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The Diversity of East Asian Tea Culture
The drinking of tea carries
profound meaning in East Asian
cultures, as revealed in a small
but refreshing Langson Library
exhibit. Tea Culture in East Asia offers a glimpse of one significant
topic featured in the East Asian
Collection’s historical materials
on cultural traditions such as food
and drink, costume and fashion,
and festivals and holidays. The
collections have been developed in
these directions in response to the
growth of Cultural
Studies across the
humanistic disciplines.
Although millions of
people around the
world have poured tea
for millenia, no one
knows for sure who
enjoyed the first cup.
In East Asia, it was
probably the Chinese.
The oldest Chinese
book devoted to tea
is The Classic Book of
Tea (Cha Jing) by Lu
Yu, written during the
Tang dynasty (618-907
CE). It affirms that tea existed in
China as early as 3000 BCE, when
the legendary Emperor Shennong
used it as an herbal medicine.
In Japan, tea was introduced by
Buddhist priests who had studied
in China during the early Heian
period (782-1181 CE). The
earliest account of a formal Japanese
tea drinking ceremony was in
815, when priest Eichu invited
Emperor Saga to visit his temple
after returning from a trip to
China. In Korea, diplomat Dae-
Ryeom brought tea seeds back
from China in 828 and planted
them in the Jiri Mountains by
royal decree.
The effects of tea on East Asian literature and philosophy have been far reaching. Traditionally, Chinese poets called tea the “froth of the liquid jade,” and Taoists considered it to be the elixir of life. Zen Buddhists eulogized tea for its medicinal properties and drank it to prolong meditation. When the Japanese and Koreans adopted Chinese customs and manners, they elevated the drinking of tea to a religious and aesthetic ritual. Sen no Rikyu (1522- 1591), one of the greatest of the Japanese tea masters, applied the four fundamental principles of Zen to the “way of tea” (chanoyu): harmony (wa), respect (kei), purity (sei), and tranquility (jaku). In Korea, the tea ceremony (tado) focuses on only one word, “ respect”: respect for tradition, etiquette, science, living, and cleanliness.
For more information about the East Asian cultural collections, please contact Asian Studies Librarian Bill Wong (wswong@uci.edu or x48147).