Session 12—Fri, Sep 23: Non-Han tea culture practices

Topics

❖ Mid-Tang China (8th c.) ① — Tea manuals: Cha jing basics and the philosophy behind the work

• Tea Classic (Cha jing, ca. 760-761) by Lu Yu
• Yin-yang concepts, including the five elements
  

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

The Cha jing (and I will call it this, not by its English title) is the "go to" classical for all major treatises on tea that came later. It is foundational and occurpies the top spot with regard to establishing or founding tea traditions in China (and Japan for that matter). Read it carefully. No oather tea manual will get as much scrutiny from us.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Read up until "Notations" (so about the first half of the pdf file): Tea Classic (Cha jing, 760) Lu Yu [bSpace, PDF]

Multimedia notes

❖ None.

Links

⇢ Cha jing in Chinese (Project Gutenberg): here

⇢First three chapters of Cha jing in English at Qing Tea (also incorporated into the pdf reader on bSpace): here

Other

None.

Links to each session page