China is the country of origin of tea trees. On this point, there is not much controversy in the domestic and international mainstream tea science circles. According to biological and archaeological studies, tea trees first appeared about 60 to 70 million years ago, and their distribution areas are mainly concentrated in the virgin forests around the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. According to the records of Shennong Bencao, about 4,000 to 5,000 BC, the primitive tribes of our country have begun to discover and use the medicinal value of tea trees. "Shen Nong tastes a hundred herbs, and the sun has a poison of seventy-two. Solution." In the Tang Dynasty, the tea sacred Lu Yu "Tea Classic" and the cloud: "The tea is for drinking, and it is about Shennong."
Since the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties and even the pre-Qin period, China has begun artificial cultivation of tea trees. According to "Huayang Guozhi·Ba Zhi", as early as in the Zhou Dynasty, the land of the Bayu has been "Dan paint, tea, honey ... all tribute", and "the garden has a weak, sweet". However, the drinking value of tea at this stage is not much developed, mainly based on medicinal and edible value. Historically, it was only when the Three Kingdoms were divided in the late Eastern Han Dynasty that the record of tea processing began to appear. Before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, although the production and processing of tea had already appeared, it basically belonged to the germination stage and developed slowly. It was only a luxury of a few aristocratic classes, and it was far from the stage of the whole people's love of tea. As the saying goes, tea is popular in Tang Sheng in Song. Today, let's take a look at the tea event and see how the Datang Dynasty promoted and stimulated the production of folk tea. How do you make the people fall in love with tea?
1. Three stages of tea production, processing and sales in Tang Dynasty
Although, from the big historical time span, we always attribute the development of tea tea in the Tang Dynasty to a whole. However, when it comes to the 300-year rule of the Tang Dynasty, it can be divided into three stages, namely, the stage of tea germination, the stage of rapid development, and the stage of coexistence of prosperity and challenge.
1. Tea sprouting stage
From the perspective of time span, the germination stage of tea is about 618-712 AD, which is close to 100 years. In the early stage of this stage, due to the chaos in the end of the world, the Tang Dynasty still needed a long war to calm the domestic riots and complete the pattern of the unification. Although Li Shimin and Wu Zetian and other rulers promulgated many people's livelihood policies that rested with the people, after the chaos, the country was poor and it took a long time to recover. Therefore, in the circumstances, farmers were mainly engaged in food production to meet daily dietary needs. At this time, China's tea cultivation is mainly concentrated in Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi and Henan. Although the Yangtze River basin is planted, the scale is not large. The tea production in Fujian and Guangxi is also in a slow germination stage.
2. Rapid development stage
After entering the Kaiyuan era, the political economy and social life of the Tang Dynasty reached their peak. It lasted for more than 120 years from 713 to 835 AD, which was a transitional period from the slow germination to the rapid development of tea production in the Tang Dynasty. During this period, a large number of tea farmers specialized in planting tea trees appeared in the southern part of China, forming 8 roads, 43 states and 44 counties, covering the tea planting patterns in 13 provinces such as Sichuan, Henan, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian. According to the "Taiping Guangji" records: "The Jiuyi people Zhang Shougui Xianjun Mountain has a tea garden, every year to recruit tea more than 100 people, men and women are in the garden." Between 785 and 804 AD, Zhejiang Gulu Mountain built the first official “Gongcha Garden” in history, specializing in tribute tea. Every year, more than 1,000 tea makers and tea workers are more than 30,000. . Some officially run mountain farms, and even need to send 3,000 officers and soldiers to guard. It can be said that at this stage, China's tea has experienced rapid and vigorous development.