【简译】古代中国与日本的茶
Tea, still probably the world's most popular prepared beverage, was first drunk by Chinese monks to aid meditation and those who valued its medicinal qualities, but it quickly grew in popularity, spreading to other East Asian cultures, especially Japan. An elaborate ceremony for its preparation and consumption developed which sought to foster the appreciation and beauty of life's simple luxuries. In addition, tea drinkers were able to discreetly display their good taste and wealth not only by serving what was a relatively expensive commodity but by reserving their very best porcelain for drinking it.
茶，可能仍然是世界上最受欢迎的预制饮料。最初是中国僧侣饮用以帮助冥想，还有那些重视其药用价值的人会去饮用茶，但它很快就流行起来，传播到其他东亚国家，特别是日本。于是一种精心准备和饮用茶的仪式逐渐发展起来，旨在促进对生活中简单奢侈品的欣赏和美化。此外，喝茶的人能够谨慎地展示他们的良好品味与财富，不仅使用相对昂贵的茶，而且通过保留他们的最好的瓷器来饮用。
With books written by tea experts on how to conduct oneself and appreciate the tea fully, along with poems eulogising the beverage, tea drinking was developed into an art form. The tea ceremony, thus, became a simple way to escape for a moment the tribulations of one's often hectic everyday life, a function drinking tea still has for many people today.
随着茶叶专家撰写的关于如何进行自我管理和充分欣赏茶叶的书籍，以及讴歌饮茶的诗歌的影响，饮茶被发展成一种艺术形式。因此，茶道成为一种简单的方式，让人暂时从忙碌的日常生活中脱身；今天，喝茶对许多人来说仍有这种帮助。
神话传说中的茶
In both Chinese and Japanese tradition, the discovery of tea is credited to the Indian sage Bodhidharma (aka Daruma), the founder of Zen Buddhism. Bodhidharma, travelling to spread the word of his new doctrine, founded the Shaolin temple in southern China (Shorinji to the Japanese). There he meditated while sat facing a wall for nine long years. At the end of that period his legs had withered away and, just on the verge of reaching enlightenment, he fell asleep. Enraged at missing this last step, he ripped off his own eyelids and threw them to the ground. From these a bush grew, the tea plant.
在中国和日本的传统中，茶的发现归功于印度圣人菩提达摩（又名达摩），他是禅宗的创始人。菩提达摩为了传播他的新学说，在中国南部建立了少林寺（日本人称之为Shorinji）。他在那里面壁打坐，长达九年之久。在这期间结束时，他的双腿已经麻痹萎缩，就在即将达到开悟的边缘，他睡着了。由于错过了这最后一步，他愤怒地扯下自己的眼睑，扔到了地上。从这些眼睑上长出了一棵灌木，即茶树。
药用饮料、兴奋剂和商品
Tea goes by various names: cha in Chinese and Japanese or chai in Hindi and Urdu. The English name probably derives from the pronunciation of the drink (the) in the province of Fujian, south-east China. The drink is made by adding hot water to the young leaves, leaf tips, and leaf buds of the plant Camellia sinensis which is native to south-west China.
茶有不同的名字：中文和日文叫cha（茶），印度语和乌尔都语也叫cha（茶）。英文名称可能来自于中国东南部福建省的饮料（the）的发音。这种饮料是将热水加入原产于中国西南部的植物茶树的嫩叶、叶尖和叶芽中制成的。
The drink was first used by Buddhist monks from around the 2nd century BCE to support them while they meditated and to ward off sleep. Tea was also thought to possess medicinal qualities, curing a hangover being one of them. By the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) tea had spread beyond the monasteries and become a popular drink with the gentry who were the only people who could afford such an expensive drink. Tea became an important element of the economy, with large estates in the south-east of the country cultivating the plant and providing the government with valuable tax revenue on its sale. Tea merchants, who were now exporting it to other Asian countries, were amongst the richest businessmen in China.
