Taoism and Tea

[blackstar212]

Are there any writings about tea. Taoist writers.

 

Are tea and Taoism interrelated at all?

Edited August 25, 2016 by blackstar212

[StingingNettle]

I always associate Oolong tea with with Toaism.  

 

Though I admit I'm a big coffee person and not much of a tea drinker. 

Edited August 25, 2016 by StingingNettle

[blackstar212]

I always associate Oolong tea with with Toaism.  

 

Though I admit I'm a big coffee person and not much of a tea drinker.

How is oolong tea and Taoism associated in your opinion?

[Marblehead]

 

 

[Taomeow]

Are there any writings about tea. Taoist writers.

 

Are tea and Taoism interrelated at all?

 

The two comprehensive fundamental works on the subject are Lu Yu's "The Classic of Tea" ( written c.760-780) and Emperor Huizong's "The Treatise on Tea" (written in 1107).  I'm not aware of any English translations.  I've only read excerpts. 

 

Which convinced me that we have no idea what tea is.   E.g., a lot of rules concern different kinds of water that should or shouldn't be used to make tea.  The best is the water of slow, gentle brooks emerging from deep inside the earth at specific places, the second best is the water of slowly flowing mountain streams, the third...  and so on.  Water from man-made wells is considered inadequate.  Water polluted with chemicals is not mentioned.

 

To say nothing of all the rules for the tea itself.  Apparently the right kind had the attention of taoist medicine men and women  to a much greater extent than any other herb  -- e.g. there's many pages dedicated to tea in the Yellow Emperor's Classic, but only one or two about ginseng. 

 

Of course in China they weren't familiar with coffee.

[joeblast]

given that I'm a water snob, I can totally see that

[Wu Ming Jen]

When using tea leaves pour hot water over tea leaves 20 seconds pour water into drinking vessels to warm vessels and then pour out and discard.

 

Next pour hot water over tea steep 20 seconds now it is ready to place in cup and drink.

 

On Mount Wudang there are many ancient tea trees and teas made from them for different effects.

 

One tea I tried at a tea ceremony we where asked to drink the tea and then water. The water tasted sweet after drinking the tea.

 

A lot of beneficial things happening with tea that now the whole world knows what tea is.

 

But I guess that is what Taoist are all about saving this world from disrespectful and harmful acts against nature and man and to make humans healthy and harmonious with all things.

[StingingNettle]

How is oolong tea and Taoism associated in your opinion?

 

Honestly It was because my grand teacher in kung-fu drank it all the time. 

Edited August 26, 2016 by StingingNettle

[laughingblade]

I think the main reason for this association is that you couldn't get a decent espresso until well after 1900.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

I have done fairly exhaustive research on the topic of tea in classical Chinese writings and can say that there are no Daoist writings associated with tea, and that if one were to attempt to attach Cha Jing to Daoism or Buddhism, it would be a real stretch, since that book is mainly about production and preparation of tea, with very little esoteric or spiritual material.

 

Daoism and Buddhism factor hugely into poetry about tea though, and there are many "Pseudo-Daoist" tea poems, such as this one

 

 

一碗喉吻潤，
The first bowl wets my lips and throat
二碗破孤悶，
The second bowl dispels my suffering and loneliness
三碗搜枯腸，惟有文字五千卷。
The third bowl, I wrack my mind to explain... I only have the classic of five thousand words.
四碗發輕汗，平生不平事，盡向毛孔散。
The fourth bowl causes me to break into a light sweat. This is normal in life, but this is not a normal event. It emerges from all of my pours.
五碗肌骨清，
The fifth bowl cleans my muscles and marrow.
六碗通仙靈。
The sixth bowl connects me to the spirit of the immortals.
七碗吃不得也，唯覺兩腋習習清風生
The seventh bowl I can't stomach, I feel as though my two arms become habituated to flying on the light breeze.

 

 

 

I did a few other translations of similar poems which make the argument for tea as a type of waidan, but we need to take under consideration that Chinese poetry is flowery and exaggerated, so we shouldn't read too much into it.

