The life of Nanjing tea

Nanjing

It is a city that is closely related to tea culture

In the various stages from the germination to the popularization of tea culture

The city of Nanjing plays a pivotal role

01

Quite related: Nanjing City and Tea Culture

Since ancient times, although Nanjing has not been a tea-producing center, Nanjing occupies an important position in the entire history of Chinese tea development. The allusions of “replacing wine with tea” and “cultivating honesty with tea” are found in Jinling in Eastern Wu, and the earliest records of “taking tea as a sacrifice” and “taking tea as a gift” also appear in Nanjing.

Since the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, there have been people planting tea here. In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the tea saint Lu Yu went to Qixia Mountain to pick tea and write the “Book of Tea”, the book once recorded the story of “Guangling Old Biography”, and the mountain behind Qixia Temple still has the old traces of the tea pavilion in modern times. There is also evidence in the article “Sending Lu Hong to Qixia Temple to Pick Tea”, “There is a tea flat in the mountain”, which shows that the tea in Qixia Mountain was planted into a flat at that time, but it was barren later.

In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang “abolished the dragon group tribute tea and changed it to tribute loose tea” in Nanjing, so that loose tea began to appear in China, and opened a new trend of “tea as the national drink”.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Jiangnan Tea Plantation Office and the Tea Affairs Workshop were respectively established and established in Nanjing. In 1906, the establishment of the first government-run tea scientific research institution in China, the Jiangnan Tea Plantation Office, in Zhongshan during the Qing Dynasty, marked the beginning and origin of modern tea science and technology in China.

The Tea Training Institute was established in 1910 and is located in Dingjiaqiao, south of the city. This tea workshop is one of the earliest tea education institutions in China, and its establishment has promoted the development of tea education.

02

All the rage: Nanjing tea drinking, tea planting prosperous

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, tea drinking flourished in Nanjing, and tea houses sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and at the same time, Nanjing also had a new development in the tea planting industry, and the quality of tea was improved. These two points are the signs of the prosperity of Nanjing’s tea culture.

“The streets and alleys, together, there are six or seven hundred large and small restaurants, and there are more than 1,000 tea houses. No matter where you go, there is always a place where lanterns hang to sell tea, seasonal flowers are planted, good rain is cooked, and the tea house is full of people eating tea. ”

This is the Nanjing teahouse of the Qing Dynasty described in the “Outer History of Confucianism”, which shows that there are many Nanjing teahouses at this time and they are widely distributed.

At the same time, Nanjing’s tea planting industry also developed rapidly, and the quality of tea has been greatly improved. Nanjing Niushoushan, Qixia Mountain, Wutai Mountain, Zhongshan and other places have famous tea.

Qianlong’s “Jiangnan Tongzhi Products” contains, “Jiangning Tianque camellia has a unique aroma. The cool camellia in the city, the mountain tea in Shangyuan Dongxiang, the taste is fragrant and sweet. ”

Guangxu Chen Zuolin’s “Jinling Product Geography and Native Plant Examination” contains: “Niushou and Qixia two mountains all produce tea, born on the top of the mountain, and are named after clouds and fogs. The monks of the temple take it for the distinguished guests, not to the best of their ability. However, the west of the city Wutai camellia, the tree is not high and the leaves are mao, at the beginning of the same rule, Jiangning Tu Taishou Zongying planted, there are still dozens of ears. Xuantong’s “Shangyuan Jiangning Native Hezhi” also has a similar record.

In addition, there are also records of tea production in Jiangbei, mainly in Jiangpu. “Daughter red, tea name, Pukou people in the spring picking, trafficking in Jiangsu and Shanghai. It also uses the method of Zhulan to smoke tea, especially Pukou as a worker. ”

Nanjing Yuhua Tea, as one of Nanjing’s specialties and one of the top ten famous teas in the country, its predecessor has been recorded in the Qing Dynasty’s “Insect Song”, which is a variety called “Zhongshan Yunwu Tea”.

“Insect Song” wrote: “The monk must pick when the clouds and mist are hazy, then the leaves are in the lamp, divided into three layers, and the clouds and mist are formed.” If the fog clears at sunrise, it is not, so the annual income is very small. “It shows its preciousness.

In 1958, under the call of the state to vigorously develop tea production, the “Jiangsu Famous Tea Creation Committee” was established. At that time, a number of tea experts and more than a dozen tea masters gathered in Zhongshan Cemetery for development.

On the basis of Yunwu tea, the old tea workers represented by Yu Yongqi carried out more than 60 tests, and in the spring of the following year, they finally created tea products that were “shaped like pine needles, green and straight”.

The production skills of Yuhua tea include: picking, spreading, finishing, rolling, shaping and drying, refining, baking and other processes. This skill is passed down by master and apprentice, and has been passed down for six generations, distributed throughout Nanjing and its surrounding areas.

In 1959, it was officially renamed “Yuhua Tea” by the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government. In this way, it means that the revolutionary martyrs are loyal and unyielding, and they are evergreen, so that people can drink tea and think of the source, and express their reverence and nostalgia for the revolutionary martyrs of Yuhuatai. In the same year, in the first national famous tea competition, Yuhua tea was listed as the fourth place in the national famous tea.

In July 1964, Yuhua tea was selected as one of the top ten famous teas in the country, and Yuhua tea began to be well-known at home and abroad. Yuhuatai Tea Factory, Zhongshan Ling Tea Factory and Qinglong Mountain Tea Factory are the main production areas of Yuhua tea. In December 2004, Yuhua tea was protected by the national product of origin. In 2007, it was included in the first batch of Nanjing intangible cultural heritage list.

In 2022, China’s application for “Chinese traditional tea-making techniques and related customs” was successfully included in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the history, development and dissemination of Chinese tea culture around traditional tea-making techniques were among them.

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