Xuānhé Beìyuàn gòngchá lù 宣和北苑貢茶錄
Record of the Xuān-hé-era Tribute Tea of Beìyuàn by 熊蕃 (Xióng Fán, 撰), with illustrations supplied by his son 熊克 (Xióng Kè, 繪圖); plus the appended Beìyuàn biélù 北苑別錄 by Zhào Rǔlì 趙汝礪 (撰)
About the work
The principal Northern-Sòng source on the Beìyuàn 北苑 imperial tribute-tea industry — the Jiànān 建安 (Fújiàn) state-owned tea-roastery established under Tàizōng (r. 976–997) that produced the famous dragon-and-phoenix cake-tea (lóngfèng tuán chá 龍鳳團茶) for imperial use. By Xióng Fán 熊蕃 of Jiànyáng 建陽 in the Xuānhé / Jìngkāng / early Shàoxīng period (c. 1121–1135); first printed in Chúnxī 9 (1182) by Xióng Fán’s son Xióng Kè 熊克 熊克, who supplied the 38 woodblock illustrations of the dragon-and-phoenix tea-cake moulds plus an appended cycle of ten tea-picking poems (the Cǎichá shī shí zhāng 採茶詩十章). To Xióng’s text the Sìkù recension appends a separate work: the Beìyuàn biélù 北苑別錄 in one juàn by Zhào Rǔlì 趙汝礪, zhǔguǎn zhàngsī of the Fújiàn transport circuit, who in Chúnxī bǐngwǔ (1186) appended his treatise to Xióng Kè’s recension to supply the additional technical detail Xióng Fán had omitted.
Tiyao
The combined tíyào covering this work and KR3i0023 Dōngxī shìchá lù is preserved at the head of this entry. Translated: We submit that the Xuānhé Beìyuàn gòngchá lù in one juàn with the Beìyuàn biélù in one juàn appended is by Xióng Fán of the Sòng. What is recorded is all the methods of the Jiànān tea-garden of gathering, roasting, and tribute. In Chúnxī (1174+) his son the jiàoshū láng Kè first cut it onto woodblock — in all thirty-eight illustrations and with ten attached tea-picking poems. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí says that Fán’s son Kè further-illustrated their forms and transmitted them: the illustrations are then what Kè supplied. At that time the Fújiàn transport-commissioner-managing-account-office Zhào Rǔlì again composed the Biélù in one juàn to supplement what was not yet covered. What it says about water-numbers (i.e., grinding-water counts) being abundant-or-shrunk, fire-condition prolonged-or-rushed, gang-numbers earlier-or-later, taste-and-quality many-or-few — is especially exhaustive and clear. Investigating: tea-drinking flourished in the Táng; only in the Southern Táng was the tea-office established. Beìyuàn is the source of that name. By the Sòng, Jiàn-tea then became famous throughout the empire. Beyond the Hèyuán and Shāxī, only Beìyuàn was called the guānbèi (official-roaster); for the Cáosī’s (transport-office’s) annual tribute. Literary men have often recorded the matter, yet most books are not fully transmitted, and those that are transmitted are slight-and-incomplete. Only these two books most fully detail the system of contemporary “responsibility-to-the-land-as-tribute-product.” The moulded forms and apparatus they record contain many novel ideas, and may serve as resource for classical anecdote and for literary composition. To preserve them is one branch of broad-knowledge — not to be abandoned. Fán, zì Shūmào, was a man of Jiànyáng; he followed Wáng Ānshí’s learning, and was skilled at poetry — recorded in the Shūlù jiětí*. Kè has the* Zhōngxīng xiǎojì (KR2b0018) already separately catalogued. Rǔlì’s affairs are nowhere recorded; only the Sòngshǐ imperial-genealogy-table places under “Hàn Wáng’s house” a “Hàndōnghóu Zōngkǎi” with a great-grandson named Rǔlì — perhaps this is the same person.
[The tíyào continues with the parallel entry on KR3i0023, here omitted.]
