Tea Drinking In The Late-Ming Period

Differed ways to consume tea resulted in different ways of using tea wares. Compared to the typical way of tea drinking in the late-Ming period, the process of tea-tasting in the Tang and Song dynasties were much more complicated. The complication implied that tea connoisseurs in the Ming era had drastically simplified the tea vessels they often used, as well as the whole procedure of tea tasting. The understandings of Tang-style tea drinking have been significantly transformed by the re-apparition of one set of the Tang imperial tea wares, which had been found in 1987 in the crypt under the pagoda at the Famen Monastery about 140 kilometers west of the Tang capital Chang’an. This series of metalwork tea wares include two lidded baskets, a tea brazier (stove), a pair of fire tongs, a silver-gilt spoon, a silver measure, a silver-gilt canister, a tea grinder, a silver-gilt tea sieve, a salt container, and a silver turtle shaped tea powder container. Through the inscriptions on the bottom of some utensils, we are able to know that they were made in the imperial workshop in 869. Furthermore, some inscriptions on these tea instruments also have indicated the name of the emperor who donated them. In addition, these tea wares were decorated with symbolic patterns in Buddhism, such as “lotus flowers,
The water for tea is heated in a round cauldron on a brazier, and at the first boil, described as “fish eyes,” a pinch of salt is added to it. At the second boil, known as “strung pearls,” one reserves a dipperful of the boiling water. At the third boil, one should introduce the powdered tea into a small whirlpool in the cauldron created by rapidly stirring the water with the tongs. Then, the tea is served by ladling it out into bowls, each topped with a generous amount of