这种饮料最早是由公元前2世纪左右的佛教僧侣饮用的，以支持他们冥想和抵御睡眠。人们还认为茶具有药用价值，治疗宿醉就是其中之一。到了唐朝（公元618-907年），茶叶已经超出了寺院的范围，成为一种深受豪门贵族欢迎的饮料，他们是唯一能够负担得起这种昂贵饮料的人。茶叶成为经济的一个重要组成部分，中国东南部的大型庄园都在种植这种植物，并为政府提供了宝贵的销售税收。那些向亚洲其他国家出口茶叶的茶商，是中国最富有的商人之一。
对文化的影响
The trend for tea-drinking also created a boom in the fine ceramics people preferred to use to brew, mix, and drink it from, and the elegant jars they used to store their tea leaves in. One of the most highly-regarded producers of teapots was Yixing in Jiangsu province. In a culture where ostentatious displays of wealth were frowned upon as vulgar, the use of a simple but expensive ceramic tea bowl was all that was needed to show one's prosperity.
饮茶的趋势也造就了人们喜欢用来冲泡、混合和饮用的精美陶瓷，以及用来储存茶叶的优雅罐子的繁荣。江苏省宜兴市是最受瞩目的茶壶生产地之一。在一个浮夸的财富展示被视为粗俗的文化中，使用一个简单但昂贵的陶瓷茶碗就能显示一个人的富裕。
Tea drinking became such an integral part of the Chinese culture that it began to appear in art and literature. One famous poem by Lu Yu appeared in his 8th-century CE treatise on the forms and conventions which should be applied when drinking tea. The poem is a thank you note after Yu had received a gift of a packet of freshly picked tea.
To honour the tea, I shut my brushwood gate,
Lest common folk intrude,
And donned my gauze cap
To brew and taste it on my own.
The first bowl sleekly moistened throat and lips;
The second banished all my loneliness;
The third expelled the dullness from my mind,
Sharpening inspiration gained from all the books I've read.
The fourth brought forth light perspiration,
Dispersing a lifetime's troubles through my pores.
The fifth bowl cleansed ev'ry atom of my being.
The sixth has made me kin to the Immortals.
The seventh is the utmost I can drink -
A light breeze issues from my armpits.
(in Ebrey, 95)
饮茶成为中国文化的一个组成部分，开始出现在艺术和文学作品中。陆羽有一首著名的诗出现在他公元8世纪关于饮茶时应采用的形式和惯例的文章中。这首诗是陆羽收到一包新采的茶叶后的感谢信：
为了品尝这包新茶，我关闭了我的灌木丛门，
免得俗人闯入，
并戴上我的纱帽，
独自冲泡和品尝。
第一碗光滑地润泽了我的喉咙与嘴唇，
第二碗驱逐了我所有的孤独；
第三碗消散了我心中的沉闷；
从我读过的所有书籍中获得的灵感变得更加敏锐；
第四次带来了轻盈的汗水，
通过我的毛孔驱散一生的烦恼；
第五碗梳洗了我的身心；
第六碗使我宛若神仙；
第七碗是我能喝到的极限。
轻轻的微风从我腋下吹拂。
传 播
Along with other cultural practices, tea drinking was passed on from China to neighbouring East Asian countries such as the Silla kingdom of Korea but nowhere did it become more popular than in Japan from the 6th or 7th century CE. In Japan, too, it was Buddhist monks who first drank tea, and it did not become fashionable until around 1200 CE. As China cultivated better tea plants than those available in Japan, these too were imported and not just the cut leaves.
与其他文化习俗一样，饮茶也从中国传到了邻近的东亚国家，如朝鲜的新罗王国，但从公元6或7世纪开始，它在日本变得更加流行。在日本，最早喝茶的是佛教僧侣，直到公元1200年左右才成为一种社会时尚。由于中国种植的茶树比日本更好，这些茶树也被日本人进口，而不仅仅是摘下来的茶叶。
In Japan, tea was usually prepared by pounding the leaves and making a ball with amazura (a sweetener from grapes) or ginger which was then left to brew in hot water. Eventually, again from 1200 CE, specialised tea schools were opened and people reserved their finest porcelain for tea drinking.
