The Book of Tea | Page 6

tea of this great master.
In the Sung dynasty the whipped tea came into fashion and created the
second school of Tea. The leaves were ground to fine powder in a small
stone mill, and the preparation was whipped in hot water by a delicate
whisk made of split bamboo. The new process led to some change in
the tea-equipage of Luwuh, as well as in the choice of leaves. Salt was
discarded forever. The enthusiasm of the Sung people for tea knew no
bounds. Epicures vied with each other in discovering new varieties, and
regular tournaments were held to decide their superiority. The Emperor
Kiasung (1101-1124), who was too great an artist to be a well-behaved
monarch, lavished his treasures on the attainment of rare species. He
himself wrote a dissertation on the twenty kinds of tea, among which
he prizes the "white tea" as of the rarest and finest quality.
The tea-ideal of the Sungs differed from the Tangs even as their notion
of life differed. They sought to actualize what their predecessors tried
to symbolise. To the Neo-Confucian mind the cosmic law was not
reflected in the phenomenal world, but the phenomenal world was the
cosmic law itself. Aeons were but moments--Nirvana always within
grasp. The Taoist conception that immortality lay in the eternal change
permeated all their modes of thought. It was the process, not the deed,
which was interesting. It was the completing, not the completion,
which was really vital. Man came thus at once face to face with nature.
A new meaning grew into the art of life. The tea began to be not a
poetical pastime, but one of the methods of self-realisation.
Wangyucheng eulogised tea as "flooding his soul like a direct appeal,
that its delicate bitterness reminded him of the aftertaste of a good
counsel." Sotumpa wrote of the strength of the immaculate purity in tea

which defied corruption as a truly virtuous man. Among the Buddhists,
the southern Zen sect, which incorporated so much of Taoist doctrines,
formulated an elaborate ritual of tea. The monks gathered before the
image of Bodhi Dharma and drank tea out of a single bowl with the
profound formality of a holy sacrament. It was this Zen ritual which
finally developed into the Tea-ceremony of Japan in the fifteenth
century.
Unfortunately the sudden outburst of the Mongol tribes in the thirteenth
century which resulted in the devastation and conquest of China under
the barbaric rule of the Yuen Emperors, destroyed all the fruits of Sung
culture. The native dynasty of the Mings which attempted
re-nationalisation in the middle of the fifteenth century was harassed by
internal troubles, and China again fell under the alien rule of the
Manchus in the seventeenth century. Manners and customs changed to
leave no vestige of the former times. The powdered tea is entirely
forgotten. We find a Ming commentator at loss to recall the shape of
the tea whisk mentioned in one of the Sung classics. Tea is now taken
by steeping the leaves in hot water in a bowl or cup. The reason why
the Western world is innocent of the older method of drinking tea is
explained by the fact that Europe knew it only at the close of the Ming
dynasty.
To the latter-day Chinese tea is a delicious beverage, but not an ideal.
The long woes of his country have robbed him of the zest for the
meaning of life. He has become modern, that is to say, old and
disenchanted. He has lost that sublime faith in illusions which
constitutes the eternal youth and vigour of the poets and ancients. He is
an eclectic and politely accepts the traditions of the universe. He toys
with Nature, but does not condescend to conquer or worship her. His
Leaf-tea is often wonderful with its flower-like aroma, but the romance
of the Tang and Sung ceremonials are not to be found in his cup.
Japan, which followed closely on the footsteps of Chinese civilisation,
has known the tea in all its three stages. As early as the year 729 we
read of the Emperor Shomu giving tea to one hundred monks at his
palace in Nara. The leaves were probably imported by our ambassadors

to the Tang Court and prepared in the way then in fashion. In 801 the
monk Saicho brought back some seeds and planted them in Yeisan.
Many tea-gardens are heard of in succeeding centuries, as well as the
delight of the aristocracy and priesthood in the beverage. The Sung tea
reached us in 1191 with the return of Yeisai-zenji, who went there to
study the southern Zen school. The new seeds which he carried home
were successfully planted in three places, one of which, the Uji district
near Kioto, bears still the name of producing