Lu Yu: The Story of the Tea Sage
Today, we are going to talk about how a little orphan boy who lived during the Tang Dynasty rose to become the most renown tea master in Chinese history as well as author of the world’s first comprehensive written account on cultivating, preparing, and drinking tea.
Official statistics show that total tea production around the world amounted to 6.27 million tons in 2020 with China’s tea production accounting for nearly 3 million tons of that, ranking it first in the world. To be specific, China’s tea production accounted for 47.63 percent of the total volume worldwide, and Chinese tea exports accounted for 19.14 percent of the world’s total.
When tracing the ancient origin of tea culture, it’s unavoidable to mention a man named Lu Yu who is widely acclaimed as the master sage of tea.
According to legend, it was on a cold winter morning in Tianmen of central China’s Hubei Province during the Tang Dynasty in year 733 when a Buddhist monk named Zhi Ji from the Longgai Monastery heard the panicked honking of wild geese. The sound sent shivers down his spine, so he followed the noise and found a flock of wild geese under a bridge. The geese were gathered around a helpless infant and spreading their wings out widely to protect him from the bitter chill. Moved with pity, the monk showed mercy on the child and carried it back to the monastery.
When choosing a name for the baby, it is said that Zhi Ji consulted the Book of Changes, and the divinatory symbols read, “wild geese rose from the waters onto the land, and their feathers could be used for ceremonies.” So, the monk named the baby Lu Yu – Lu for land, Yu for feathers. It was there at the monastery that Lu Yu began to learn Buddhist scriptures and more significantly, the art of tea.
At that time, tea drinking had already developed into a nationwide cultural tradition, and its popularity can be attributed to the extensive practice of Zen Buddhism. While practicing meditation, Buddhist monks were strictly prohibited from eating or sleeping, so they drank tea to fend off hunger and drowsiness. Over time, many monks became tea connoisseurs.
However, the tea served during Lu Yu’s time was not what we know it to be today. The earliest method of preparing tea was zhu cha, or boiled tea. With this method, fermented tea leaves were blended with rice and baked into a tea cake. The tea cake was then ground into powder, which was further boiled with water and seasoned with salt, ginger, citrus peel, and other ingredients into a thick concoction of tea soup. During the Tang Dynasty, a more elaborate type developed called jian cha, or cooked tea, which involved boiling the tea twice with seasonings added during the second boil. It was not until some 700 hundred years later in the Ming Dynasty that tea consumption began to resemble what it looks like today – a dried, loose-leaf tea steeped in boiling water inside a teapot.
Now going back to Lu Yu’s story, he helped prepare tea for the monks since his early childhood. As the years passed, he developed a great interest in brewing tea, but he had no interest at all in becoming a monk. In fact, Zhi Ji was so annoyed by his unwillingness to convert to Buddhism that he assigned him to do tedious manual labor hoping it would get him to repent – things like sweeping the grounds, cleaning the toilets, doing maintenance around the temple, and feeding some 30 head of cattle.
But, Lu Yu did not buckle under the pressure. In fact, he developed a stronger desire to read and write, but with no paper available, he would practice writing on the backs of cattle using bamboo sticks and mud. At the age of twelve, he fled the monastery literally running away to join the circus. He made a living by performing as a clown in a troupe, a job with the lowest social regard at the time.
Lu Yu was not a good-looking boy, and he spoke with a mild stutter. But those shortcomings worked to his advantage as a clown. Over a two-year period, he not only grew to be a successful comedian but also completed a three-chapter book on comedy.
His popularity as a performer, as well as his skills in preparing tea, brought him to the attention of the local governor. After learning about Lu Yu’s desire for knowledge, the governor, who was also a well-respected scholar, offered to sponsor Lu Yu’s education.
For the next six years, Lu Yu studied what today we would call the liberal arts, often preparing tea for his teacher and fellow students. When he wasn’t in class, he often went to the countryside to gather tea leaves and herbs. During one of those trips, he stumbled upon a spring with extremely clean and clear water. The tea brewed with the spring water tasted much better than usual, and this is how he came to realize the importance of the quality of the water used when brewing tea.
