Since ancient times, Chinese people have had a cup of tea to find peace of mind and, at the same time, let their imaginations run wild. In the midst of their hectic lifestyles, they found peace and relieved stress by drinking a simple cup of tea. For them, having tea was an opportunity for contemplation and meditation. They also put great importance on their environmental surroundings when drinking tea so that they took good care of tea equipment and tended their garden as well.

 Chinese tea culture has influenced many countries. The English word tea, in fact, derives from the name for a tea field 'Tay' in Xiamen, Fujian, China, where was once the main port where Europeans traded for tea.

 The characteristics of Chinese tea culture can be explained by five categories: history, dominant trend, ethnicity, region and internationality. Historically, tea culture has provided the basis of a commodity economy and served to establish a culture city. Paints, songs, dances and poems have helped the formation and expansion of tea culture and the culture was deeply associated with Confucianism, Buddhism and various other philosophic ideas. As time goes by, tea culture has gained general acceptance among Chinese people with its manners and folkways.

 There's a saying in Chinese: 'If you drink your tea in the morning, you can spend the day with a triumphant air; if you drink your tea at noon, you can enjoy your work; if you drink your tea in the evening, you will become refreshed from fatigue.' As it suggests, having a cup of tea has become a daily routine for Chinese people since ancient times. As China is composed of various ethnic groups, Chinese people enjoy different types of tea with different tea leaves and flavors based on their ethnicity or region. In this regard, each region has its own tea culture.

 There's a wide range of tea equipment used in China; and each equipment has different effects on the quality of tea and the atmosphere for drinking tea. In the ancient book about the origin and history of tea written during the reign of Hongwu Emperor of Ming Dynasty, there are ten types of tea equipment stated: 1) A tea pot for boiling water, 2) a space for drinking tea, 3) a tea mortar and pestle, 4) a roller for grinding tea leaves, 5) a tea infuser, 6) a tea tray, 7) a tea spoon, 8) a tea cup, 9) a tea bottle and 10) a tea brush. In fact, these ten types of tea equipment are the basic ones. There are a lot more equipment today.

 Chinese people mostly enjoy six varieties of tea: green tea, white tea, oolong tea (blue tea), black tea, yellow tea and dark tea (heicha ).

 Green tea is non-fermented tea that means tea doesn't have a process of fermentation. Fresh tea leaves are immediately steamed or stirred to prevent them from fermenting. Since it's not that boiled, nutrients inside the tea leaves are well-maintained. Its flavor is refreshing, rather than bitter, because it has been stirred using a traditional Chinese stirring technique. As its name suggests, white tea has fine silvery-white hairs on the unopened buds of the tea plant. White tea undergoes a very light, 10% to 20% fermentation and is sun-dried without undergoing a stirring process. White tea leaves appear almost white. Brewed white tea is pale yellow and its fragrance is very refreshing. Blue tea is semi-fermented tea, which means it undergoes 20% to 70% fermentation and is stirred in a pot during fermentation process. Semi-fermented tea obtains unique scent and flavor during fermentation. Oolong tea is a type of semi-fermented tea. Oolong tea is very popular as it has a flavor that combines green tea's freshness and black tea's rich taste. When fermenting tea leaves to produce black tea, its green color changes into a reddish color. Based on how long the tea leaves are fermented, the color become much reddish. As it is fully-fermented tea with 80% to 90% fermentation, both black tea leaves and brewed black tea appear reddish. Some say that the black tea which has become everyone's favorite was first made during the Song Dynasty. However, the black tea that we know now in fact originates from the mid-17th century. Yellow tea is produced similarly to green tea, but with an added step of being fermented after oxidation. It is called post-fermented tea as the tea leaves are exposed to microflora before becoming fully dried and undergoing a re-fermentation process. As yellow tea is very rare and it has a mild color and flavor, it is much loved by tea lovers. Dark tea (heicha ) is fermented before drying so that the yellowish brown-colored tea brews a dark brown-colored liquor. As it has a unique fragrance like mold, it's not an easy choice for tea beginners, but I'm sure that you'll become addicted to its rich flavor. The longer the fermentation process, the softer the flavor becomes and the price also rises. Only tea with at least 20 years of ripening process can be recognized as a good product.

 The shape of tea can be categorized into three types. Loose leaf tea (sancha ) is prepared without transforming the original shape of the tea leaves through the stirring, steaming and fermenting process. It originates in the late Song Dynasty period and, these days, most tea products are manufactured as loose leaf tea. Fine powder tea (mocha ) is finely ground powder of processed green tea using a millstone or grinding machine. Drinking fine powder tea was popular during the Song Dynasty. When Hongwu, Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, ordered all the people of the empire to offer sancha as a tribute, the culture of drinking mocha slowly decayed. Fine powder tea has become well-accepted in Japan and matcha (Japanese words for mocha ) has become their favorite. Compressed tea (jinyacha ) is blocks of whole tea leaves that have been packed in molds and pressed into block form. There are other shapes of tea as well: tea brick (zhuancha ) that has a shape of bricks, flat and ball-shaped tea cake (bingcha ), tea lump (tuancha ) that looks like rice balls and bowl tea (tuocha ) .

 This is the end of today's column for discovering the long history and unique characteristics of Chinese tea culture. I hope you can have a nice cup of tea as your everyday routine to find peace for both the body and soul.
Thank you.