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Tea
1. China, the Homeland of Tea
Of the three major beverages of the world --tea, coffee and cocoa--tea
is consumed by the largest number of people .
China is the homeland of tea. It is believed that China has tea-shrubs
as early as five to six thousand years ago, and human cultivation of
teaplants dates back two thousand years. Tea from China,along with ber silk
and porcelain, began to be known the world over more than a thousand years
ago and has since always been an important Chinese export. At present more
than forty countries in the world grow tea with Asian countries producing
90% of the world's total output. All tea trees in other countries have their
origin directly or indirectly in China. The word for tea leaves or tea as
a drink in many countries are derivatives from the Chinese character "cha."
The Russians call it "cha'i", which sounds like "chaye"(tea leaves) as it is
pronounced in northern China,and the English word "tea" sounds similar to the
pronunciation of its counterpart in Xiamen(Amoy). The Japanese character for
tea is written exactly the same as it is in Chinese, though pronounced with
a slight difference. The habit of tea drinking spread to Japan in the 6th
century, but it was not introduced to Europe and America till the 17th and
18th centuries. Now the nuber of tea drinkers in the world is legion and is
still on the increase.
2. The Categories of Tea
Chinese tea may be classified into five categories according to the different methods by which it is processed.
1) Green tea: Green tea is the variety which keeps the original colour of
the tea leaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists
mainly of Longjing tea of Zhejiang Province, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in
Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.
2) Black tea: Black tea, known as "red tea" (hong cha)in China, is the category
which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis
of the green tea. The best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui, Dianhong of
Yunnan,Suhong of Jiangsu, Chuanhong of Sichuan and Huhong of Hunan.
3)Wulong tea: This represents a variety half way between the green and
the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. It is a specialty
from the provinces on China's southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.
4) Compressed tea: This is the kind of tea which is compressed and hardened
into a certain shape. It is good for transport and storage and is mainly supplied
to the ethnic minorities living in the border areas of the country. As compressed
tea is black in color in its commercial form, so it is also known in China as
"black tea". Most of the compressed tea is in the form of bricks; it is,
therefore,generally called "brick tea", though it is sometimes also in the
form of cakes and bowls. It is mainly produced in Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and
Yunnan provinces.
5)Scented tea: This kind of tea is made by mixing fragrant flowers in the
tea leaves in the course of processing .The flowers commonly used for this
purpose are jasmine and magnolia among others. Jasmine tea is a well-known
favourite with the northerners of China and with a growing number of foreigners.
3. Tea Production
A new tea-plant nust grow for five years before its leaves can be
picked and ,at 30 years of age, it will be too old to be productive. The
trunk of the old plant must then be cut off to force new stems to grow out
of the roots in the coming year. By repeated rehabilitations in this way,
a plant may serve for about 100 years.
For the fertilization of tea gardens, soya-bean cakes or other varieties
of organic manure are generally used, and seldom chemical fertilizers.
When pests are discovered, the affected plants will be removed to prevent
their spread, adn also to avoid the use of pesticides.
The season of tea-picking depends on local climate and varies from area to area.
On the shores of West Lake in Hangzhou, where the famous green tea Longjing
(Dragon Well) comes from, picking starts from the end of March and lasts
through October, altogether 20-30 times from the same plants at intervals of
seven to ten days. With a longer interval, the quality of the tea will
deteriorate.
A skilled woman picker can only gather 600 grams (a little over a pound)
of green tea leaves in a day.
The new leaves must be parched in tea cauldrons. This work,which used to
be be done manually, has been largely mechanized. Top-grade Dragon Well tea,
however,still has to be stir-parched by hand, doing only 250 grams every half
hour. Thy tea-cauldrons are heated electrically to a temperature of about
25¡æ or 74F.It takes four pounds of fresh leaves to produce one pound of parched
tea.
The best Dragon Well tea is gathered several days before Qingming(Pure
Brightness, 5th solar term) when new twigs have just begun to grow and carry
"one leaf and a bud." To make one kilogram( 2.2 lbs) of finished tea, 60,000
tender leaves have to be plucked. In the old days Dragon Well tea of this
grade was meant solely for the imperial household; it was, therefore, known
as "tribute tea".
For the processes of grinding, parching, rolling,shaping and drying other
grades of tea various machines have been developed and built, turning out
about 100 kilograms of finsished tea an hour and relieving the workers from
much of their drudgery.
