The History of Tea
Some time in or around 2700 B.C., the legendary Chinese Emperor Shennong was said to have discovered tea and the medicinal effects of tea. He is said to have tasted hundreds of herbs on himself to find their medical effects. One day, after tasting some poisonous leaves and feeling quite ill, some leaves fell from the tree he was sitting under into his pot of boiling water.
Trying the infusion, he found it reviving and from then on, people knew about the detoxifying and curative effects of tea, and began using it as a medicine.
The origin of the tea plant is said to have come about from when Da Mo, the founder of the Chan sect of Buddhism, fell asleep after seven years into his nine years of gazing at a wall, not speaking for the entire time. He became so angry that he cut off his eyelids and tossed them aside to prevent it from happening again. Suddenly, tea plants sprung up from the spot where his eyelids had landed.
After plucking some of the leaves from the tea plant and boiling them in water, he drank the infusion and was energised immediately, and from then on, Da Mo never fell asleep again. Nowadays, tea is used in monasteries by monks while meditating to keep awake.
During the Tang Dynasty (June 618 – June 907), there emerged an expert on tea and the way of tea. His name was Lu Yu and he wrote the first treatise on tea leaves called the Tea Classic.
His story goes like this:
Abandoned by his parents by the side of a river in Jingling, Fuzhou, his cries were heard by a Monk from the nearby Longgai temple. Lu Yu was adopted by the monk and when growing up, was often bullied to do all the chores around the temple.
He ran away as a result of not being able to take the bullying and ended up wandering. Even though life was difficult, Lu Yu never forgot to study and learnt a great deal through self-study and befriending many scholars of his time, who he frequently met up with for tea drinking and poetry sessions.
He was asked to become an official but he had no interest in Government. Instead he began his journay all across the country to study tea and water of various regions. he then retreated to Tiaoxi (now northwest of Zhejiang) to concentrate on his book where after years of study, Lu Yu finally completed the Tea Classic.
