From Eating Tea to Drinking Tea

The way of using tea has been changing with time. When tea was first discovered, people ate fresh tea leaves directly and chewing them. Gradually people ate and drank tea after boiling it. Even now, the saying chi cha (吃茶), meaning eating tea, and the modes of eating tea still exist in many places of China.

According to the book Guang Ya, which was completed in around 230 AD, tea was processed into cake shape in Hubei and Sichuan Provinces. Then prepare tea people first roast the tea and grind it into powder then boil it in pot or brew it with boiling water adding green onion, ginger, orange peel etc. as spices and then eat both tea and the soup.

Coming to Tang Dynasty, tea was boiled with only a pinch of salt according to the book “The Classics of Tea”, which was finished in around 760 AD. Ever since then the way of drinking pure tea without adding any spices became the mainstream.