In the year 752, Lu Yu concluded his studies and bade farewell to his teacher. His benefactor, the local governor, had been transferred to serve a position in the capital. The new governor, Cui Guofu, was himself a poet. Lu Yu soon befriended Cui, as they shared the same interest in tea, literature, and poetry. The two spent much time traveling, drinking tea, and composing poems. During this period, Lu Yu grew into a man of letters, while Cui provided necessary guidance to sharpen his writing skills.
After two years, he decided to devote his heart and soul to the pursuit of the art of tea. He traveled around to visit tea farms, talk to farmers, and try new teas, absorbing as much information as he could. During these travels, he befriended the literati and artists of the day, including poet Huangfu Ran, calligrapher Yan Zhenqing, and poet monk Jiao Ran. They spent much time brewing tea while exchanging their personal understanding of art and Buddhist teachings, elevating tea drinking to an aesthetic and cultural level.
During his travels nationwide, Lu Yu shot to fame and even the emperor heard of him. By recommendation of his childhood mentor, monk Zhi Ji, Lu Yu was summoned to the palace by the then ruling Emperor Daizong of Tang. Daizong ordered him to brew tea. Rising to the challenge, Lu Yu took out his own tea, brewed it with spring water and offered some to the emperor.
Daizong tasted Lu Yu’s tea and praised it repeatedly. The emperor wanted to keep Lu Yu in the palace to serve and train the palace tea masters, but Lu Yu declined and soon returned to Huzhou in east China’s Zhejiang Province where he continued studying and writing about tea.
Around the year 780, after extensive research spanning the length and breadth of the country measuring the impact of soil and water on tea, and documenting a multitude of tea varieties, Lu Yu finally completed his book The Classic of Tea, the world’s first definitive book on the subject. Surprisingly succinct, at just over 7,000 characters, the book presents an in-depth study on the origin of tea, the process of producing tea, the tools used to brew it, as well as the principles that guided the tea ceremony of that age.
The Classic of Tea also marks a milestone in the history of tea culture in the sense that it prompted a shift away from drinking tea only for medicinal reasons toward the consumption of tea in one’s daily life and for social occasions.
Lu Yu was not happy with the way tea was prepared in his time – a thick tea soup with the addition of various seasonings – so, he devised a method of brewing dried tea leaves with pure water to yield the essential flavor of the tea. After refining the process, he promoted it among his friends as well as the most influential members of royalty and cultural figures of his time.
In his later years, Lu Yu spent his time in quiet retreat, passing away at the age of 72. According to popular legend, he was buried next to the tomb of monk Zhi Ji, the one who rescued him from under the bridge. Another saying goes that he was buried next to his closest friend, poet monk Jiao Ran in Huzhou. Whichever the case, the Jiao Ran Pagoda and Lu Yu Tomb are to this day keeping each other company on Mount Zhushan.
After his death, Lu Yu was respected as the Tea Sage, with his statues and figurines worshiped by tea merchants. During the 9th century, Japanese monk Saicho took some Chinese tea seeds to Kyoto and introduced Lu Yu’s The Classic of Tea, thus ushering in the burgeoning of tea cultivation and tea culture in Japan.
In November 2022, China’s traditional tea processing techniques and their associated social practices were added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. With its entry, China now has 43 items on the list and continues to be the most listed country in the world.
Recognizing the long history and profound cultural and socio-economic significance of tea around the world, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed May 21 as International Tea Day. Last year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations led the observance of the first International Tea Day, offering an opportunity to celebrate the cultural heritage, health benefits, and economic importance of tea, as well as promoting the sustainable production, consumption, and trade of tea.
The tea industry continues to play a role in reducing extreme poverty, fighting hunger, and safeguarding natural resources. Tea production and processing has evolved into a main source of livelihoods for millions of families, particularly in developing countries. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, tea supports the livelihoods of 13 million small-scale farmers in the four main producing countries – China, India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka.
In recent years, China’s tea industry has continued to flourish and has embraced a variety of innovative business models.
While global tea consumption and production are projected to keep rising over the next decade, the tea industry will continue to create rural income opportunities and improve food security in tea-producing countries. And this is only one of the chief reminders of the legacy Lu Yu left behind.
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Lü Weitao, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.