A Tea Reader (5 page)

Ode on Tea

BY
K
IEN
-L
ONG
, E
MPEROR OF
C
HINA AND
T
ARTARY FROM
1735–1796

Written in 1746. Translated/published in the
Public Advertiser
,
March 9, 1772.
¹

How tenderly striking to the Eye, is the Flower
Mey-hoa
!
²

How sweet the Scent exhaled from the delicate Plant of
Fo-tchow
!
³

How aromatic the Flavor of the invitingly odorous Fruit of the Pine
⁴

Song-tchow
!

Three admirable Gifts of Nature these,

For Pleasure to the Sight, the Smell, and Taste! With these at hand; let there upon a moderate Fire,

Stand placed a tripod Boiler,

Well fashion'd, and whose Color shall attest its seasoning for Service:

Filled with the limpid Water of melted Snow

When it shall have boil'd just to the Heat,

That serves to whiten the Flakes of the finny Tribes
⁵

Or redden the black Shell of the coated Kind;
⁶

Then, into a Cup of the rare Porcelain of
Yvay,
⁷

Pour it on the fragrant Leaves of the Tea tree;

Let it stand ‘till the fervent Steam

That will, at first, have risen, like a thick Cloud,

Shall have evaporated to a thin Mist:

Then may you, leisurely, sip the fine-flavor'd Liquor;

Nothing more powerful to dispel any of those Uneasinesses,

That may have proceeded from their five Causes;

Then may you regale your Smell and Taste;

But inexpressible is the placid Calm,

That steals upon the Senses, from that virtuous Infusion. Deliver'd, for a while, from the Tumult of Affairs,

I find myself, at length, alone in my Tent;

Restor'd to the Power of enjoying myself, at Liberty. In one Hand, I take the Fruit of the
Fo-tchow
,

Just by Way of Relish;

In the other, I hold the Cup,

From the Contents of which, the vaporous Mist sent up,

Invitingly hovers on the Surface;

As I sip the Tea,

I now and then cast a delighted Eye,

On the Flower
Mey-hoa
.

Then it is that I give a Loose to my Thoughts;

They naturally, of themselves, and without Effort,

Turn to the Sages of Antiquity.
⁸
I love to represent to myself the famous
Oot-fu-eng

Whose sole Food was the Fruit of the Pine
Song-tchow
,

In the midst of this primitive Frugality He enjoy'd himself in Peace;

In Emulation of him,

I put some Kernels in my Mouth,

And find them delicious. With Imagination's Eye,

Then next I see the virtuous
Lin-foo
,

Pruning and trimming up the Leaves,

Of the flower
Mey-hoa
;

Thus it was, say I to myself, that that great Man,

Indulg'd his Mind with some Relaxation;

A Mind fatigu'd with intense Meditation,

On the most important Objects;

I apply myself then to the Flower
Mey-hoa
,

And fancy myself, with
Lin-foo
,
arranging the Leaves,

And giving to the Plant the most pleasing Form. From
Lin-foo
I, mentally, make Transition

To
Ttchao-tcheoo
,
and
Yu-tchuang
,

I think I see the
first
having before him,

Various Cups with various teas,

Affectedly sipping and tasting of each:

The
other
I figure to myself drinking churlishly,

The most exquisitely fine Tea,

Without any Distinction of its Flavor,

From that of the coarsest Sort

Be neither of these Extremes mine. But, hark!—I hear the Martial Music

Already announce the Evening.

The reviving Freshness of the Night is coming on

Already the Moonshine entering at the Windows of my Tent

Throws a pleasing Light,

On the Military Simplicity of its Furniture.

I feel myself free from Fatigue, free from Uneasiness,

My stomach relieve'd and unoppress'd;

With my Spirits clear, I may then

Deliver myself up to sweet Repose.

In this Mood it was, that, with but a small Talent for Poetry

I wrote these Lines, in the First of the Spring

Of the tenth Month of the
Ping-yu
Year of my Reign.

1
[Certain British spellings have been amended. Ed.]

2
May refer to plum blossoms
(
Mei Hua
)
. It is the national flower of the Taiwan. Translated elsewhere as
Mei-hoa
and
M-i-hoa
.

3
Possible reference to
Fo Shou
tea, aka Buddha's Hand, a Wuyi
oolong
tea. Also translated as
Fo-choea
,
Fo-ch ou
,
and
Fo-cheou
.

4
“Fruit of the pine” are, perhaps, pine nuts.

5
Hot enough to cook a fish, turning its meat to white.

6
Other translations say “reddening the crustaceous kind.” Hot enough to cook a lobster, turning its shell from black to red.

7
Yué in other translations. Refers to the Yue Kiln of Zhejiang Province, one of the most important sites for the creation of celadon porcelain in China.

8
In the next parts of the ode, Kien-Long imagines how various Chinese “Sages of Antiquity,” philosophers of the past, would experience his current setting. He discusses
Oot-fu-eng
(also written as
Ou-tfuen
)
,
Lin-foo
(also
Lin-fou
)
,
Ttchao-Tcheoo
(also
Tchaotcheon
)
, and
Yu-tchuang
(also
Yu-tchou
or
Yu-tchouan
)
.

Tea to Last Lifetimes

BY
A
ARON
F
ISHER

“It is obvious that the life of action will be shallow indeed if it does not go hand in hand with an interior spiritual life wherefrom the strength and vision needed for action are drawn.”

