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5 The Interplay of Social and Literary History Tea in the Poetry of the Middle Historical Period Ronald Egan This chapter examines the treatment of tea in Tang and Song dynasty poetry. We find a very clear shift in the way poets write about the drink. This shift is more subtle, complicated, and nuanced than the dynastic change from Tang to Song, but it does roughly correspond with that change. The shift is most obvious when comparing poems of the mid-and late Tang periods (roughly 780–900) with those of the mid-eleventh century (the literary ‘height’ of the Northern Song). These two periods are the focus of this chapter. What we find is that poets adopted distinctly different approaches to the subject of tea and tea drinking during the periods, and these changes reflect in a complex way transformations in the cultural space and economic role of the drink between those eras. Poems about tea reflect conventional and unconventional ways of thinking about the subject, and those ways of thinking are affected by its changing role in Chinese life. Tea in Tang Poetry During the Tang dynasty, and certainly from the mid-Tang onward, the consumption of tea was already widespread in the great cities of the empire. Tang poets write about it often. Yet although the drink was widely available, literary treatments of tea tend to handle it rather narrowly, linking it almost always with recluses, immortals, and, especially, Buddhist monasteries, where tea had a long history of consumption by monks who used it to ward off the drowsiness that threatened their long hours of meditation. A poem such as the following by the eighth-century monk-poet Jiaoran 䘶䃞 (730–799) epitomizes the associations of the subject found regularly in Tang poetry: 九日與陸處士 羽飲茶 On the Double Ninth Festival, Drinking Tea with Recluse Lu Yu1 ḅ㖍Ⱉ₏昊 On the Double Ninth, in a monastery courtyard 㜙䰔卲ḇ湫 Chrysanthemums are yellow by the eastern fence. ὿Ṣ⣂㲃惺 Common fellows steep the blossoms in wine, 婘妋≑勞楁 Who knows to be partial to the fragrance of tea? 70 Scribes of Gastronomy The contrast constructed here is between ordinary fellows, marked by their lack of refinement, who know only to drink wine, and monks like Jiaoran and his recluse friend Lu Yu 映佥 (733–804), who are among the elite few who know to appreciate tea and its subtle fragrances. It was Lu Yu who wrote the most important Tang treatise on tea, the Classic of Tea 勞䴻. Although he was not a monk himself, Lu Yu spent periods of his life dwelling in Buddhist monasteries and must have accumulated much of his expertise in tea from the monks he associated with. The chrysanthemums in line two are a conventional motif in Double Ninth Festival poems, and mention of an ‘eastern fence’ immediately calls to mind the recluse devotee of those blossoms, Tao Qian 昞㼃 (365–427). More important to the remainder of the poem is the habit of floating chrysanthemums in wine cups on that festival, mentioned in line three (fanjiu 㲃惺). That is what common people do on the Double Ninth, while Jiaoran and his friend have a more refined appreciation of tea. A longer tea poem, also by Jiaoran, provides more detail about the effects of wine and why he was so enamoured with tea. The poem was occasioned by Jiaoran’s receipt of a gift of tea from Shan Valley (in modern Shaoxing, Zhejiang): 誚崔石使君 Poking Fun at Commissioner Cui Shi2 崲Ṣ怢ㆹ∉㹒势 A man of Yue sent me Shan Valley tea ㍉⼿慹䈁䇐慹溶 Picking golden leaflets to boil in a golden kettle, 䳈䒟暒刚桬㱓楁 Plain porcelain like snow, floating bubbles fragrant, ỽỤ媠ẁ䑲哲㻧 How like the immortals’ jewelled flower liquor! ᶨ梚㹴㖷⭸ One sip washes away my drowsy stupor, ね⿅㚿䇥㺧⣑⛘ My thinking is pristine, filling heaven and earth. ℵ梚㶭ㆹ䤆 A second sip purifies my soul, ⾥⤪梃暐㿹庽⠝ Like flying rain suddenly falling on light dust. ᶱ梚ὧ⼿忻 A third sip and I attain the Way, ỽ枰劎⽫䟜䄑゙ Why vex the mind to break free of life’s tribulations? 㬌䈑㶭檀ᶾ卓䞍 So pure and lofty it is, yet the world does not know, ᶾṢ梚惺⣂冒㫢 People deceive themselves by drinking wine. ォ䚳䔊⋻䒽攻⣄ How sad to see, Bi Zhuo’s night beside the wine vat, 䪹⎹昞㼃䰔ᶳ㗪 How laughable, Tao Qian beside his fence! Ⲽὗ┄ᷳシᶵ⶚ Tasting it, Master Cui’s appreciation know no end, 䉪㫴ᶨ㚚樂Ṣ俛 His mad song startled those who heard it. ⬘䞍勞忻ℐ䇦䛇 The Way of tea is perfect truth, who understands? ⓗ㚱ᷡ᷀⼿⤪㬌 Only Danqiu really knows. This time, Tao Qian is invoked by name, only to be ridiculed for his wine drinking. He is paired with Bi Zhuo, another famous wine drinker who, when he once sneaked into a...

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