Who can introduce Shanxi merchants, salt merchants, tea merchants, Hong merchants and Hui merchants? What secretary has introduced their history in such a luxurious way?

China has a long history of drinking tea, and the exact time cannot be verified, but there is a general statement about the time. We can also find evidence that the habit of drinking tea in many parts of the world was handed down from China. Therefore, many people think that drinking tea was initiated by China people, and the habit of drinking and growing tea in other parts of the world was passed down directly or indirectly from China.

However, some people can find evidence that the habit of drinking tea was invented not only in China, but also in other parts of the world, such as India and Africa. 1823, a major of the British invading army discovered wild tea trees in India, so some people began to believe that tea originated in India, at least in India. Of course, there are records of wild tea trees in China, all of which are concentrated in the southwest, and some areas in Gansu and Hunan are also recorded. Tea tree is a very old dicotyledonous plant, which is closely related to people's lives.

In China, there are also arguments about the earliest origin of tea trees, and there are several opinions. Now many people believe that in Yunnan, a scholar asserted after careful study that Xishuangbanna, 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 Tongzhi.

Actually, for those of us who drink tea, it doesn't matter where we are now. Maybe it has cultural significance. Let's take a look at some academic statements first:

The origin time of tea drinking

1. Shennong period: Tang Lu Yu's Tea Classic: "Tea is a drink, which originated in Shennong." In the history of cultural development in China, the origin of all things related to agriculture and plants always belongs to Shennong. After coming back here, you can't push it up any more. Because of this, Shennong became the god of agriculture.

2. Western Zhou Dynasty: Jinchangqu's "Huayang Guozhi Bazhi": "Zhou Wuwang really got the teacher of Bashu, and ... tea honey ... paid tribute." This record shows that when Zhou Wuwang attacked the week, Pakistanis had paid tribute to it with tea and other precious products. The Records of Huayang Country also recorded that there were artificially cultivated tea gardens at that time.

3. Qin and Han Dynasties: Western Han Dynasty. Wang Bao's Tongyue: "Exhausting tea" and "Wuyang buying tea" are the teas after the exam. In recent years, in the tomb of the Western Han Dynasty in Mawangdui, Changsha, "? A "and"? " Textual research on bamboo slips woodcut "?" That is, the variant of "rhyme" shows that tea drinking in Hunan was quite extensive at that time.

We still drink the same drinks as our very old ancestors, such as Jiang Taigong and others, which is really exciting. Can give us a lot of reverie.

The birthplace of tea

The exploration of this point often focuses on the study of the birthplace of tea trees. There are several sayings about the birthplace of tea trees:

1. Southwest said: "Southwest China is the origin and birthplace of tea trees." This statement refers to a large range, so it is more accurate.

2. Sichuan said: Yanwu's "Rizhilu" in the Qing Dynasty: "After Qin people took Shu, they only had tea." The implication is that before Qin people came to Shu, drinking tea was known in Sichuan today. In fact, Sichuan is in the southwest, and Sichuan says it is established, so the southwest says it is established. Sichuan is more "accurate" than the southwest, but the risk of correctness will be greater.

3. Yunnan said: It can be completely considered that Xishuangbanna, Yunnan is the birthplace of tea trees, and this area is the kingdom of plants. However, there is a risk of "humanism" in this statement, because tea trees can be local, and Chaze is the result of activating labor.

4. East Sichuan and West Hubei said: Lu Yu's "Tea Classic": "Bashan Xia Chuan embraced each other." Bashan Gorge and Sichuan are now East Sichuan and West Hubei. There is no evidence that anyone has used such excellent tea trees in this area as tea.

5. Jiangsu and Zhejiang said: Recently, it was suggested that it started from the ancient Yue culture represented by Hemudu culture. At present, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces are the most developed areas of tea industry in China. If history can take root here, it is a very meaningful topic.

In fact, I think there must be more than one place where tea trees originated naturally in ancient times. Where there are tea trees, the custom of drinking tea may not necessarily develop. As mentioned earlier, tea was invented by Shennong, so where does it live? If we find the intersection of "tea tree native place" and "Shennong activity place", we may have the answer, at least narrowing the scope of the answer.

Invent a method of drinking tea

How did humans invent the habit of drinking tea? Or how did tea originate? The study of this problem has always been a "basic problem" of tea science. Because as any tea scholar or tea worker, it is not enough if you can't even explain "how tea came from". Now there are many answers to this question:

According to this view, tea and other plants were originally used as sacrifices. Later, some people found that food was harmless, so "food was sacrificed, but food was used as medicine" and eventually became a drink.

Medicine says: this view holds that tea "originally entered human society as medicine." "Shennong Hundred Herbs Classic" wrote: "Shennong tasted a hundred herbs, and when he encountered seventy-two poisons every day, he was relieved by tea."

Eating: "The ancients drank water like grass", "People put food first", and eating first conforms to the evolutionary law of human society.

Synchronous said: "At first, tea may be used as chewing food, or as baking food, and it is also gradually used as medicine." The comparison and accumulation of these ways will eventually develop into "drinking tea", which is the best way.

The most useless of the above statements is the fourth, which adds up the first three and becomes your own "foolproof" explanation. Perhaps this explanation is the most appropriate.

