The Prevalence of chinese Tea Contest
2 min readTea contest was the proper noun referring to the activities of judging the quality of teas by the ancient people, and its appearance had something to do with tribute tea. The tribute tea originated quite early, but it was first officially listed in the tasks of government in the Tang dynasty.
In order to win the favor of the emperor, the officials then all vied with each other to look for the precious teas everywhere to pay tribute to the emperor. Since the tea paid to the emperor must be the best, these officials would have a contest about the quality of teabefore presenting tea to the emperor. Thus, the trend of tea contest spread very fast, and among the people the trend of tea contest also rose accordingly.
Tea contest was originated in Jian’ an, but because it asked for good skills and was of great fun, it quickly popalarized among the men of letters and scholar officials, who had never tired of researching the instruments, materials and ways of contests. Usually several good friends chose an exquisite and elegant place and each took out his own precious stock, which were tasted in turn and then places were decided. Later, the monks also took great delight in this; what was more, the emperor also took part into the activity of tea contest.
Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty, Zhao Ji, was especially specialized in tea and wrote a book called Grand Sight on Tea, in which there were 20-odd chapters, recording in detail the production, processing, preparation and quality of tea etc. The process of tea contest gave people not only the physical enjoyment, but also the spiritual pleasure.
