The Book of Tea | Page 4

rainbow in her magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese
sky. But it is told that Niuka forgot to fill two tiny crevices in the blue
firmament. Thus began the dualism of love--two souls rolling through
space and never at rest until they join together to complete the universe.
Everyone has to build anew his sky of hope and peace.
The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean
struggle for wealth and power. The world is groping in the shadow of
egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience,
benevolence practiced for the sake of utility. The East and the West,
like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the
jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we
await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The
afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling
with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us
dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.

II. The Schools of Tea.
Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest
qualities. We have good and bad tea, as we have good and bad
paintings--generally the latter. There is no single recipe for making the
perfect tea, as there are no rules for producing a Titian or a Sesson.
Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity
with water and heat, its own method of telling a story. The truly
beautiful must always be in it. How much do we not suffer through the
constant failure of society to recognise this simple and fundamental law
of art and life; Lichilai, a Sung poet, has sadly remarked that there were
three most deplorable things in the world: the spoiling of fine youths
through false education, the degradation of fine art through vulgar
admiration, and the utter waste of fine tea through incompetent
manipulation.

Like Art, Tea has its periods and its schools. Its evolution may be
roughly divided into three main stages: the Boiled Tea, the Whipped
Tea, and the Steeped Tea. We moderns belong to the last school. These
several methods of appreciating the beverage are indicative of the spirit
of the age in which they prevailed. For life is an expression, our
unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought.
Confucius said that "man hideth not." Perhaps we reveal ourselves too
much in small things because we have so little of the great to conceal.
The tiny incidents of daily routine are as much a commentary of racial
ideals as the highest flight of philosophy or poetry. Even as the
difference in favorite vintage marks the separate idiosyncrasies of
different periods and nationalities of Europe, so the Tea-ideals
characterise the various moods of Oriental culture. The Cake-tea which
was boiled, the Powdered-tea which was whipped, the Leaf-tea which
was steeped, mark the distinct emotional impulses of the Tang, the
Sung, and the Ming dynasties of China. If we were inclined to borrow
the much-abused terminology of art-classification, we might designate
them respectively, the Classic, the Romantic, and the Naturalistic
schools of Tea.
The tea-plant, a native of southern China, was known from very early
times to Chinese botany and medicine. It is alluded to in the classics
under the various names of Tou, Tseh, Chung, Kha, and Ming, and was
highly prized for possessing the virtues of relieving fatigue, delighting
the soul, strengthening the will, and repairing the eyesight. It was not
only administered as an internal dose, but often applied externally in
form of paste to alleviate rheumatic pains. The Taoists claimed it as an
important ingredient of the elixir of immortality. The Buddhists used it
extensively to prevent drowsiness during their long hours of
meditation.
By the fourth and fifth centuries Tea became a favourite beverage
among the inhabitants of the Yangtse-Kiang valley. It was about this
time that modern ideograph Cha was coined, evidently a corruption of
the classic Tou. The poets of the southern dynasties have left some
fragments of their fervent adoration of the "froth of the liquid jade."
Then emperors used to bestow some rare preparation of the leaves on

their high ministers as a reward for eminent services. Yet the method of
drinking tea at this stage was primitive in the extreme. The leaves were
steamed, crushed in a mortar, made into a cake, and boiled together
with rice, ginger, salt, orange peel, spices, milk, and sometimes with
onions! The custom obtains at the present day among the Thibetans and
various Mongolian tribes, who make a curious syrup of these
ingredients. The use of lemon slices by the Russians, who learned to
take tea from the Chinese