Lu Yu on tea

 

The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain.  

~Lu Yu


 

Art of life

 

Tea...is a religion of the art of life.  ~Okakura

 

The kettle and life

Remember the tea kettle - it is always up to its neck in hot water, yet it still sings!

  ~Author Unknown

Afternoon Tea

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

~Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

Kipling on Tea Time

We had a kettle;

we let it leak:


Our not repairing made it worse.


We haven't had any tea for a week...


The bottom is out of the Universe.


~Rudyard Kipling

A poem about Lu Yu

Saw Lu Yu off to Pick Tea


Thousand mountains greeted my departing friend


When spring tea blossoming again


With in depth knowledge in picking tea


Through morning mist or crimson evening clouds


His solitary journey is my envy


Rendezvous in a temple of a remote mountain


We enjoyed picnic by a clear pebble fountain
In this silent night


Lit up a candle light
I knocked a marble bell for chime


While deep in thought for old time.

By Huang Fu Zheng

Lu Yu, The Classic Art of Tea

"Tea tempers the spirit, 

harmonizes the mind, 

dispels lassitude 

and relieves fatigue, 

awakens the thought 

and prevents drowsiness."

Tang Dynasty poem

 

Seven bowls of tea bring seven advantages:
one, it promotes the production of body fluids and quenches thirst;
two, it refreshes the mind;
three, it helps digestion;
four, it induces sweating to relieve the common cold;
five, it helps fat people reduce weight;
six, it activates thinking and strengthens memory;
and seven, it ensures longevity.” 

- Lu Tong, Tang dynasty.

 

From the Emperor's mind

Tea induces lightness of spirit, 

clarity of mind and freedom from all sense of constriction, 

whether mental or physical; 

and it promotes such serenity that mundane cares fall away 

so that whatever is strident of exacerbating in daily life 

can be put out of mind for a while.” 

-The Emperor Song Hui Zong

Tang Dynasty Tea Poetry

Tea Drinking

The first cup moistens my lips and throat;
The second cup breaks my loneliness;
The third cup searches my barren entrails but to find therein some thousand volumes of odd ideographs;
The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration-all the wrongs of life pass out through my pores;
At the fifth cup I am purified;
The sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals.
The seventh cup-ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of the cool wind that rises in my sleeves.
Where is Elysium? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither

Lu Tung (Tang Dynasty Poet) 

Lu Yu's Cha Ching Excerpt

The effect of tea is cooling. 

As a drink, it suits very well persons of self-restraint and good conduct. 

When feeling hot, thirsty; 

depressed, 

suffering from headache, 

eye-ache, 

fatigue of the four limbs, 

or paints in the joints, 

one should drink tea only; 

four or five times.”