 

There is a fellow in Taiwan who opened an Ashram where he claims to teach Zen through the art of Cha Dao (a modern Taiwanese tea ceremony, in effect).   I have seen some videos from his school and it looks more like a Neo-Theosophist earth goddess cult than any kind of traditional Buddhism or Daoism, but if you are interested in knowing the connection between tea and spirituality, he at least is the main person promoting these ideas.   I had a chance to ask in depth questions about Qi cultivation and tea ceremony from Zhou Yu, the founder of modern Taiwanese Cha Dao.  He said that tea produces Yuan Qi, but I disagree with him, since entry into the pre heaven state is a requirement for Yuan Qi to be Cultivated and not dormant.  Because drinking tea is a conscious activity, there really is not a chance to go to the pre heaven state.   I do believe that tea can help create flow of post heaven Qi through the major meridian systems, and Zhou Yu was kind enough to give us a sample of some wild wuyi tea from Pinglin which sent a huge amount of Qi up my du mai meridian and down the yinqiao meridian into my legs and feet.   We all broke out sweating after one sip, it was pretty real stuff.

 

I'm working on a course which discusses the relationship between tea and the five elements, but I will immediately own up to the fact that it is based on my own research and ideas, since there is no traditional Chinese literature talking about this subject in depth.

[Marblehead]

 

 

一碗喉吻潤，

The first bowl wets my lips and throat

二碗破孤悶，

The second bowl dispels my suffering and loneliness

三碗搜枯腸，惟有文字五千卷。

The third bowl, I wrack my mind to explain... I only have the classic of five thousand words.

四碗發輕汗，平生不平事，盡向毛孔散。

The fourth bowl causes me to break into a light sweat. This is normal in life, but this is not a normal event. It emerges from all of my pours.

五碗肌骨清，

The fifth bowl cleans my muscles and marrow.

六碗通仙靈。

The sixth bowl connects me to the spirit of the immortals.

七碗吃不得也，唯覺兩腋習習清風生

The seventh bowl I can't stomach, I feel as though my two arms become habituated to flying on the light breeze.

 

 

That sounds like he was writing about rice wine.

[Walker]

What he [sillybearhappyhoneyeater] said. I've heard Daoists scoff about the tea-and-Daoism connection more than once. One made a good point: all that fluid has to be qi-transformed--better to drink only when you're actually thirsty, and even then, just enough to wet the mouth. Otherwise your spleen yang has to do all that work transmogrifying the liquid, and we all know that the source of the spleen yang is the mingmen huo, and even though we'll never be sure if it's in the right kidney or betwixt the kidneys or simply up yo butt an around tha corna, we'd still better not douse our precious life sparks in Lipton's and Tetley's. Not that I follow that advice, especially if what I'm drinking comes from Mt Wuyi... Or Starbucks.

 

But also like Sillybear said, if you cultivate and you get the chance to sip some top notch tea, very interesting things can happen. Probably maybe best you can say is it's yet another gray area in Chinese cultivation like martial arts. Connected to Daoism? Yes, no, depends who's practicing and who's talking. Who's blowing air up a cow's ass (and how much said air fans the proverbial mingmen flames). You really gotta create a good seal and have lungs like Louis Armstrong if you wanna compete with an old guy in the park who wants--no, needs--you to know that Chinese people technically invented guided missiles 'cause they technically invented firecrackers. Moo. The friendly young ladies serving tea in Daoist temples ranging from the Shanghai Chenghuang Miao to the not-part-of-the-Daoist-association temples dotting the mountainsides of Wudang know no more about Daoism than the shallowest of ying-yang boilerplate. And in this fair land, nobody, not no nobody, wants to be bothered with much more than the comfortable, hypnotic drone of CCTV ying ying yang yang 5000 years 博大精深 boilerplate. So soothing, like standing stock-still and slack-jawed, two abreast on narrow escalators and just wuwei'ing the day away. 兩腳與肩同寬，雙目平視前方. On a conveniently located escalator, who isn't zhan zhuanging his potbellied way to heaven? It's only wayward laowais whose parents can't be shitted that there's a black sheep in the family cause there's too many kids to worry about who have the luxury of developing that fully-fledged neurosis we might call a case of the Dao Jones. Well, That's not true, there're weirdos of the Way here, too, but mostly they're middle-aged woman hypochondriacs who vibrate nervously as they recite their collective mantra, "那我怎麼辦呢，我不行啦." Ommmmm. If that's your type, weekend TCM lectures are your meat market.