在日本，准备茶叶的方法通常是将茶叶捣碎，用amazura（一种来自葡萄的甜味剂，平安贵族中流行的甜味剂）或姜制成球，然后放在热水中冲泡。从公元1200年开始，政府专门开设了茶叶学校，人们也把他们最好的瓷器用来喝茶。
茶 道
Although the ritual and ceremony which developed when serving tea originated in China, it is the Japanese who have made it synonymous with their culture. The Japanese Tea Ceremony is called chanoyu, meaning 'hot water for tea', or chado or sado, meaning 'way of the tea'. Tea parties began as rather rowdy affairs where guests tried to guess the type of tea they were drinking but the 15th-century CE shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa put a stop to all that and made the whole thing a much more sober and subdued event, offering the ruling class a perfect setting for discrete conversation on sensitive subjects.
虽然奉茶时形成的礼仪和仪式起源于中国，但正是日本人将其作为自己文化的同义词。日本的茶道被称为chanoyu，意思是“煮茶”，或chado或sado，意思是“饮茶的方式（茶道）”。茶会开始时是相当热闹的，客人们试图猜测他们所喝茶的类型，但公元15世纪的幕府将军足利义政制止了这一切，使整个活动变得更加清晰和低调，为统治阶级提供了一个就敏感话题进行离散谈话的完美环境。
The ceremony typifies the Japanese aesthetic principle of wabi, which is the value given to the appreciation of beauty and simplicity in everyday things. The application of wabi to the tea ceremony is credited to the 16th-century CE tea master Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591 CE). Rikyu was master of the tea ceremonies of the warlords Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and he also promoted the use of carefully arranged flowers (ikebana) to create just the right atmosphere of calm when drinking tea. Rikyu's masters did not always listen to him it seems for Hideyoshi famously threw a tea party for 800 guests to celebrate his victory in Kyushu in 1587 CE. Still, the monk had more success with subsequent generations as the tea ceremony gradually became more and more genteel and intimate.
该仪式是日本审美原则“侘寂”的典型代表，“侘寂”是指对日常事物中的美和简单性的欣赏。“侘寂”在茶道中的应用被认为是公元16世纪的茶道大师千利休（公元1522-1591年）的功劳。千利休是军阀织田信长和丰臣秀吉的茶道大师，他还提倡使用精心布置的鲜花（ikebana）来创造适当的饮茶时的平静气氛。千利休的主人似乎并不总是听他的话，因为秀吉在公元1587年为庆祝他在九州的胜利，为800名客人举办了一个著名的茶会。不过，随着茶道逐渐变得越来越有风度和亲和力，这位僧人在后世取得了更大的成功。
The first thing to do when drinking tea was to put oneself in the right place and for the Japanese that was the dedicated chashitsu or tea room, also known as a sukiya or 'house of the imperfect', alluding to the structure's original simple architecture and basic materials. Roofs were in bamboo and thatch, supporting columns were unworked, and the walls made of earth. This rustic building was quite separate from the main residence (immediately stamping an aristocratic requirement on the ceremony as only those with money could obviously afford such a thing). Thus, the drinker or drinkers were immediately detached from the everyday living space and so, by extension, their everyday lives. Three original tea rooms still exist today and are listed as National Treasures of Japan. They are to be found in the Myoki-an of Yamasaki, within the Shinto shrine of Minase-gu, and at the Saiho-ji monastery in Kyoto.
喝茶的第一件事就是身处正确的位置上，对日本人来说，喝茶应该在专门的茶室，也被称为sukiya或“不完美的房子”，暗指这种结构的原始简单建筑和材料。屋顶是竹子和茅草，支撑的柱子没有经过加工，墙壁是用土做的。这座质朴的建筑与主宅完全分开（在仪式上打上了贵族要求的烙印，因为显然只有那些有钱的人才能买得起这样的东西）。饮茶者或饮酒者脱离了日常的生活空间，而饮茶成为他们日常生活的延伸。至今仍然存在三个原始的茶室，被列为日本的国宝。它们存在于大山崎町的妙喜庵、大阪府三岛郡岛本町的水无濑神宫和京都的西芳寺。
The tea room was small, only three metres square usually; Rikyu is credited with downsizing the previously larger rooms. It had minimal decor and services: a toilet and a tsukubai, which consists of a stone basin (chozu-bachi) outside for cleaning the hands before entering along with several irregular stones placed nearby in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Another feature is a stone, free-standing lantern, also outside. Ideally, the tea room should stand in its own small garden (cha-niwa) which has a stepping stone path (tobi-ishi) leading from the main house. The desired greenery was evergreens rather than flowers, and moss or grass underfoot to begin the calming effect of the ceremony before even entering the tea room.
