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 From ancient times to today, tea has been an indispensable part of the life of a Chinese. A Chinese saying identifies the seven basic daily necessities as fuel, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea. The custom of drinking tea is deeply ingrained in almost all Chinese and has been for over a thousand years. During the mid-Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), a man named Lu Yu entered the Buddhist monkhood early in life but returned when older, to secular life. He was later best known for summarizing the knowledge and experience of his predecessors and contemporaries into the first compendium in the world on tea--the Tea Classic (Cha Jing). This work helped to popularize the art of tea drinking all across China, making avid tea drinkers of everyone from emperor and minister to street hawker and soldier. Even neighboring countries--Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia came to adopt the tea drinking custom. |
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