 

Ah, but I regress. Anyway, honestly, when it comes to monastics and lay people who can brew a cup of "holy shit there's something fizzy fizzing at my K1 points," all the ones I can think of are Buddhists for some reason. Maybe because bestowing copious amounts of expensive leaf upon baldheads is a common habit among the faithful here. The topknots definitely don't get as many cool presents. Or maybe more of the ones who like stuff are just less shy about taking booze and cigarettes, so they get that instead. But it's a fact: baldies get way more stuff on Christmas than man-buns. Then again, perhaps it's they don't blow their bar mitzvah money on baijiu and socks-you-wear-on-the-outside-of-your-trousers, and instead build massive edifices where you can come and give them more bar mitzvah money. Which is pretty smart. But how will we ever know the reeaaalll truth, Mr Verdesi? We won't. So let's shutting the fuck and 吃茶去.

 

Wu Ming Jen... I know that magical Wudang tea. Cool effect, and never been a poorly received gift when I've blessed a friend with a canister. It'll even make a cigarette taste sweet, dontchakno. But a couple years back a Zixiaogong nun told me that all along even they didn't know that actually that's some chemical sprayed on those leaves to give them the little white markings, and the effect. She was adamant and made me promise to stop gifting it on the unsuspecting, so I stopped buying it just in case. Supposedly only Wudang is home to this rarefied treasure, but two-three years ago in the Purple Bamboo Park in Beijing stalls were hawking the exact same damn thing, except this time it was some magical tea belonging to some other far flung land of immortals and wispy beards. Ah, China, how I love you.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Walker

[Taomeow]

I was served tea by a practicing taoist traditionalist in China on several occasions.  A complete ceremony beginning to end, but with zero attention drawn to it -- we were talking about things completely unrelated to tea.  The effortless precision of what he was doing dawned on me only at the third occasion, because at the first two I thought he was being sloppy, spilling water all over the tray, the tea pot, and the tea pet (part of the ceremony, in this case a funny, very conceited-looking yixing clay frog).   The spilled water was then being mopped up with a large calligraphy brush and pressed out over some receptacle.  By the third ceremony someone explained to me that yixing clay needs to be splashed with water or tea ideally every day, and at least once a week, if it is to last for thousands of years, so he was doing this on purpose. 

 

Once I knew, I paid closer attention to his "sloppiness" and saw something else -- a precise hand and a carefree mind.  His way of serving tea was similar to his way of playing the guzheng, doing calligraphy, practicing  taiji, or sticking needles into patients.  Excellent kung fu!   I thought the ceremony was very very taoist, though not a word was said about any connections.  It was a doing of taoism.  My favorite kind.  Oh, and the tea was delicious.  

[Taomeow]

that fully-fledged neurosis we might call a case of the Dao Jones.

 

Priceless!

[joeblast]

dragon's tea-stained chin grin

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

What he [sillybearhappyhoneyeater] said. I've heard Daoists scoff about the tea-and-Daoism connection more than once. One made a good point: all that fluid has to be qi-transformed--better to drink only when you're actually thirsty, and even then, just enough to wet the mouth. Otherwise your spleen yang has to do all that work transmogrifying the liquid, and we all know that the source of the spleen yang is the mingmen huo, and even though we'll never be sure if it's in the right kidney or betwixt the kidneys or simply up yo butt an around tha corna, we'd still better not douse our precious life sparks in Lipton's and Tetley's. Not that I follow that advice, especially if what I'm drinking comes from Mt Wuyi... Or Starbucks.