茶室很小，通常只有三平方米；Rikyu被认为是缩小了以前较大的房间的规模。它有最低限度的装饰和服务：一个厕所和一个tsukubai，它由一个石盆（chozu-bachi）组成，在外面用于进入茶室之前清洁双手，同时还有几个不规则的石头放在附近，很有美感的样子。另一个特点是有一个石制的、独立的灯笼，也放在外面。理想情况下，茶室应该位于小花园（Cha-niwa）里，花园里有一条从主屋通往的阶梯石路（tobi-ishi）。所需的绿色植物是常青树而不是鲜花，道路两旁是苔藓或草，以便在进入茶室之前就能处于一种平静的氛围。
The doorways of tea rooms were usually small, only around 90 cm (3 ft) high, which was meant to show that all were of equal status once inside. Some historians believe the door prevented swords being taken into the tea room in another way to demonstrate rank and occupation were to be abandoned while drinking tea. Windows and paper screens gave plenty of light to the interior.
茶室的门洞通常很小，只有大约90厘米（3英尺）高，这是为了表明，一旦进入茶室，所有人的地位是平等的。一些历史学家认为，这扇门可以防止将剑带入茶室，这也是为了表明喝茶时要放弃等级和职业。窗户和纸屏风为室内提供了充足的光线。
The details and etiquette of how the tea was brewed and served using a special ladle or the restrained gestures one should employ all depended on which school of tea ceremony one adhered too, and there were many. Water was usually boiled over charcoal in an iron kettle, and the tea was strong, green and bitter. Common, too, to all ceremonies was the requirement to use the finest porcelain one could, especially the tea bowl or chawan, actually used to drink from.
泡茶的细节和礼节，以及如何使用特殊的勺子或应该采用克制的手势，都取决于一个人所坚持的茶道流派，而且有很多流派。水通常是在铁壶中用木炭烧开的，茶是浓郁的、呈绿色的和带苦味的。所有仪式的共同点是要求使用家里最好的瓷器，特别是用来喝茶的茶碗或茶壶。
后来的历史
Tea was so widely consumed and had become such a big business by the 16th century CE that it eventually interested European traders, notably the Portuguese and Dutch. Tea was introduced to Europe in 1607 CE and, by the 19th century CE, the drink had become so popular in Europe that drinkers could choose from Chinese, Indian, and Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) tea. Tea from the latter two countries was stronger and so was preferred, especially with the British who had encouraged its cultivation in colonial India. Even so, tea made up 80% of China's total exports to Europe in the early 19th century CE.
到了公元16世纪，茶叶被人们广泛消费，并成为一门大生意，最终引起了欧洲商人的兴趣，特别是葡萄牙人和荷兰人。公元1607年，茶叶被引入欧洲，到公元19世纪，这种饮料在欧洲变得非常流行，饮者可以选择中国、印度和锡兰（现代斯里兰卡）的茶叶。后两个国家的茶叶味道更浓，所以更受欢迎，特别是英国人鼓励在印度殖民地种植茶叶。即便如此，在公元19世纪初，茶叶占中国对欧洲出口总量的80%。
参考书目：
Ashkenazi, M. Handbook of Japanese Mythology. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Beasley, W.G. The Japanese Experience. University of California Press, 2000.
Dawson, R. The Chinese Experience. Phoenix Press - Orion, 2017.
Dillon, M. China. Routledge, 1998.
Henshall, K. Historical Dictionary of Japan to 1945. Scarecrow Press, 2013.
Mason, R.H.P. A History of Japan. Tuttle Publishing, 1997.
P.B.Ebrey. Pre-Modern East Asia. Wadsworth Publishing, 2013.
Tsuda, N. A History of Japanese Art. Tuttle Publishing, 2009.
原文作者：Mark Cartwright
驻意大利的历史作家。他的主要兴趣包括陶瓷、建筑、世界神话和发现所有文明的共同思想。他拥有政治哲学硕士学位，是《世界历史百科全书》的出版总监。
原文网址：https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1093/tea-in-ancient-china--japan/