4. China's Tea-Producing Areas
Tea is produced in vast areas of China from Hainan Island down in the
extreme south to Shandong Province in the north, from Tibet in the southwest
to Taiwan the Straits, to talling more than 20 provinces. These may be divided
into four major areas:
1) The Jiangnan area: It lies south of the middle and lower reaches of the
Changjing(Yangtze) River, and is the most prolific of China's tea-growing areas.
Most of its output is the green variety; some black tea is also produced.
2) The Jiangbei area: This refers to a large area north of the same river,
where the average temperature is 2--3 Centigrade degrees lower than in the Jiangnan
area. Green tea is the principal variety turned out here, but Shaanxi and
Gansu provinces, which are also parts of this area, produce compressed tea
for supply to the minority areas in the Northwest.
3) The Southwest area: This embraces Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Tibet,
producing black, green as well as compressed teas. Pu'er tea of Yunnan
Province enjoys a good sale in China and abroad.
4) The Lingnan area: This area, consisting of the southern provinces of
Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and Taiwan, produces Wulong tea, which is renowned
both at home and abroad.
5. Advantages of Tea-Drinking
Tea has been one of the daily necessities in China since time immemorial.
Countless nubers of people like to have their aftermeal cup of tea.
In summer or warm climate, tea seems to dispel the heat and bring on instant
cool together with a feeling of relaxatin. For this reason, tea-houses abound
in towns and market villages in South China and provide elderly retirees with
the locales to meet and chat over a cup of tea.
Medically, the tea leaf contains a number of chemicals, of which 20-30% is
tannic acid,known for its anti-inflammatory and germicidal properties. It also
contains an alkaloid(5%, mainly caffeine), a stimulant for the nerve centre and
the process of metabolism. Tea with the aromatics in it may help resolve
meat and fat and thus promote digestion. It is , therefore, of special importance
to people who live mianly on meat, like many of the ethnic minorities in China.
A popular proverb among them says, "Rather go without salt for three days
than without tea for a single day."
Tea is also rich in various vitamins and, for smokers, it helps to discharge
nicotine out of the system. After wining, strong tea may prove to be a
sobering pick-me-up.
The above, however, does not go to say that the stronger the tea, the more
advantanges it will yield. Too much tannic acid will affect the secretion of the
gastric juice, irritate the membrane of the stomach and cause indigestion or constipation.
Strong tea taken just before bedtime will give rise to occasional insomnia.
Constant drinking of over-strong tea may induce heart and blood-pressure disorders
in some people, reduce the milk of a breast-feeding mother, and put a brown
colour on the teeth of young people. But it is not difficult to ward off
these undesirable effects:just don't make your tea too strong.
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Palace(Gong)
The Chinese word for "palace "is gong which , however, may
refer to anyone of several different things.
In the earliest Chinese writings it meant no more than an ordinary
house. After the founding of the Qin Dynasty(221--207 B.C.), gong came
gradually to mean the group of buildings in which the emperor lived and
worked. From about the same time, the Chinese palace grew ever larger in
scale. The Efang-gong (or Epanggong, according to the purists) of the
First Emperor of Qin, according to an authoritative source, measured "5
li(2 1/2 km) from east to west and 1,000 paces from north to south."
The Weiyanggong of the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.--24 A.D.) had,within
a periphery of 11 kilometres, as many as 43 halls and terraces. The Forbidden
City of Beijing, which still stands intact and which served as the imperial
palace for 720,000 square metres and embraces many halls, towers, pavilions
and studies, measured as 9,900 bays. It is one of the greatest palaces still
exixting in the world. In short, the gong grew into a veritable city and is
often called gongcheng (palace city).
Apart from the palace, other abodes of the emperor are also called gong.
So, the Yiheyuan Park used to be the Summer Palace; the Mountain Resort at
Chengde and the Huaqingchi thermal spa near Xi'an were both xinggong or "
palace-on-tour." Then there is another type of gong called zhaigong, where the
emperor prepared himself with ablution and abstinence before he offered
sacrifice at a grand ceremony. There is one such zhaigong on the grounds of
Beijing's Temple of Heaven.
Inside a great gong, certain individual buildings may also be called gong.
The Qianqinggong (Palace of Heavenly Purity) in the Forbidden City,whereas the
living quarters of the empresses were at Kunninggong (Palace of Female Tranquility).
