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Selamat Datang ke Tea Room saya! The tea tree, a perennial evergreen bush, belongs to the camellia family. The processed tea plays an important role in people's social life. A common Chinese saying runs, "When we get up in the morning, the first things we should get ready are firewood, rice, edible oil, salt, soy, vinegar and tea," which demonstrates tea is a necessity of life. Whenever we sit round a table, or have a get-together with good friends, a cup of fragrant tea will give a rich flavor to the occasion. In ancient times, many emperors were addicted to tea. Once, during the Qing Dynasty , Emperor Kangxi (on the throne from 1662 to 1722) arrived at Taihu Lake in Suzhou on his third inspection tour of the south of the Yangtze River, when someone offered him a cup of tea named "frightening and killing tea." After drinking it, Kangxi thought that the tea tasted really nice but that its name was not very elegant. So, knowing that it was picked on the Biluo Peak in spring, he named it Biluochun and added it to the list of recognized tribute items. His grandson, Emperor Qianglong (on the throne from 1736 to 1795), also liked tea very much. In the first lunar month of each year, he would hold a tea party on an auspicious day, drinking tea and composing poems.
People often used tea as a betrothal gift, for it could not be "transplanted." After accepting tea as a betrothal gift, a girl could not capriciously change her decision to marry her fiance. According to A Dream of Red Mansions, written by Cao Xueqin in the Qing Dynasty, Wang Xifeng said to Lin Daiyu, "Since you have drunk our tea, why not be our sister-in-law?" This literary quotation is an example of "accepting tea." Entertainment of guests to tea is the most fundamental social behavior in the Chinese people's contacts with each other. When a guest comes, the Chinese will offer him or her a cup of tea to express friendship. A poem says, "When a guest came to my home from afar at a cold night, I hastily lit bamboo firewood to make tea to treat him." China is the home country of tea. Before the Tang Dynasty, Chinese tea was exported by land and sea, first to Japan and Korea, then to India and Central Asia and, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, to the Arabian Peninsula. In the early period of the 17th century, Chinese tea was exported to Europe, where the upper class adopted the fashion of drinking tea. Chinese tea, like Chinese silk and china, made an outstanding contribution to the world's material and spiritual civilization.
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Empress Wu Zetian, Oct 2, 2004 - 16:28
Wu Zhao Zetian is known to be the ONLY female Emperor in fuedal China. Having usruped the throne from her own sons, she was elemental in the development of many technological an social advances through China in the 7th Century AD.
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