Lu Yu and the Classic of Tea (Cha Jing): The World's First Tea Book

Lu Yu (陆羽, 733–804) was a Tang dynasty writer who wrote the Cha Jing (茶经, Classic of Tea), the first book in the world devoted entirely to tea, completed around 760–780. In three volumes and ten chapters it covers the tea plant, how tea was made, the utensils, how to boil it, how to drink it, and where the best tea grew. He's revered in China as the "Sage of Tea" (cha sheng). The tea he describes, pressed cakes ground and boiled, is very different from what we brew today, but his ideas about water, attention and simplicity still hold up.

More in the Chinese tea guide.

Who was Lu Yu?#

According to tradition, Lu Yu was an orphan found and raised by a Buddhist monk in Jingling (today's Tianmen, Hubei). He left the monastery, worked for a time as an actor and writer, and spent years travelling to tea regions, tasting teas and waters and talking to growers. He was friends with poets and monks of his time and later became a symbol of the scholarly tea tradition.

What's in the Classic of Tea#

How Tang tea was made and boiled#

In Lu Yu's time, tea leaves were steamed, pounded, pressed into cakes and dried. To drink it, the cake was toasted over a fire, ground into powder and added to boiling water in a pot, often with a little salt. The tea was ladled into bowls with its froth. This is ordinary Tang-style boiling as Lu Yu described it; some modern "Lu Yu method" demonstrations are reconstructions rather than his exact instructions.

The three stages of boiling#

Lu Yu describes the water in three stages:

1. "Fish eyes": small bubbles and a faint sound. Add a pinch of salt.
2. "Strings of pearls": bubbles rising along the edge. Take out a ladle of water, then stir the water into a whirl and add the tea powder.
3. "Waves": a rolling boil. Pour the reserved water back to calm it. Beyond this, the water is "old" and no good.

The idea that water can be over-boiled survives in modern advice to use freshly boiled water.

Lu Yu on water#

He ranked water sources: mountain spring water is best, river water next, and well water worst. Even among spring water, he preferred slow-flowing water from stony pools over rushing torrents. Modern tea drinkers still argue about water for the same reason: it changes the cup. More in water for tea.

Lu Yu on bowls#

Lu Yu preferred green-glazed Yue ware bowls from Zhejiang, because the greenish glaze made the tea's colour look its best. That idea, choosing the vessel to flatter the tea, is still how people choose cups today. More in tea cups.

What still matters today#

Myths#

"Lu Yu invented tea drinking." Tea was drunk long before him; he wrote the first book about it.

"The 'Lu Yu method' is his exact recipe." Modern demonstrations are reconstructions of Tang boiling.

"The Classic of Tea is about gongfu brewing." It describes boiled cake tea; gongfu came centuries later.

My honest take#

You don't have to boil tea with salt to learn from Lu Yu. Read a translation of the short Classic of Tea with a cup in hand: the obsession with water, heat and attention will feel very familiar.

The bottom line#

Lu Yu wrote the Cha Jing, the first book devoted to tea, in Tang China. It describes pressed cake tea that was ground and boiled, three stages of boiling, the best waters and bowls, and the tea regions of his time. The tea has changed; the attention hasn't. More in the history of Chinese tea.