Now, we can think that tea has been recognized and used for a long time in China, as well as the cultivation and harvest of tea trees. However, it can also be verified that tea is widely used in all walks of life, probably after Lu Yu's Tea Classic was handed down in the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, there is a poem in the Song Dynasty that "since Lu Yu was born, the world has learned from each other's strengths and made spring tea". In other words, after the invention of tea, 1000 was not known to the public for many years.

Lu Yu listed Shennong, Zhou Gongdan, Yan Ying and other ancient tea men in China in the Book of Tea, indicating that China was the first country to discover and utilize tea. He quoted Shennong's "Food Classics" as saying: "The power of tea will make you happy for a long time", and he quoted Erya as saying: "Bitter tea; He quoted Yan Zi Chun Qiu as saying: "When the baby was in Qi Jinggong, he ate rice without millet, three elder brothers moxibustion, five eggs and tea." It can be seen that the pre-Qin tea affair in China has already begun. However, some scholars believe that the works cited by Lu Yu are all works of the Han Dynasty. And the Chinese nation originated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. Although the ancient climate in northwest China was warmer, it never produced tea. How does Shennong achieve the goal of "tasting 72 poisons every day and solving them with tea?" They think that the tea affair in China came too late, and foreigners used this mechanism to send tea from India to China. It was later discovered that there was no tea in ancient India.

As early as before the Qin and Han Dynasties, drinking tea was popular in Sichuan. In the Western Han Dynasty, tea was a specialty of Sichuan, which was once spread to Chang 'an, the capital of China, through tribute. It turns out that the eastern and western parts of Sichuan in ancient China were the birthplace of tea trees, and this was the earliest place where the Three Emperors and Five Emperors lived. Shennong is the leader of "Sanmiao" and "Jiuli" tribes. In Historical Records, Biography of Wuqi, Shuoyuan and other ancient books, there are records of "Sanmiao family, Hengshan Mountain in the south, Qishan Mountain in the north, Dongting slope in the left and Lipeng River in the right", which shows that Shennong tribe originated in the mountainous area of eastern Sichuan and western Hubei, which is today's Great Shennongjia area. In such an environment with lush vegetation and rich tea, Shennong is entirely possible to taste a hundred herbs. Later, these tribes moved north or east, and the northwest became the political center of China.

In Shun Di, the king was ceded to Dayu, and the political center of clan society moved to Dengfeng, Henan. A few years ago, in Wang Chenggang, where Dayu ascended the throne, the site of Xia Dynasty was excavated. This is not plain sailing. At the beginning, it controlled water along the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, flowed into the sea, and guided Tiaoxi and Yubuxi into Taihu Lake, thus defeating the flood. Later, it was defeated by Fang Feng and gradually went north. Shun Di learned that Dayu had made great contributions to water control, so he made way for him. However, the descendants of "Sanmiao" refused to accept it. Therefore, the Historical Records of the Five Emperors records that "Sanmiao was in chaos in Jianghuai and Jingzhou". Dayu managed the water in the south of the Yangtze River, and the history books also have evidence: after Qin Shihuang unified China, he once "visited Huiji to sacrifice Dayu", and when Sima Qian was twenty years old, he also "visited Huiji to explore Yu Cave." Therefore, there are Dayu relics in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province today. Yu Xia gave way to Bo Yi, the "general of all insects", but he seized power for his son Xia Qi, and his three sons, Taikang, Zhong Kang and Shao Kang, constantly competed for the throne. In the sixth generation of Yu, the political situation was unified and the national strength was strong. He led his troops south to seek roots, and went to Miao Feng in southern Zhejiang and Jindou in Shandong, so the mountain in this area is called Jue Mountain. At that time, there were some relics in Shannan, such as Wang Xia Village, a city that avoided it. After the Xia dynasty, after the eighth generation, the contract declined, and the contract was destroyed before the Shang dynasty.

It is not difficult to see from the existing historical data that tea production has lasted for several generations in the place where the clan society "Sanmiao family" lived. For example, in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Liu Kun mentioned Anzhou (now Anlu, Hubei Province) in "Tea Purchase"; Lu Tongjun has Youyang (now Huangfengdong, Hubei) and Badong (Fengjie, Sichuan). Wuling (Changde, Hunan) is mentioned in Jingzhou Land Records. Rich in tea. According to the historical data of the Tang Dynasty, Jiangling, Nanzhang, Peng Jing, Anjing and Qionglai in Hubei are rich in tea. Among the eleven states with unknown tea quality mentioned in Lu Yu's Tea Classic, Ezhou is now Wuchang, Hubei. It can be seen that Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica records that "Shennong tasted a hundred herbs and encountered 72 poisons every day, and solved them with tea", which should have happened in the Central Plains of China. Even from the fact of drinking and selling tea recorded in Wang Bao Tong Yue, before the Han Dynasty, the cause of producing and utilizing tea in eastern Sichuan and western Hubei was quite developed. It is not difficult to imagine how long it will take from wild tea picking to artificial planting of tea trees, from self-sufficiency to "production, supply and marketing". Therefore, our ancestors have a long history of discovering and planting tea.