The Historical Origin of Shaanxi Tea Culture

Everyone doesn't know that Shaanxi tea culture has a high historical position, and it was the "leading boss" of the "tea industry" around the Tang Dynasty. The development of Jiangnan tea culture is closely related to the prosperity of Shaanxi tea culture.

During the Han and Tang dynasties, due to the historical opportunity of large-scale immigration, Shaanxi gained the popularity of drinking tea. In the history of tea culture in China, if Ba people first knew how to grow and eat tea, then Shu people living in western Sichuan really developed the backward tea-drinking custom into an elegant tea-drinking culture, and they were the first people to drink tea in the world.

The Song Dynasty was the time when Shannan tea entered the northwest market. At that time, Shannan people took growing tea as their main source of income. Su Zhe said in Lu 'an Ji Cheng: "People in Yangzhou and Jinzhou make a living by growing tea." In Song Dynasty, the origin of tea in Zhou Jingwen was the ancient saying of China: the south of Qinling Mountain includes Chengdufu Road and Lizhou Road in southern Shaanxi, and the annual output of tea is 210.02 million Jin. At that time, tea was not only an important source of food and clothing for farmers in southern Shaanxi, but also used to open up financial resources and expand military equipment.

After the middle Tang Dynasty, tea ceremony became popular in the world. Where is the center of the tea ceremony? Generally speaking, for thousands of years, the central imperial power in China has been equal to the central place where all social phenomena occur. The emperor has always dominated the imperial court, and Kyoto dominates the whole country. As the capital of the Tang Dynasty, Chang 'an, Shaanxi Province, became the birthplace and focus of all cultural phenomena, and radiated the whole country, and tea culture was no exception.

When did the court use tea as a daily drink? The earliest record can be found in the Biography of Zhao Han Yan Fei by Ban Gu (27-97) in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It said, "After the Emperor collapsed, I was in shock in my sleep the next night and cried for a long time. When the bartender asked, Fang Jue said, "I met the emperor in my dream, and the emperor gave me his seat and told me to have tea and play the cloud of the emperor." I served the emperor carelessly. I took a sip of this tea disapprovingly, and the drinker gulped it down. "This shows that there is a fashion of drinking tea in Chang 'an Palace in Han Dynasty, which is considered as a noble enjoyment. Because Zhao didn't want to serve the emperor, he made a poor statement, and even he was not qualified to taste tea.