The imperial concubines of various ranks inhabited the six gong or palace quadrangles
on either side of the central axis of the Forbidden City. When the monarchs or their
spouses died, they were buried in digong (underground palaces).
The name gong is also used for religious buildings of great dimensions. The
Potala in Lhasa is a gong to the Chinese; the lama temple of Beijing is Yonghegong.
The temples of Taoist priests are generally called sanqinggong (palace of triple
purity).
For thousands of years in old China, the word gong was reserved exclusively
for naming imperial and religious buildings. With the passage of time and political
changes, many of the old gong have been opened to the general public for sightseeing.
Furthermore, a number of buildings have been named gong or palace. For instance,
Taimiao or the Imperial Ancestral Temple in Beijing has been renamed the "Working
People's Palace of Culture." On West Chang'an Jie, a comparatively new building
serves as the "Cultural Palace of national minorities." Similar gong or palaces
have been built in many cities of the country for the cultural, scientific and
recreational respectively for workers, youth and children.
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New Year Pictures
The expression explains itself. The Chinese people have the custom of
sticking up pictures to celebrate the traditional New Year-now called the
Spring Festival. This was recorded in historical works of the Song Dynasty
(960---1279). The custom is particularly popular in the vast countryside,
where just before the festival day every household will be busy spring
cleaning and pasting colourful pictures or paper cuttings on their doors,
windows, walls, even wardrobes and stoves.
Traditional new Year pictures, usually made by the block-printing method
consists of several steps:drawing and tracing, block engraving ,printing,
colouring and ,in some cases, mounting. The finished pictures, therefore,
have the features of both woodcut prints and Chinese paitings, making a
special branch in traditional folk art.
The themes expressed in new Year pictures cover a wide range, from plump
babies to the Old God of Longevity, from landscapes to birds and flowres,
from the ploughing cattle in spring to rich harvests in autumn. Human figures
often show artistic exaggeration, but the message in all pictures is always
good luck,festivity or other nice things in the wish of the people. Usual
objects in the pictures include the crane or the peach which symbolizes a
long life, the plum or peony which is a mark of good fortune and happiness.
The colours most favoured are red, green ,purple, yellow and black---which
are not only bright but contrast well with one another--intended to give
fresh, vivid, pleasant and inspiring impressions.
To meet the specific needs of the vast rural population, New Year pictures
are produced in all regions in China with different local characteristics. But
the leading producers are at three localites: Yangliuqing Village near Tianjin,
Taohuawu near Suzhou and Weifang in Shandong.
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Counters(Suanchou)
Before the invention of the abacus, counters or tallies were used in
China in calculating operations over long ages. Historical writings indicate
they were already quite widespread during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring
States periods(770---211 B.C.).
The earliest counters were round sticks about 0.23 cm across
and 12 cm long. Later they became rectangular in cross-section and shortened to 7--8 cm. The earliest counters thus far discovered were
unearthed in 1971 in Qianyang County, Shanxi Province. Dating from the Western
Han(206 B.C.-24 A.D.), they total 30 in number.
Ancient counters, mostly made of bamboo and animal bone, are also found of iron
, bronze, ivory and jade.
To express numbers with the unnotched tallies, ancient Chinese followed the
decimal system. That is to say ,the same stick placed at the unit's place meant "1",
but placed at ten's place, meant "10". Arranged vertically , thus 
and 
(=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,and 9), they were used to represent the
figures at the unit's , hundred's ten-thousand's and million's places. Arranged horizontally
thus 
and 
they would represent the figures at the ten's thousand's
and hundred -thousand's places. The two arrangements, alternating each the other
,could express any figure, no matter how long. In this way, 
would mean "1984".
when a digit hapens to be zero, it would be left blank. Thus,
would read"4380".
The system proved easy to learn and master.
The counters represented at first only positive numbers. But as more complicated
calculations were called for ,tallies began to be made in two different colours with
red ones standing for positive numbers and black ones negative numbers.
The counters, simple as they appear, were employed by the ancients not only
to do the sums but also the extraction of square and cube roots, the solution of
equations of higher degrees and the calculation of pi.
It is estimated that counter sticks were widely used in China for 1,500
years until gradually replaced by the abacus about the 15th century during
the Ming Dynasty (1368--1644).
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