Session 19: Song China ①: Tea practices 1

Topics

❖ Introductory comments
◊ Tea cultivation
◊ Tealeaf crafting
❖ Imperial tribute tea
◊ Extra-country trade

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

From the most general of perspectives, the 300 years or so of the Song dynasty saw many changes in tea at all levels. Among these of particular note the lead role that imperial patronage takes in enhancing, regulating and taxing tea cultivation and this, together with weakened Buddhist institutions, in some ways would seem to shift the focus from religious institutions to government ones. However, from our perspective, which is the regional developments of tea culture, tea as it is being developed within Buddhist institutions is the tea that Japanese visiting monks will encounter and learn and bring back to Japan in the late 1100s. Nevertheless, imperial patronage stimulates tealeaf crafting (in particular the imperial love for white tea, in a "true" powdered form—the powdered tea that will be the basis for the Japanese tea ceremony), tea cake making (smaller, more beauitful, with emboss designs an area of artistic competition), and tea contests (for selection as imperial tribute tea and for entertainment—imperial tribute tea competitions also stimulate teaware design including striking black ware meant to show off beauitfully the white froth of competition tea). The Jianzhou region of Fujian province becomes the preeminent tea-producing area. All imperial tributes teas are located somewhere in Fujian though tea is being produced in nearly all provinces of China by this time.

Widespread production and consumption of tea supports the full development of teahouses and it is in conjunction, in part, with the entertainment provided at these houses that important developments in Chinese literature and theater occur.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Song notes [bSpace, PDF] *You are invited to print this out before class and use it as a base document for note-taking. Please check back, however, to see if a new version was published just before or perhaps after the session (but in time for a test). — These notes cover the several sessions. Compare the topics stated on this session page with the actual progress in class to get a sense for how much to read ahead of time and/or printe out to bring to class. (Printing out all the notes once at the beginning might not be the best option since there is a likelihood that they will be updated as I prepare or complete lectures. The Song lecture support notes are less complete than most other support notes.

✓ Whisking clip movie [bSpace, MOV]

Multimedia notes

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Links

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Other

Map

Links to each session page

Sun, Sept 1, 2013: I am migrating this site to a new site. It takes time. During this transition, there are two ways to access a particular day's web page. You can start with the new EA109 Fall 2013 Course Guide page, our official top page. It will take you directly to the new pages and redirect to old pages when necessary. Or you can use the below chart. It will take you directly to the day's session page—the new one when it exists, the old one when it has yet to be migrated. Greenhighlight means the new page exists. Sorry for the dust and mess during construction!