Cha Jing
Definition
The Book of Tea or Classic of Tea written by Lu Yu around 760 CE during the Tang dynasty, regarded as the foundational text of Chinese tea culture. It systematized tea botany, processing, equipment, and brewing.
Why it matters
The Cha Jing, by Lu Yu (733 to 804 CE), is the world's oldest known dedicated treatise on tea. Written in classical Chinese in ten chapters, it covers the origin and botany of the tea plant, tools for picking and processing, methods of making tea cakes, the equipment for grinding and boiling, water selection, brewing technique, the categories of tea then in use, famous tea-producing regions, and the broader cultural and spiritual significance of tea. Lu Yu's treatment of water and brewing is particularly famous. He classified mountain spring water as best, river water as middling, and well water as inferior, and described the stages of boiling with the now-classic imagery of fish eyes, crab eyes, and roaring waves. These ideas continue to influence Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tea practice today. The Cha Jing is sometimes treated as scripture in tea cultures, but it is also a practical document, recording the state of Tang dynasty tea production at a time when leaves were pressed into cakes, ground to powder, and boiled rather than steeped. As such it provides invaluable historical insight as well as enduring philosophical framing.