 

But also like Sillybear said, if you cultivate and you get the chance to sip some top notch tea, very interesting things can happen. Probably maybe best you can say is it's yet another gray area in Chinese cultivation like martial arts. Connected to Daoism? Yes, no, depends who's practicing and who's talking. Who's blowing air up a cow's ass (and how much said air fans the proverbial mingmen flames). You really gotta create a good seal and have lungs like Louis Armstrong if you wanna compete with an old guy in the park who wants--no, needs--you to know that Chinese people technically invented guided missiles 'cause they technically invented firecrackers. Moo. The friendly young ladies serving tea in Daoist temples ranging from the Shanghai Chenghuang Miao to the not-part-of-the-Daoist-association temples dotting the mountainsides of Wudang know no more about Daoism than the shallowest of ying-yang boilerplate. And in this fair land, nobody, not no nobody, wants to be bothered with much more than the comfortable, hypnotic drone of CCTV ying ying yang yang 5000 years 博大精深 boilerplate. So soothing, like standing stock-still and slack-jawed, two abreast on narrow escalators and just wuwei'ing the day away. 兩腳與肩同寬，雙目平視前方. On a conveniently located escalator, who isn't zhan zhuanging his potbellied way to heaven? It's only wayward laowais whose parents can't be shitted that there's a black sheep in the family cause there's too many kids to worry about who have the luxury of developing that fully-fledged neurosis we might call a case of the Dao Jones. Well, That's not true, there're weirdos of the Way here, too, but mostly they're middle-aged woman hypochondriacs who vibrate nervously as they recite their collective mantra, "那我怎麼辦呢，我不行啦." Ommmmm. If that's your type, weekend TCM lectures are your meat market.

 

Ah, but I regress. Anyway, honestly, when it comes to monastics and lay people who can brew a cup of "holy shit there's something fizzy fizzing at my K1 points," all the ones I can think of are Buddhists for some reason. Maybe because bestowing copious amounts of expensive leaf upon baldheads is a common habit among the faithful here. The topknots definitely don't get as many cool presents. Or maybe more of the ones who like stuff are just less shy about taking booze and cigarettes, so they get that instead. But it's a fact: baldies get way more stuff on Christmas than man-buns. Then again, perhaps it's they don't blow their bar mitzvah money on baijiu and socks-you-wear-on-the-outside-of-your-trousers, and instead build massive edifices where you can come and give them more bar mitzvah money. Which is pretty smart. But how will we ever know the reeaaalll truth, Mr Verdesi? We won't. So let's shutting the fuck and 吃茶去.

 

Wu Ming Jen... I know that magical Wudang tea. Cool effect, and never been a poorly received gift when I've blessed a friend with a canister. It'll even make a cigarette taste sweet, dontchakno. But a couple years back a Zixiaogong nun told me that all along even they didn't know that actually that's some chemical sprayed on those leaves to give them the little white markings, and the effect. She was adamant and made me promise to stop gifting it on the unsuspecting, so I stopped buying it just in case. Supposedly only Wudang is home to this rarefied treasure, but two-three years ago in the Purple Bamboo Park in Beijing stalls were hawking the exact same damn thing, except this time it was some magical tea belonging to some other far flung land of immortals and wispy beards. Ah, China, how I love you.

 

Walker, dude, you have China stress big time!!!  Go on a holiday for a bit!!  May I suggest Taiwan?  It is like watered down China with a little Japan. Most of the girls are butt ugly so you won't have anywhere to spend your jing and you can go up on a mountain in Lugu Fenghuan Nei Hu district and enjoy the best sunset in the known world.

If I wasn't literally tied to China by the leg, I would run away to taiwan right away and stay there.

 

 

OTOH, I am not where near as cynical about Chinese as you are!   Living in a small town with old culture has really helped me get over how stupid Shanghai is, and even see some of the benefits of living there.   I love China, although obviously I also get China rage and want to die or kill quite often 

[Walker]

Hahaha, I so want to disagree with you and pretend I'm floating around Beijing on a purple cloud of bliss (not 'bis), but seeing as I just had an 8am parking lot run-in with BUCM's infuriating 窝囊废 of a 院长, I can't even front. I do need another damn vacay. Even a cup of Yogi Tea blessed by a level 9 reiki master and fortified with maca and sacred geometry napkins and cucumber sandwiches ain't gonna help. Although, to tie this all back to the OP, now that would be a cup of tea worthy of a Daoist.

