Contents and characteristics of tea culture in the Tang Dynasty recorded in the poems about tea

Abstract

　The poems are about tea are an important part of Chinese tea culture, as well as indispensable materials used to study the tea culture.

　Through sorting and analyzing 606 poems about tea in the Tang Dynasty, the paper holds the view that the tea culture in the Tang Dynasty included the following 24 categories of contents, i.e. the ways to use tea, the forms of drinking tea, the ways to drink tea, tea specialists, the effects of drinking tea, tea and alcohol, tea smoke, water used to make tea, the duration of cooking, famous tea and places of origin, tribute tea, tea trade, tea taxes and decrees, tea desserts, historical stories, new concepts, tea set, tea drinking acts and behaviors, the color, fragrance and taste of tea, the ideology and spirit of drinking tea, the characteristics and cultivation of tea plants, the production and package of tea, tea drinking environment and others.

　The paper compares the contents of tea culture contained in the poems about tea with the contents of Tea Classics, and draws the conclusion that the “ideology and spirit” as part of the tea culture in the Tang Dynasty were basically built on the poems about tea. Besides, the paper also summarizes the aesthetic orientations of those drinking tea in the Tang Dynasty.