Abstract
The work is the principal documentary source for the Sòng imperial tribute-tea — the most prestigious and complex government-controlled luxury-good in early-modern China — and is supplemented by the Beìyuàn biélù into the most detailed surviving description of a Sòng state-supervised manufacturing enterprise. Together the two texts provide:
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The historical narrative of the Beìyuàn establishment from its Southern-Tang origins through the Sòng. Beìyuàn was founded under Lǐ Yù 李煜 of the Southern Tang (Bǎodà 3 = 945, when Wáng Yánzhèng’s 王延政 territory was conquered); under Tàizōng (Tàipíngxīngguó c. 977) the lóngfèng (dragon-and-phoenix) mould was set, marking the start of Sòng cake-tea tribute. The work narrates the seven principal stages of Sòng tribute-tea evolution: (1) yángāo 研膏 (research-cake, Southern-Tang); (2) làmiàn 蠟面 (wax-faced, Southern-Tang); (3) lóngfèng 龍鳳 (dragon-and-phoenix, Tàipíngxīngguó+); (4) xiǎotuán 小團 (small-cake, by Cài Xiāng KR3i0020 in Qìnglì); (5) mìyún lóng 密雲龍 (dense-cloud dragon, Yuánfēng); (6) ruìyún xiánglóng 瑞雲翔龍 (auspicious-cloud flying-dragon, Shàoshèng); (7) báichá / lóngyuán shèngxuě 白茶 / 龍園勝雪 (white-tea / dragon-garden-snow, Xuānhé). At each stage the technical innovation, the cáosī official responsible, and the major court patrons are named.
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The detailed list of 43 fine-tea varieties (xìsè 細色) plus 5 standard tea varieties (cūsè 麤色) currently in tribute production at Xuānhé (1119–1125), with for each: production year, leaf grade, water-count, fire-count, tribute-quota, and special features. This is one of the most precise commodity-production-data inventories surviving from any pre-modern Chinese economy.
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The Beìyuàn biélù (1186 appendix by Zhào Rǔlì) supplements with: the 46 named tea-garden plots; the jīngzhé (Insect-Awakening) opening date; the cǎichá gathering procedure (with 225 named gatherers per day); the jiǎnchá (selecting) criteria; zhēngchá (steaming); zhàchá (pressing) with the fānzhà (turn-press) operation; yánchá (grinding) with the canonical Lóngjǐng shuǐ 龍井水 (Dragon-Well water); zàochá (moulding); guòhuáng (fire-finishing); the seven cūsè tea-cake grades (with-or-without camphor); the kāishē (summer pruning) practice; and the relationship of the Beìyuàn to the satellite roasters at Shímén, Rǔjí, and Xiāngkǒu.
The compositional history is well-documented: Xióng Fán’s text was written during his life (he must have died before 1182, when his son Xióng Kè printed the work); Xióng Kè’s preface is dated Chúnxī 9 month 12 day 4 (early 1183); Zhào Rǔlì’s biélù preface is dated Chúnxī bǐngwǔ (1186) mèngxià (early summer). The work survived into the Yuán through the Bǎichuān xuéhǎi-style transmission and reached the Sìkù through this channel.
Translations and research
- Smith, Paul Jakov. 1991. Taxing Heaven’s Storehouse: Horses, Bureaucrats, and the Destruction of the Sichuan Tea Industry, 1074–1224. Cambridge MA: Harvard. Foundational work on the Sòng tea-bureaucracy; uses Beìyuàn records extensively.
- Benn, James A. 2015. Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History. Honolulu: U Hawaii Press.
- Shěn Dōngméi 沈冬梅. 2007. Sòng-dài chá-wén-huà 宋代茶文化. Běijīng: Xué-yuàn chū-bǎn-shè. The standard modern Chinese study.
- Suzuki Tetsuo 鈴木哲雄. 1989. “Sōdai chasho no kenkyū 宋代茶書研究”. Komazawa University.
Other points of interest
The 38 woodblock illustrations of tribute-tea cake-moulds in Xióng Kè’s recension are the principal pre-modern Chinese illustrations of state-manufactured commodities. Each mould had distinctive imperial motifs — dragons (for emperor’s use), phoenixes (for empress / consorts), plus dragon-and-phoenix combinations for graded recipients — and the woodblock illustrations document the visual elaboration of the Northern-Sòng tribute aesthetic. The illustrations were partially reproduced in the modern Sìkù quánshū publication and are widely circulated.
The work also gives the highest-quality early evidence on Sòng tea-aesthetics and tea-pricing: Lóngyuánshèngxuě 龍園勝雪 was said in the local Jiànān saying to be worth “forty thousand cash” (= roughly two tael of silver) per cake — making it perhaps the single most expensive tea ever produced in Chinese history.