茶經

Chájīng 茶經

The Tea Classic by 陸羽 (Lù Yǔ, 撰)

About the work

The foundational classic of Chinese tea-culture — the canonical text that transformed tea-drinking from a regional beverage practice into a Chinese literati art, and that established the pǔlù model (single-object monograph claiming jīng “classic” status) of which all subsequent pǔlù are descendants. Composed by Lù Yǔ 陸羽 (733–805), the cháshèng 茶聖 (Sage of Tea), at Tiàoxī 苕溪 in Húzhōu — probably in initial form c. 760 and revised through the 770s. The work is preserved in three juàn (= three piān of the Hànshū Yìwénzhì sense) divided into ten chapters: (1) yī zhī yuán 一之源, the origins-of-tea (botanical, etymological, geographical); (2) èr zhī jù 二之具, the implements (of gathering and processing); (3) sān zhī zào 三之造, the manufacturing (drying, pressing, packaging); (4) sì zhī qì 四之器, the utensils (of brewing and drinking); (5) wǔ zhī zhǔ 五之煮, the brewing-method; (6) liù zhī yǐn 六之飲, the drinking; (7) qī zhī shì 七之事, the historical anecdotes; (8) bā zhī chū 八之出, the geographical provenance of fine teas; (9) jiǔ zhī lüè 九之略, the abbreviations (which procedures may be dispensed with); (10) shí zhī tú 十之圖, the illustrations (= directions to copy the foregoing nine onto silk for display, not separate illustrations).

Tiyao

We submit that the Chájīng is in three juàn by Lù Yǔ of the Táng. The Tángshū Lù Yǔ biography says he composed the Chájīng in three piān without giving the juàn-count. The Yìwénzhì lists it in xiǎoshuōjiā in three juàn, agreeing with the present recension — apparently treating one juàn as one piān. Chén Shīdào’s 陳師道 Hòushān jí has a Chájīng preface that says: “Lù Yǔ’s Chájīng — the family-transmitted recension is one juàn, the Bìshì and Wángshì recensions are three juàn, the Zhāngshì recension is four juàn; the inner-and-outer recensions are eleven juàn. Their text is varied in brevity-and-fullness. The Wáng and Bì recensions are profuse-and-mixed — apparently the old recension; the Zhāngshì recension is brief-and-clear, agreeing with the family recension but with many losses-and-errors; the family recension is near to the ancient and can be relied on for correction. From the ‘Seventh: Affairs’ onwards, the text combines the three recensions, and is recorded in two piān, kept at home.” The present recension is three juàn — perhaps this is the Wáng or Bì recension; or perhaps the Hòushān jí’s “two piān” is a transmission-error for “three piān”. Its book divides into ten classes: First on Origin; Second on Implements; Third on Manufacture; Fourth on Utensils; Fifth on Brewing; Sixth on Drinking; Seventh on Affairs; Eighth on Provenance; Ninth on Abbreviation; Tenth on Illustration. What he calls jù (implements) are all for gathering-and-processing-use; what he calls qì (utensils) are all for brewing-and-drinking-use — so the two are different parts. What he calls tú (illustration) means simply that the foregoing nine classes should be written on silk-cloth and displayed — not a separate illustration. The categories are ten but the text is in fact nine. None speaks of tea more precisely than Lù Yǔ; his prose also is pǔyǎ (plain-and-cultivated) with a touch of antiquity. The “Seventh: Affairs” cites many ancient texts: e.g., one entry from Sīmǎ Xiàngrú’s Fánjiàng piān in thirty-eight characters is not preserved in any other book — and is thus a single point of reference for cross-evidential verification.

(Note: the Sìkù combined tíyào covers this work, KR3i0020 Chálù by Cài Xiāng, and KR3i0021 Pǐnchá yàolù by Huáng Rú; the Cài-and-Huáng portions are repeated in those entries.)

