.

Clearness - It is namely cleanness, incorruptness, quietness and loneliness. The essence of tea art not only seeks the cleanness of the appearance of things, but also pursues the loneliness, tranquility, incorruptness and shame awareness of the mind. In a still ambit, only through drinking clear and pure tea soup can one appreciate the profoundness of drinking tea.

Respect - Respect is the root of everything on earth and the way of having no enemies. People should show respect for others and be cautious themselves.

Joy - The meaning of harmony lies in form and method and that of joy is in spirit and affection. Sipping bitterness and swallowing sweetness when drinking tea can enlighten the spice of life and cultivate a broad mind and a far sight so that the disputes between others and self disappear. The spirit of joy lies in that people is not pretentious and haughty, dwell in mildness and nurture courteous conduct.

Truthfulness - It is namely truth and genuine knowledge. The supreme good is the whole formed by combination of truth and genunine knowledge. The ambit of supreme good is to retain nature, remove material desire without being tempted by advantages and disadvantages, study the physical world to gain knowledge and continually seek after improvements. In another word, people should use scientific methods to seek the complete sincerity of everything. The essence of drinking tea lies in enlightening capacity and conscience so that everyone can live a simple life to express their ambition and handle matters thriftily and virtuously in daily life, thus attaining the ambit of truth, good and beauty.

 

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In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company introduced Chinese tea for the first time to Europe. By the mid-17th century, afternoon tea had become a standard ritual of the British nobility.

Chinese people are believed to have enjoyed tea drinking for more than 4,000 years. Legend has it that Yan Di, one of three rulers in ancient times, tasted all kinds of herbs to find medical cures. One day,as he was being poisoned by some herb he had ingested; a drop of water from a tea tree dripped into his mouth and he was saved. For a long time, tea was used as an herbal medicine. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, tea was a religious offering. During the Spring and Autumn Period, people ate fresh tea leaves as vegetables. With the popularization of Buddhism from the Three Kingdoms to the Northern and Southern Dynasties, tea's refreshing effect made it a favorite among monks in Za-Zen meditation.
Chinese tea as a drink prospered during the Tang Dynasty, and tea shops became popular. A major event of this time was the completion of Tea Classics, the cornerstone of Chinese tea culture, by Lu Yu, Tea Sage of China,. This little book details rules concerning various aspects of tea, such as growth areas for tea trees, wares and skills for processing tea, tea tasting, the history of Chinese tea and quotations from other records, comments on tea from various places, and notes on what occasions tea wares should be complete and when some wares could be omitted.

How Chinese tea is made
Tea is made from the young, tender leaves of the tea tree. The differences among the many kinds of tea available are based on the particular methods used to process the leaves. The key to the whole process is the roasting and fermentation. Through fermentation, the originally deep green leaves become reddish-brown in color. The longer the fermentation, the darker the color. Depending on the length of the roasting and degree of fermentation, the fragrance can range from floral, to fruity, to malty.

Cultivating teapots
The proportion of tea leaves to water also depends on the kind of tea leaves used. The teapot may be filled from one-quarter to three-quarters full with tea leaves, depending mainly on how tightly curled the tea leaves are as a result of the rolling and roasting processes. The teapot is then filled with water. Steeping time starts at one minute, but varies from tea to tea. The time required for subsequent brews from the same leaves must be proportionally lengthened. The best kind of teapot to use for most fermented teas is a purple clay ceramic pot. The size of the pot should be in correct proportion to the size of the cups. Ideally, the cups should have white interiors, to facilitate accurate assessment of the color of the tea.


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Types of tea
Chinese tea may be classified into five types of teas according to the different methods by which it is processed.
Green tea
Green tea is the variety which keeps the original colour of the tea leaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists mainly of Longjing tea of Zhejiang Province, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.

Black tea
Black tea, known as "red tea" (hong cha) in China, is the category which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis of the green tea. The best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui , Dianhong of Yunnan, Suhong of Jiangsu, Chuanhong of Sichuan and Huhong of Hunan.

Oolong tea
This represents a variety half way between the green and the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. Also called blue tea, it is an unfermentated tea. It is a tea category with unique and distinctive characteristics among the several tea categories. The Wulong tea, which blends the production of green tea and black tea together, has a quality between green tea and black tea. It not only has the thick and fresh flavor of black tea, but also has the pleasant fragrance of green tea. It enjoys a good reputation as green leaves with red edge. The pharmacological effects of the Oolong tea are profoundly manifested in decomposing fat, reducing weight and keeping fit, etc. It is a specialty from the provinces on China's southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.

 

 

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