Why have you stopped drinking matcha since the Ming Dynasty?

Since modern times, weak countries have no diplomacy and are still the targets of bullying. Ancient China suffered a hundred years of national humiliation. Once my younger brother, a Japanese island country separated only by a strip of water, also took advantage of the fish in troubled waters and especially "liked" China's jokes.

The apprentice really bullied the master!

For example, in the field of tea culture, take the tea separation method in Song Dynasty as an example. It was once lost in China for nearly a thousand years, but it was inherited and carried forward in Japan, which really embarrassed the Japanese.

Until around 2000, some people with lofty ideals in the tea industry in China borrowed Japanese tea ceremony in turn and combined with some sporadic records in ancient books handed down from generation to generation. After numerous experiments, they finally succeeded in "copying". However, no one can actually draw a conclusion as to whether it was the real tea-sharing stunt in the Song Dynasty 1000 years ago.

▲ Modern imitation of ancient tea sets in the Song Dynasty is essential.

In the ancient history of China, the ancient tea art, such as tea stir-frying, tea ordering, tea fighting and tea distribution, left people with unlimited imagination. If the fight for tea is a fight for tea, it will definitely be fought, then Chaze is an interesting tea-making event full of humanistic interest.

1. What is the distribution law of tea?

Let's "popularize science" first. What is the law of tea sharing?

Because there is not enough historical data left, we can only speculate or imagine this unique tea art in China from the words of our ancestors.

Sub-tea was popular in the Song Dynasty, which was a universal display of tea art at that time, and was favored by literati, monks and great virtues, officialdom baristas and even emperors.

Lu You, a famous poet, once wrote in his poem: "Short paper makes grass horizontally, and tea plays in the sunny window." He sketched out the existence of tea drinking as a tall entertainment activity at that time with delicate brushstrokes.

▲ Modern tea display, wonderful tea gives birth to flowers.

The key to tea distribution is to brew the last tea with boiling water, and the tea set must be rabbit's milligram, so that the tea can change all kinds of wonderful pictures on the surface of the tea when it meets water, so some people call it "tea hundred plays" or "water danqing".

According to the ancients, it is necessary to adopt its natural "ingenuity" and "change". Chaze today is too thoughtful. Without this intelligence, change cannot be arbitrary.

2. Why is it lost?

Why are such interesting pleasures and interesting things lost after the death of Song Dynasty?

Historically, this is a great loss and regret of ancient tea art in China.

The policy of valuing literature over martial arts in the Song Dynasty should be said to be the most prosperous era of economy, culture and education in the ancient history of China, which also laid a social foundation for the emergence and development of Fencha.

However, although tea sharing was very popular at that time, it was only popular among royal nobles, literati, literati and gentlemen, temple monks and other social elites. Ordinary people are busy with their livelihood and have no elegant cultural and aesthetic interests, so they have no broad mass base. With the historical changes of politics and economy, their gradual disappearance is inevitable.

▲ Developed market economy in Song Dynasty

Furthermore, after the Southern Song Dynasty, there were fried green loose tea in tea making all over the country. A paper decree issued by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, made loose tea replace cake tea and become the main form of tea, which has been passed down to this day. At the same time, the way of making tea has also changed accordingly, and tea separation has become tea making.

Nowadays, in the peaceful and prosperous times, this wonderful flower of tea art should regain its brilliance and become more grounded, so that people can appreciate the exquisiteness of the tea industry.