Abstract

The Chájīng is the foundational document of Chinese tea-culture and one of the most influential texts in the entire Chinese pǔlù genre. Its claim to jīng (classic) status — using a title-form reserved in the HànTáng tradition for canonical scriptures — was an audacious assertion that became universally accepted; it established the X-jīng monograph as a legitimate genre, with later imitators including the Mòjīng (KR3i0011) and the Sǔnpǔ by Zànníng (KR3i0041 — though the latter chose pǔ over jīng).

The work is dated by internal evidence and by the Chén Shīdào preface to the period roughly 760–780. Lù Yǔ probably began the work c. 760 (when, having fled south during the An Lushan rebellion, he settled at Tiàoxī in Húzhōu and began his life-long tea studies) and revised it through the 770s. The Chén Shīdào preface establishes that by the eleventh century the work circulated in multiple recensions of differing length and arrangement — the surviving three-juàn / ten-class form is the standard recension that came down through the Sòng Bǎichuān xuéhǎi and reached the Sìkù.

The Chájīng’s prescriptions defined Chinese tea-practice for the next thousand years: the leaf-cake-tea (tuán chá 團茶) production-process (steam, press, dry, mould, pierce, string); the use of fresh-running mountain-water (third best is well-water); the brewing-method (three “boils” — fish-eye, beads, surging-wave — with salt added at the first); the qìrǔ (cream-foam, the prized foam atop properly-brewed tea) aesthetic; the criticism of additives (ginger, jujube, citrus-peel, peppercorn) as compromising true flavour. The aesthetic discourse — jīng 精 (refinement), jiǎn 儉 (frugality), xíngdé 行德 (virtuous-conduct) — defined the literati conception of tea-drinking as a moral-aesthetic practice rather than a thirst-quenching habit.

The work also defines the standard tea-region geography of Tang China: the Shānnán, Huáinán, Zhèxī, Zhèdōng, Jiǎnnán, Qiánzhōng, Jiāngnán, and Língnán tea-producing regions, with the principal mountain-sources and grades. The list became the foundational reference for all subsequent Chinese tea-geography.

Translations and research

• Carpenter, Francis Ross (trans.). 1974. The Classic of Tea: Origins and Rituals. Boston: Little, Brown. The standard English translation.
• Sen Sōshitsu XV. 1998. The Japanese Way of Tea: From its Origins in China to Sen Rikyū. Honolulu: U Hawaii Press (translated from Japanese; treats Lù Yǔ as foundational ancestor of the Japanese chadō tradition).
• Benn, James A. 2015. Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History. Honolulu: U Hawaii Press. Treats Lù Yǔ and the Chá-jīng extensively.
• Bouton, Marie-Eve. 2009. Le Classique du Thé. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. French translation with extensive apparatus.
• Wú Juélóng 吳覺農 (ed.). 1987. Chá-jīng shù-píng 茶經述評. Běijīng: Nóng-yè chū-bǎn-shè (the standard modern Chinese critical study by the patriarch of modern Chinese tea-science).

Other points of interest

The single citation of Sīmǎ Xiàngrú’s lost Fánjiàng piān 凡將篇 (a Hàn-period word-list, otherwise extinct) in the “Seventh: Affairs” chapter — a 38-character passage — is one of the standard early-Han linguistic-historical evidences for the early Chinese tea-vocabulary (it gives the early Chinese word tú 荼 for tea, and the variant character forms jiǎ, míng, chuǎn).

The Chájīng exerted profound influence on East-Asian tea-cultures: Korean darye 茶禮 and Japanese chadō 茶道 both trace their ancestry directly to Lù Yǔ. The Japanese reception, mediated through the Sòng monks (Eisai 榮西, Dōgen 道元), shaped Japanese tea-ceremony aesthetics; the wabi-cha 侘茶 tradition of Sen no Rikyū 千利休 explicitly invokes Lù Yǔ’s jiǎn (frugality) ideal.

Links

• Chinese Text Project
• Wikipedia (Lu Yu)
• Wikipedia (Cha Jing)
• Wikidata Q703637