Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Recognize closer of "tea"

For me, tea is introduced by the rural communities of practice is always to provide the family on the table, each event, the morning / afternoon / night, or at each visit. I do not know the factors, the community where I live, is like drinking tea. Is this related to the geographic or may be a culture?

Following the history, Chinese have been drinking tea for 5,000 years. Origin in the first tea is still a legend. The most famous legend is the story of the Emperor Shen Nung (pronounced 'Shay-Nung'). By the discovery of tea has not placed exactly in history, namely in the year 2737 BC.During thousands of years, the Chinese drink tea for health and enjoyment. No one knows what causes they are interested in green and shiny leaves of Camellia sinensis, but the popular legends can give knowledge to us.

Legends of India with the discovery of tea monk Budhidharma. The cowl is very tired after the period of exile for 7 years. In the pains he chew some leaves that grow nearby, and with a refreshing back-off. India currently the largest tea producer in the world, but there is no historical record of tea in India before the ninth century teens. Experiment of Budhidharma chewing tea did not spread to the general public at the time.

Tea is not native of Japan, the mythology is not able to give an explanation of tea in Japan. Reality is less diverse: in the beginning of the ninth century, a monk from Japan who roam from home, called Dengyo Daishi bring tea seeds of plants from China.

According to the legend, Shen Nong examine the effect of healing perdu hundreds of plants that grow wild. Finally, he wrote that knowledge he has collected into a book "Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing". In the book indicated that the Shen Nong is a herbal tea and in accordance with the note in the history, initially only be drunk as tea by the Chinese herbal. At the beginning of Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC) began to enter the palace to the kingdom and establish a ritual drink tea.

Tang Dynasty is not only a triumph of the era of ancient China in the fields of economy, science, culture and social, but it is also the peak of China's tea culture. Oblige the emperor to the prefecture / autonomous authorities that the tea plantations have to provide a "tribute tea". Dedication / tribute must be submitted before the Cing Bing / Qing Ming (5 April), so the tea during the Cing Bing can be consumed by the family kingdom.

Inspired by the idea of harmony Khonghucu, Buddhis principle about the teachings , Taoism sincere about the relationship between man and the universe, Lu Yu found that drinking tea is a method of increasing spirituality. Cultural regeneration occurs during the last Qing dynasty (read: China, 1644-1922) through the pull-tearoom. The tradition of the bureaucrats, to entertain foreign guests with the tea, finally has an impact that drinking tea has spread throughout the world.

In the early seventh century traders from the bowels of the nation Dutch and Portuguese first introduced tea to Europe. Portuguese merchants to send ships to the ports of China, Macau, while Dutch traders took him from Indonesia to Europe


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