Research On The Tea Drinking Culture In The Tang Dynasty

The Tang dynasty was the prosperous period of ancient China, had an unified country, vast territory, developed traffic, prosperous economy and active diplomacy, was showing a thriving scene in the whole society. It was also an important period of the formation of the tea culture and the development of wine culture. Five key factors contributed to the prevalence of the fashion in tea and wine tasting and raise of a large number of tea houses and pubs. The characteristics of the tea and wine established the material basis for the rise of the tea and wine culture; religious factors contributed to the tea and wine enter the daily life; political factors provided an institutional guarantee for the establishment of tea and wine culture; the transformation from the nobles society to the civil society accelerated the prevalence of tea and wine culture; cultural orientation factors further enhanced the connotation of tea and wine culture. The brought to light of the dissertation of tea and wine of Dun Huang Manuscripts not only enriches the first hand material, but also allows the scholars inspect the integration and complementary features of tea and wine cultureform the all aspects of the relaxing tea and wine daily life.Literati group of the Tang Dynasty was the important participants and practitioners of tea and wine culture, so that they had an unique position and played an active guiding role in the tea culture and wine culture. The overwhelming majority of literati solved out of the food and clothing problems, and then projected the own feelings and ideals into their daily life, Ultimately they made the select appliances, tasting and other aspects of tea and wine culture even more refined and luxurious, full of poetic and cultural color. At the same time, the tea and wine tasting of literati was no longer a closed-door product, but became the links of social activities which had profuse contents and multiple forms. Tea as a media made the communication elegant and chic:Wine as a media made the communication enthusiasm noisy. The tea and wine had a different meanings and roles in the life of the literati, but complemented with each other. They had been placed equally sincere feelings by the literati, and was satisfied with the needs of life and mood of literati. By the practice and promotion of literati, the culture of tea and wine eventually became the distinctive part of cultural of Tang dynasty.Tea and wine tasting became the important part of the daily life of the literati. They not only reflected their proud or frustrated experiences of life and state of mind, but also carried their rich emotion and understanding of life. The delight of tea and wine life of the literati was concentrative reflected by the interest and charm of tea and wine, and gradually became a state of life which strongly impacted on literati themselves and reflect their spiritual pursuit. Exquisite and noble tea life had the same destination with meditation and practice; unconscionable wine life different in approach but equally satisfactory in result with romantic and unaffected Immortal. Many literati tasted both of them, tried to find a complementary and understanding "Moderate way" between the Interest and charm of tea and wine. Under the background of the three religions(Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism) unity, these phenomenon reflected in the tea and wine life of literati became a reasonable result.