[CHAPTER XXIV: CONCERNING TEA][1]
"The first cup moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my loneliness, the third cup searches my inmost being.... The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration—all the wrong of life passes away through my pores. At the fifth cup I am purified; the sixth cup calls me to the realms of immortals. The seventh cup—ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of cool wind that rises in my sleeves. Where is Horaisan?[2] Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither."
Lotung.
Tea-drinking in England and Japan
In England we regard tea simply as a beverage, a refreshing and mild stimulant over which ladies are wont to gossip with their neighbours. There is nothing romantic about our tea-pots and kettles and spoons; they come from the kitchen and are returned to the kitchen with prescribed regularity. We have a few stock comments on the subject of tea, and can quote the exact price our grandmothers paid for this beverage. We have our opinions as to whether it is best taken with or without sugar, and have sometimes found it efficacious in driving away a headache.
When tea reached our own country in 1650 it was referred to as "that excellent and by all physicians approved China drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, and by other nations Tay, alias Tee." In 1711 the Spectator remarked: "I would therefore in a particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families that set apart an hour every morning for tea, bread and butter; and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up and to be looked upon as a part of the tea-equipage." Dr. Johnson described himself as "a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of the fascinating plant; who with tea amused the evening, with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning." But there is no romance, no old tradition associated with our tea-drinking in this country. Perhaps it is as well that the ladies sitting in our fashionable drawing-rooms are unacquainted with the grim and pathetic legend that narrates how a Buddhist priest fell asleep during his meditations. When he awoke he cut off his offending eyelids and flung them on the ground, where they were immediately transformed into the first tea-plant.
In Japan tea-drinking has become a ritual. It is not so much a social function as a time for peaceful meditation. The elaborate tea ceremonies, cha-no-yu, have their tea-masters, etiquette, and numerous observances. A cup of Japanese tea is combined with spiritual and artistic enlightenment. But before discussing these very interesting ceremonies we must learn something about the significance of tea in China, for it was the drinking of this beverage in the Celestial Kingdom, associated with the rarest porcelain and æsthetic and religious thought, that inspired the tea cult in the Land of the Gods.