—
Alan Watts

One of the most amazing experiences of my life happened when my whole family, including my very aged grandfather and great uncle, came to visit me in Taiwan. I took the whole group to see a tea master. The eight of them sat around the table chit-chatting about how exotic the tea room was, with its walls and walls of tea, waterfalls, and bonsai trees. Eventually, my teacher passed me a sly grin and reached behind him to a jar of very old
pu-erh
tea. Brewing the deep and dark liquor—leaves ancient and wise, connected to the spirit of Nature—changed the entire atmosphere of the room. Within minutes, it was enshrouded in a deep and peaceful silence, only the waterfall singing in the background. For the next two hours, I sat with my family in complete quiet, connected to one another as never before: Never in my entire life before that day had my family and I ever sat in quiet; never had we been so close.

My mother wept with joy; my grandfather cried too, saying later that he felt the presence of my then recently departed grandmother. The power that tea can have—the life-changing presence and connection that it may offer when prepared in the right environment—became clearer to me than ever before. I share this experience, so personal, to show that one need not be a saint, a meditator, or even a tea lover to experience the profundity of what a tea ceremony steeped in the Tao can offer.

In this day and age, loud and cluttered, a drop or two of quiet emptiness is forceful enough to make the average person weep. Nothing is needed more. When we study the history of tea, we find such sweeping statements as “for thousands of years tea was medicine to Chinese people,” as if this somehow even approximated a description of the largest part of man's relationship with this majestic plant. Authors often begin where the brush first touches paper, feeling more comfortable standing on historically verifiable ground. It takes a greater affinity with the Leaf to approach the much larger substrata of pre-history. Sure, it's true that tea was “medicine” for thousands of years before it was ever a commodity, social pleasure, or hobby. But that word, at least in English, is a bit misleading. It was “medicine” in the way that Native Americans use that word: “healing” or “with spiritual presence/power.”

In the beginning, tea was eaten and steeped by aboriginal shamans who used it to heal, to inspire meditation and to commune with divinities. Some of the earliest references to tea are as offerings to spirits and as a part of rituals to communicate with them. Slowly, over time, the steeped leaf became an essential brew in the life of Taoist mendicants. These hermits sought out wild bushes, claiming that tea was an ingredient in the “Morning Dew,” which was the elixir of life and key to immortality. They drank tea for health, to clarify the mind, and to promote meditation as well as transmission from master to student.

From martial arts to mathematics, the tradition of student and teacher sharing tea continues even today. If the student brews the tea and the master accepts, it is also an acceptance of the student into the lineage. More poignantly, when the master brews tea and presents it to the student there is a direct transmission of what Eastern mystics believe to be an ineffable wisdom, only available to experience. What could be more symbolic than the master brewing his mind into a bowl, which the student then consumes, taking that wisdom into himself?

When Buddhism came to China, it was heavily influenced by indigenous shamanism and Taoism. Anthropologists call such blending of beliefs “syncretism,” suggesting that newfound systems never completely replace the old ways, but rather blend, forming new traditions. No doubt, the first Buddhists arriving from India and Tibet were served tea by the local Taoist masters, and found much concordance in their mutual appreciation for quiet, meditation, and completion through Nature. Very soon after, tea was incorporated into the lives of the burgeoning monasteries. In fact, every single tea mountain in China is also home to a famous monastery. Sometimes the monks brought the trees, for they were indeed the first farmers; but more often, they built their monasteries on mountains where wild tea bushes grew. Tea drinking, offerings, and ceremonies were recorded as part of their monastic code, and such an essential part of the Buddhist life that when Japanese monks first came to the mainland to study and carry Buddhism back to their homeland, they couldn't do so without also bringing knowledge of tea—production, preparation, and even seeds and saplings to plant. They said, “The taste of tea is the taste of Zen, and there is no understanding of one without the other.”

Primarily it was in the Tang dynasty that the royalty and literati were first introduced to tea during their visits to monasteries. They wished to take tea home and perhaps recapture the quietude that had transformed them on the mountain. Slowly, tea was commoditized, heralding new farming techniques, trades and eventually tea houses, private brewing for pleasure and all the other well-documented migrations of tea throughout Asia and beyond to the West. No matter what reason you've found a love for tea, it is important to remember tea's heritage, which is ultimately Nature itself; passing beyond the Buddhist to the Taoist and their steaming bowls, past the early sha-mans, we come at last to eons and eons of simple trees in the forests of southern China, silent and undisturbed by man.

To many it may seem almost like a fairy tale that those Taoist mystics cloudwalking around ancient China were able to find a sense of oneness, transcendence and connection to the universal energy when today people all over the world drink tea all the time and never get close to those sensations. My experience with my family that day proved to me that it doesn't take much for us to find a sense of tranquility and completion through tea: just provide a quiet space with a bit of respect for tea and people can change. I'd say it was strange if I hadn't seen it happen so many times. In an age of flurrying activity, some ancient stillness is needed more than ever. Rather than sweeping your tea into the hustle and bustle of your normal workday, why not try taking the time to slow down and have a cup of quiet? Aren't you a part of the same world those sages dwelt in? When asked to share a tea memory, I found myself passing through the experience I had with my family to the realization that I was connected to the same world all those who have ever practiced
Cha Dao
were connected to. Sharing in an ancient tradition of
Cha Dao
,
I share all my elders' tea memories as my own. As you drink your tea, are you too feeling as they felt? Do the forests not soothe your soul in the same way? Perhaps we need not ask. A sip is enough. Our breath warmed, we return to the mountain hermitage of the heart.