The Start of Tea as a Philosophical Concept
In China, Tea was first introduced to common people as a medicine, and then a food spices, and later a new material for drinking. Tea was later introduced to royal family, and then the buddhist monasteries.
When tea entered into common people's daily life, it became a part of Chinese traditional Daoism; when tea entered into royal family's life, the royal family branded it with Confucianism; when tea entered into the buddhist circle to help buddhist monks meditate, buddhists dissolved Buddhism into tea pots.
So, for Chinese, tea is not just tea, it is a combination of Chinese Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
Dao is the philosophy and religion that originally rooted from ancient China. In Chinese, Dao literally means path or way, and it can extent its meanings as of principle and moral. Daoism means the essence of the universe. It is such a serious concept that Chinese people usually do not relate Dao with common things. Japan later adopted the word of Dao and refered it to something has a form/custom and some skill sets, such as Ju Dao, Flower Dao, and Cha Dao. So the Japanese Dao is very different from Chinese Dao in core.
Lao Zi (604-531 B.C.) and his student Zhuang Zi, who created and developed the Chinese religion and philosophy of Daoism, empathized the true essence of the universe, and the united one of human beings and the natural world. Daoism asserts Dao is the combination of truth, kindness, and beauty of the universe; material and human spirit can not be separated (material is in the spirit; spirit is in the material). It is the Chinese version of dialectics.
It was Daoism's concept of Calm and Inertia nurtured the Chinese lifestyle to enjoy tasting tea and to dissolve human's body into the eternal universe. Daoism helped the creation and development of Tea Arts, and helped people to pay attention to tea as a way of changing and enhancing lifestyle.
Confucius(551?-479? B.C.), the greatest philosopher in ancient China, and his student, Meng Zi established Confucianism. It emphasizes the formality and ceremony between almost everything, and re-disciplined or redefined the relationship between people by the behavior they must conduct.
The principles of Confucianism include Mercy, Commitment, Etiquette, and Wisdom, and especially the "Gold Middle Way". Confucius suggested Harmony and Balance. Its doctrines soon were found so useful for almost every Chinese Empreor and his/her royal family to control the rest of the country.
Its complex structure of etiquette also influenced the creation of the tea etiquette and tea ceremony in China. From confucius perspective, tea means harmony, calm, etiquette, and optimizm
Buddhism was founded in 535 B.C. by Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 B.C.) in Lumbini of Northern India, now inside Nepal. Budda means one who has awakened. Buddhism's Mahayana tradition entered into China as a foreign religion during Han Dynasty(206 B.C.- 220 A.D.). It tried to explain the essence of human life. Buddhism asserts that human life is the process of seeking for suffering, and so that human beings need to face the wall to meditate. If suffering is an inevitable process for the whole life, then suffering is no longer suffering.
In buddhist temple, monks have strict rules of their behavior. They can not eat meat, fish, or any products from animals; they can not drink alcohol; vegetables are the sole resource for their daily nutrition besides rice and wheat products. However, tea has been an exception since drinking tea does not violate any monastery rules - tea in essence is vegetable. Moreover, drinking tea can also help monks to meditate by keeping them awake.
Tea's bitter taste can refer to buddhist suffering; the clean and clear tea liquid can refer to the monastery rule of self-discipline, and calm. In Chinese history, many famous buddhist temples had planted and nurtured tea trees with great types and quality.
