Legends About Tea:Shengnont and Tea
There are many legends and folkores about tea.
The most widespread legend comes from the Shengnong's Classic of Materia Medica.This book,which was attributed to Shengnong,the father of Chinese agriculture,is the earliest work on Chinese pharmacology.According to this legend,Shendnong tasted all kinds of plants and water from different sources,in order to let the people know which things can be eaten and which should be avoided.One day,he was poisoned by 72 different poisonous plants,and eventually found relief after tasting the leaves of tea trees.Shengnong himself is a legendary figure.The Chinese writing system had not developed in his time.So this book could not have been written by Shengnong,which means that this is actually a legend told by a legendary figure.But it does reveal the initial discovery and use of tea.
The most widespread legend comes from the Shengnong's Classic of Materia Medica.This book,which was attributed to Shengnong,the father of Chinese agriculture,is the earliest work on Chinese pharmacology.According to this legend,Shendnong tasted all kinds of plants and water from different sources,in order to let the people know which things can be eaten and which should be avoided.One day,he was poisoned by 72 different poisonous plants,and eventually found relief after tasting the leaves of tea trees.Shengnong himself is a legendary figure.The Chinese writing system had not developed in his time.So this book could not have been written by Shengnong,which means that this is actually a legend told by a legendary figure.But it does reveal the initial discovery and use of tea.
Another tea legend again casts Shengnong as the protagonist.According to this story,Shengnong has a crystal stomach,so that everything that goes on in the stomach can be clearly seen from the outside.When he tasted tea leaves,he saw that the leaves scrubbed his intestines clean.Thus he named this plant cha.which is a pproximately the same sound scrubbing.This legend boviously has very little credibility.Reliable historical records show that tea had numerous names throughout history,including tu,jia,ming,she and chuan.It was not until the Tang dynasty that the name cha appeared.Despite of the lack of credibility,this legend does explain one important function of tea--that it cleanses the stomach and the intestines.
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