five elements of Chinese Cha Dao

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

Aspects of Tea Ceremony:

 

 

Chinese tea ceremony, or Cha Dao (the way of tea), has five principle components.

Here is a short introduction to what they are.

 

 

Cha Yi,

 

Cha yi is the art of brewing and pouring tea. Cha Yi can encompass many different attitudes such as gongfu cha (the Southern Chinese art of pouring Wulong tea), Dian Cha (the ancient Song dynasty art of preparing matcha, currently practiced in Japanese Cha Dao), Da Wan Cha (the simple art of drinking tea in a big bowl), and so on.

Cha yi is a large category encompassing any type of Chinese brewing style, or styles which existed in past generations and have either been lost or passed to other nations such as Japan and Korea.

 

 

Cha Li,

 

Cha Li is the courtesy aspect of drinking tea.

This involves various politenesses such as how to receive tea, how to drink it, knowing who should get tea first and so on. Since the Ming dynasty, tea drinking has been based around being natural, so Chinese tea practice only has aspects of courtesy such as being respectful of each other, taking sips rather than gulps and so on.

Cha Li as it was practiced in ancient China has mostlly been passed along in Japanese and Korean tea ceremony, where the rules of propriety are much more strict, and resemble Tang and Song dynasty Chinese habits.

 

Cha Jing,

 

Cha Jing refers to the environment in which we drink tea.

Again, the modern enviornment for drinking Chinese tea usually favours nature and it is always preferable to drink tea in natural places when possible. There is some aspect of Fengshui in the methods of preparing a space for tea drinking, and the best tea drinking areas have open and free movement of air, light, and natural sounds, but are also protected from wind, rain, and unusual smells.

 

 

Xiu Xing Cha,

 

Xiu Xing means to cultivate spirit through prayer or meditation. In the world of tea, Xiu Xing means to cultivate spirit while you practice tea ceremony. This ranges from doing meditation when you pour tea alone, to learning the art of service when practicing with other people. Xiu Xing in tea is deeply attached to Buddhist and Daoist ideas and is very deep, but also somewhat elusive since there are no documents from antiquity which clearly define the process by which tea can be used as a spiritual medium in practice.

[manitou]

Thank you for that, SillyBearHoneyEater - what a refined post that was.

 

That last one, Xiu Xing Cha is particularly interesting.  i'll bet you are one Tea King!  and congratulations on winning an award for your company.

 

I spent a couple weeks in China some years back - and I think the best day of my trip was the day I spent it in a teahouse in the middle of a lake.  what a memory.  You brought it all back....

 

Thanks again.

[Aithrobates]

I wish there was more info available on the spiritual aspects of tea drinking.

I remember reading on some random website stuff about seeing the five elements in the process. Water, the heat of fire to boil it, the wood of the tea itself, etc... But is it true..?

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

manitou,

bet you were in west lake in hangzhou right?

lovely place.

 

 

aithrobates:

there are lots of different ideas about this floating around, but to be honest, there is no document which clearly uses tea to explain self cultivation, just a lot of historical allusions.  that means that even though tea does have some relationship with buddhism and daoism, it hasn't been fully disseminated as five elements theory and so on.  There is quite a lot of disagreement about all of these things.  I did a lot of reseaarch last year about the five elements and tea, and although I did find articles from chinese medicine doctors and so on, there is nothing conclusive which draws a deep historical relationship between the elements and tea.

I think the best route would be to understand how tea affects the vital organs and then go from there in classifying it. There are several medicine documents which do this, a few of which I have translated.\

 

Xiu xing tea, although it really is a thing, isn't very well discussed, even in tea circles.

Zhou yu (the granddaddy of Taiwan tea ceremony) gave us a wild harvested wuyi tea from pinlin earlier this year which shot qi straight up my du mai and made me sweat like a mofo.  I recently also had a wild pu'er that did something similar.

Zhou yu said that if you don't have meditation experience, the most that tea will do is give you post heaven qi, but if you have experience, tea can actually create pre heaven qi in the body, due to it sharing its jing with you.

[Aithrobates]

Well, knowledge of how it works or not, tea basically saves my day, every day.

 

I have a so called MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity), I'm hypersensitive to all kind of chemical products.

I need my tonic herbs to be more or less functionnal. Without puerh, I'm basically a zombie

[manitou]

manitou,

bet you were in west lake in hangzhou right?

lovely place.

 

 

Yes!  I think you are right.  We were in Hangzhou for a few days.  The lovely graceful bridge going out to the teahouse and all the windows is what I remember most - and the convivial joy of being there with others who took the time to focus on companionship, on the joy of merely drinking tea together.

 

 

Zhou yu (the granddaddy of Taiwan tea ceremony) gave us a wild harvested wuyi tea from pinlin earlier this year which shot qi straight up my du mai and made me sweat like a mofo.  

 

I am laughing as I type this.  You're the only other person I've ever heard on this forum who can sweat like a mofo.  This is one of my husband's funnier expressions too.....he's an old street person from long ago, and this is one nod to his sordid past.  You're so funny -

Edited October 12, 2015 by manitou

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

Well, knowledge of how it works or not, tea basically saves my day, every day.

 

I have a so called MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity), I'm hypersensitive to all kind of chemical products.

I need my tonic herbs to be more or less functionnal. Without puerh, I'm basically a zombie

 

 

 

very interesting.

Can I interview you for my tea blog?

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

Yes!  I think you are right.  We were in Hangzhou for a few days.  The lovely graceful bridge going out to the teahouse and all the windows is what I remember most - and the convivial joy of being there with others who took the time to focus on companionship, on the joy of merely drinking tea together.

 

 

 

I am laughing as I type this.  You're the only other person I've ever heard on this forum who can sweat like a mofo.  This is one of my husband's funnier expressions too.....he's an old street person from long ago, and this is one nod to his sordid past.  You're so funny -

 

 

Canadian by any chance?

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I wish there was more info available on the spiritual aspects of tea drinking.

I remember reading on some random website stuff about seeing the five elements in the process. Water, the heat of fire to boil it, the wood of the tea itself, etc... But is it true..?

 

Voila