[Marblehead]

Well, I just searched The Chuang Tzu (Burton Watson translation) and tea was never mentioned.

[blackstar212]

I have done fairly exhaustive research on the topic of tea in classical Chinese writings and can say that there are no Daoist writings associated with tea, and that if one were to attempt to attach Cha Jing to Daoism or Buddhism, it would be a real stretch, since that book is mainly about production and preparation of tea, with very little esoteric or spiritual material.

 

Daoism and Buddhism factor hugely into poetry about tea though, and there are many "Pseudo-Daoist" tea poems, such as this one

 

 

一碗喉吻潤，

The first bowl wets my lips and throat

二碗破孤悶，

The second bowl dispels my suffering and loneliness

三碗搜枯腸，惟有文字五千卷。

The third bowl, I wrack my mind to explain... I only have the classic of five thousand words.

四碗發輕汗，平生不平事，盡向毛孔散。

The fourth bowl causes me to break into a light sweat. This is normal in life, but this is not a normal event. It emerges from all of my pours.

五碗肌骨清，

The fifth bowl cleans my muscles and marrow.

六碗通仙靈。

The sixth bowl connects me to the spirit of the immortals.

七碗吃不得也，唯覺兩腋習習清風生

The seventh bowl I can't stomach, I feel as though my two arms become habituated to flying on the light breeze.

 

 

 

I did a few other translations of similar poems which make the argument for tea as a type of waidan, but we need to take under consideration that Chinese poetry is flowery and exaggerated, so we shouldn't read too much into it.

 

There is a fellow in Taiwan who opened an Ashram where he claims to teach Zen through the art of Cha Dao (a modern Taiwanese tea ceremony, in effect).   I have seen some videos from his school and it looks more like a Neo-Theosophist earth goddess cult than any kind of traditional Buddhism or Daoism, but if you are interested in knowing the connection between tea and spirituality, he at least is the main person promoting these ideas.   I had a chance to ask in depth questions about Qi cultivation and tea ceremony from Zhou Yu, the founder of modern Taiwanese Cha Dao.  He said that tea produces Yuan Qi, but I disagree with him, since entry into the pre heaven state is a requirement for Yuan Qi to be Cultivated and not dormant.  Because drinking tea is a conscious activity, there really is not a chance to go to the pre heaven state.   I do believe that tea can help create flow of post heaven Qi through the major meridian systems, and Zhou Yu was kind enough to give us a sample of some wild wuyi tea from Pinglin which sent a huge amount of Qi up my du mai meridian and down the yinqiao meridian into my legs and feet.   We all broke out sweating after one sip, it was pretty real stuff.

 

I'm working on a course which discusses the relationship between tea and the five elements, but I will immediately own up to the fact that it is based on my own research and ideas, since there is no traditional Chinese literature talking about this subject in depth.

What relationships have you noticed so far between tea and the five elements?

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

The relationships are numerous,

one big thing is the production process from sun, rain, earth, plucking impliments, processing, packaging etc.

Another is the type of tea, since each tea has multiple elements contained within its physical aspect, workmanship and so on.

The way we pour tea also has five elements and bagua etc...

Finally, the effect of tea on the body also has five elements.  

it is quite deep

[blackstar212]

The relationships are numerous,

one big thing is the production process from sun, rain, earth, plucking impliments, processing, packaging etc.

Another is the type of tea, since each tea has multiple elements contained within its physical aspect, workmanship and so on.

The way we pour tea also has five elements and bagua etc...

Finally, the effect of tea on the body also has five elements.  

it is quite deep

Thank you I am interested in these relationships so if you wish to post some as you discover or find them in detail I would appreciate it.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

I can talk about it to some extent, but of course the course that I teach is a source of revenue for me, so I can't be posting the ideas too publicly, since it is a conflict of interest with my students (IE: they would be offended that I was just giving away the materials they payed their own money to study).  I hope you understand 

[blackstar212]

I can talk about it to some extent, but of course the course that I teach is a source of revenue for me, so I can't be posting the ideas too publicly, since it is a conflict of interest with my students (IE: they would be offended that I was just giving away the materials they payed their own money to study).  I hope you understand 

oh of course thank you for sharing what you able