Tea and Religious Figures: A Millennium of Real and Flowing Affinity

🕯️ Tea, this miraculous Oriental Leaf Tea, has forged an indissoluble bond with religious figures throughout history, both at home and abroad, in its development and dissemination. They were not only early consumers and promoters but also shapers and disseminators of the spirit of tea culture. This article will introduce several domestic and foreign religious figures who have left indelible marks in the history of tea, based on reliable records.

📿 Chinese Religious Figures and Tea

🙏 In China, tea has merged with religion, especially Buddhism, to create the supreme state of "tea and Zen being one." The contributions of the following figures are all traceable in historical records.

1. 🍵 Jiaoran (a Tang Dynasty Buddhist poet monk) – Pioneer of the concept of "tea ceremony"

• Identity: A famous Buddhist monk poet of the Tang Dynasty, a disciple of Zen Buddhism, and also a close friend and mentor of Lu Yu, the "Tea Sage".

• Achievements and Contributions:

  • ✍️ Promoting Tea through Poetry: Jiaoran left a large number of tea-themed poems, far exceeding those of his contemporaries. In his poem "Tea Drinking Song Mocking Cui Shi, the Governor", he first clearly linked "tea tasting" with "enlightenment", writing:
    "One sip dispels drowsiness, filling the world with clear and refreshing thoughts.
    Two sips clear my spirit, like a sudden shower of rain on light dust.
    Three sips lead to enlightenment; why bother to painstakingly break free from troubles?"
    This clearly expounds on the spiritual level of tea drinking.

  • 📜 Proposed "tea ceremony": In the same poem, he wrote the line "Who knows that the tea ceremony fully embodies your true nature? Only Danqiu has achieved this." This is the earliest explicit record of the term "tea ceremony" in Chinese history, endowing tea-related activities with profound spiritual connotations.

  • 🤝 Support for Lu Yu: He not only supported Lu Yu's travels to investigate tea affairs both spiritually and materially, but also profoundly influenced the creation of The Classic of Tea at the ideological level. His association with Lu Yu is a model of the joint promotion of tea culture development by monks and literati.

2. 📖 Lu Yu (a tea expert of the Tang Dynasty) – the "Tea Sage" raised in a monastery

• Identity: Although not formally ordained, a tea master who was raised by monks and deeply influenced by Buddhism.

• Achievements and Contributions:

  • 🏯 Monastery Growth: According to historical records such as "Biography of Lu Yu in the New Book of Tang", Lu Yu was adopted by Zen Master Zhiji, the abbot of Jingling Longgai Monastery, at the age of three. He learned to read and make tea in the monastery, laying a solid foundation in tea studies from a young age.

  • 📘 Writing The Classic of Tea: The Classic of Tea, the culmination of his lifelong efforts, is the world's first systematic monograph on tea. This book comprehensively summarizes the cultivation, picking, production, brewing, and history of tea, elevating tea from a mere beverage to a discipline and culture.

  • 🧾 Reliable deeds: His friendship with the poet-monk Jiaoran, his experience of being appreciated by officials, etc., are all clearly recorded in Tang Dynasty documents and later generations' textual research. His deeds are solid historical facts, not folk legends.

🌍  Foreign Religious Figures and Tea

⛪ Christian missionaries played a crucial bridging role in the spread of tea to the Western world.

1. 🧘 Rong Xi (Japanese Zen monk) – Japan's "Tea Ancestor"

• Identity: The founder of the Rinzai sect of Japanese Buddhism, who twice crossed the sea to Song China to seek Dharma.

• Achievements and Contributions:

  • 🌱 Returned to Japan with tea seeds: Rong Xi came to China during the Southern Song Dynasty. While studying Buddhism, he conducted in-depth research on the tea-drinking culture of the Song Dynasty. When he returned to Japan in 1191, he brought tea seeds back to Japan and personally planted them in places such as Mount Obake in Hizen (present-day Saga Prefecture) and Omiwa Kōzan-ji Temple in Kyoto. This marked the true beginning of tea cultivation in Japan.

  • 📚 Wrote Kissa Yojoki: In 1211, he completed the two-volume Kissa Yojoki and presented it to the shogunate. This book systematically introduced the medicinal value and efficacy of tea, as well as the tea-making and tea-drinking methods of the Southern Song Dynasty. He positioned tea as "the elixir of health and the wonderful art of longevity," greatly promoting the popularization of tea among the upper class and monks in Japan.

  • 👑 Establishment of Status: As the person who systematically introduced tea plants and the tea ceremony system of Zen monasteries to Japan, he is honored as the "Tea Ancestor" of Japan.

2. ✝️ Gaspar da Cruz (Portuguese missionary) – The first European recorder to elaborate on Chinese tea in detail

• Identity: Portuguese missionary.

• Achievements and Contributions:

  • 🧭 Personal Experience and Record: In 1556, Cruz arrived in Guangzhou, China, becoming the first Portuguese Dominican missionary permitted to enter China. He stayed in China for a brief period of several months, personally observing the local people's way of life.

  • 📖 Publication of China Situation Record: After returning, in the China Situation Record published in 1569, he devoted an entire chapter to a detailed description of "a hot drink" consumed by the Chinese – tea (Chá). He recorded that "(tea) is made by decocting a slightly bitter herb... Whenever they are accustomed to drinking it, it is served in porcelain cups... It is beneficial to health."

  • 🏛️ Historical Significance: This is the earliest detailed and explicit record of Chinese tea in European literature, much clearer than Marco Polo's account (Marco Polo's travelogue does not explicitly mention tea). Cruz's work enabled the European intellectual community to first know for certain the existence of tea.

🕉️ Influence of Religious Culture on the Tea Industry

☸️ 1. Buddhism and Tea Culture

The introduction of Buddhism had a profound impact on Chinese culture, one of which was its close integration with tea culture. During the practice of Buddhism, tea tasting is an important means of calming the mind. Through boiling and tasting tea, the goal of purifying the mind is achieved. Tea culture spread and developed in temples, having a significant impact on temple economy, meditation methods, and the lives of monks.

🧘♂️ 2. Taoism and Tea Culture

Taoism emphasizes nature, harmony, and health preservation, and tea precisely embodies these characteristics. Taoists believe that drinking tea can purify the mind, reduce desires, and cultivate one's moral character. In Taoist temples, tea tasting has become one of the important ways of spiritual practice, and tea culture has thus been widely spread and developed within Taoism.

🎓 3. Confucianism and Tea Ceremony

Confucianism emphasizes etiquette and morality, and the tea ceremony precisely embodies this etiquette and morality. Among the hobbies of literati and refined scholars, tea ranks second only to poetry in the list of "poetry, tea, wine, and flowers". Under the influence of Confucianism, tea tasting has been endowed with deeper social significance and cultural connotations. Meanwhile, tea art performances also reflect the Confucian concepts of harmony and order.

🌟 Conclusion

From the Chinese poet-monk Jiaoran and the Sage of Tea Lu Yu, to the Japanese Zen monk Rong Xi, and then to Cruz from Portugal and Bouvet from the Netherlands, these religious figures, with their real experiences and actions, have written indelible footnotes for the cultivation, consumption, cultural advancement, and global dissemination of tea across different times and spaces. Their stories are not only an important part of the history of tea but also a vivid history of cultural exchange.