There is a legend about tea in Shennong Bencaojing, in order to find out all plants which are benefit to mankind survival, Shen Nong Shi tastes hundreds of plants and is poisoned many times, but saved by drinking tea.
Tea as a kind of beverage was spread to ethnic minority areas in northwest in China since the Tang Dynasty, and it has become a necessities of local people’s life. Before know tea can use to drink, people drink water directly in summer and drink soup in winter, but tea improves people’s health because of people change habit of drinking water directly.
In Song Dynasty, tea culture developed to its peak and tea house culture appeared. At that time people drink tea no matter day and night in Lin An city, beside that, tea activities have many kind of type such as ‘绣茶Xiu Cha’‘斗茶Dou Cha’‘分茶Fen Cha’and so on. Tea ceremony also reach peak.
In China, tea experience three periods, Medicinal period, Eating period and Drinking period.
Medicinal period
In Shennong Era, people found fresh leaves of the tea tree have detoxification effect, they directly chewing the fresh leaves of the tea and extract the tea juice for curing diseases. Over time, chewing the tea leaves has become a hobby of people.
Eating period
By Wei and Jin Dynasties, after people simply fixation, they would grind them into a paste and add ointment and other raw materials to make tea cakes or group teas. Onion, ginger, cinnamon, etc. are boiled before drinking. Now people still eat tea in China. I would introduce to us in the future.
Drinking period
During the development of Tang, Song, Ming Dynasties, drinking tea has evolved into three drinking methods Boiling Tea(Tang Dynastic), Dian Cha(Song Dynastic), Steep Tea(Ming Dynasties). Our current steep method evolved from the way of steeping tea in Ming Dynastic.
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