cha dao 茶道, dao cha 道茶 and gongfu cha 工夫茶

Of the three terms, cha dao 茶道, dao cha 道茶 and cha gongfu 工夫茶, two are related temporarily, and two, despite emerging centuries apart, are related conceptually.

Yet before the advent of these terms, the first treatise on tea was written in 760 CE. Lu Yu’ s Cha Jing 茶經, or Classic of Tea was circulated amongst the literati before it was published twenty years later in 780. Beginning with finding the best water and preparing your utensils, the Cha Jing describes the tea-making process of the Tang dynasty in detail, along with identifying the best tea-growing regions.

The term cha dao 茶道 came into being at a similar time as Lu Yu wrote the Cha Jing 茶經. As a concept, it came to us through two people: the poetry of Jiaoran, a monk, and the dissertation of Feng Yan, a minor official.

Jiaoran wrote

孰知茶道全尔真 Who knew that the Way of Tea can preserve your true nature

and Feng Yan, wrote in his 封氏闻见记, Records of Things Seen and Heard

“Lu Yu’s theories, expanded and embellished them, and thus the Way of Tea flourished greatly. No noble or official did not drink it.

Dao cha 道茶 evolved in the Tang dynasty at the same time as cha dao 茶道, only the term was usually confined to the women and men who practiced dao in caves and temples across China.

Lu Dongbin, the Tang dynasty Daoist, was a connoisseur of tea; his tea poems leave such a record.

One of his poems, 大云寺茶诗 Dayun Temple Tea poem has been interpreted as a metaphor for cultivation. The Records of Ancestor Lu (Lv zu ji 呂祖志) record numerous stories of Lu Dongbin healing people through use of tea. In one story, an old man with numerous ailments had difficulty walking. He was told by Luzu (Ancestor Lu) to drink only Wuyi mountain tea, preferably from bushes in the southeast of the mountain, and to brew it with spring water. The old man followed Luzu’s instructions and found he could walk again.

The story of Lu Dongbin healing the old man with Wuyi tea only became popular in the Ming.

During the Tang, woodblock printing was still emerging, so history was often coded in poetry and paintings. We can see from the number of tea poems reflecting Daoism, that tea was an important part of the tradition.

Of the Tang tea poems, Lu Dongbin himself wrote three, but the most famous is that of Lu Tong. Lu Tong’s “Seven Bowls of Tea” is so famous that school children learn it and tea gatherings across the globe recite it. The poem begins

The first bowl moistens my lips and throat, The second bowl banishes my loneliness and melancholy,

The full poem can be found here:

Daoist poet Yu Xuanji wrote about seeing tea being prepared on a teastove when she went to visit a colleague, and Wen Tingyun wrote “Xiling Daoist Tea Song. ((西陵道士茶歌).

When he visited his friend the Xiling Daoist, he wrote

仙翁白扇霜鸟翎，拂坛夜读黄庭经 The transcendent elders white fan with frosted crow feathers, brushes the altar while reading the Huangting classic at night

It describes a monk elder, staying up late drinking tea, and reading a famous Daoist cultivation text the Yellow Court Scripture, and gives us a clear picture of the life of a Daoist monk.

Even though the term dao cha 道茶 is not as commonly known as cha dao 茶道, it profoundly influenced the knowledge and practice of tea for centuries. This meditative method shaped the development of ceremonial aspects to tea practice. Even Lu Yu, known as the Tea Saint for his pioneering Cha Jing, is believed to have developed his tea stove based on the trigrams of the Yi Jing (I Ching.)

As early as the Han dynasty, tea was being cultivated by Daoists. Ge Xuan, the Tea Ancestor, grew tea-bushes on Tiantai mountain in Zhejiang, and much later, his grand-nephew, the more famous Ge Hong, wrote about Ge Xuan in his “Biography of Immortals”.1 The medicinal properties of tea were studied and used for Daoist medicine since the Han. More on Ge Xuan below:

Tao Hongjing, the fifth century polymath, Daoist alchemist, calligrapher and pharmacologist, wrote those lines in his “Miscellaneous Records”:

bitter tea can lighten the body and transform the bones 苦茶可以令人轻身换骨

Ma Dayang was a disciple of Quanzhen founder Wang Zhe. In one of his tea poems, he wrote

無為 茶，自然茶

wu wei cha, ziran cha, , bringing the concept of ‘effortless action’ and “natural spontaneity’ (ziran) into tea culture.

Ma Dayang effortlessly links key Daoist concepts like “wu wei 無為 and ziran 然茶 into his poem, thus painting a picture of a cultivator, practicing meditation techniques with a cup of tea.

Development of the term gongfu cha 工夫茶 originated in the Wuyi mountains, where tea, and tea poetry, abounded.

Besides Lu Dongbin curing someone with this tea, famous Song travel writer Lu You 陆游 praised it. His poem, Joyfully Receiving Jian tea 喜得建茶 (the area surrounding the mountain was called Jianzhou), describes how happy he is to drink this tea due to it’s sweet aftertaste.

The famous Song dynasty figure, Confucianist Zhu Zi wrote about Wuyi tea. He had lived in the mountain for many years, and wrote

如这一盏茶，一味是茶，便是真 - as if this one cup of tea is really the truth

A memorial to Zhu Xi stand s at Huiyan Ancient Town in Wuyi, not far from the Huishan springs; this is the same spring that features in a number of Ming dynasty paintings.

It was in the Ming dynasty that the term gongfu cha’ 工夫茶 was first used, in relation to Wuyi tea.

The term was used in a Ming gazette, long since lost to history. The tea quote, though, has stood the test of time, due to a Qing dynasty writer, Li Tingcan.

Li Tingcan wrote Sequel to the Classic of Tea, 续茶经, in 1734. It contains an extensive account of tea treatises from the Tang to the Qing, and took him seventeen years to write. As he worked as a magistrate near Wuyi mountain, and travelled a lot to investigate the tea-growing areas in his efforts to write a comprehensive work. Included in this book is a quote from a Ming gazetteer, the 随见录 Suijianlu , a document lost to time if not for Li Tingcan.

After a description of the Wuyi mountains and it’s tea growing areas, the Ming gazeeter concluded “the very best among them is called ‘gongfu cha’ (工夫茶)”.

It was seven decades later before the term took on the meaning it has today.

In the wonderfully titled “The Miscellaneous Records of the Dream Factory” (梦厂杂著), there is a chapter describing the beauty of Chaozhao scenery, and it is there we find the first use of the term gongfu cha 工夫茶 referring to a tea ceremony.2

Completed in 1801 and first published in 1811, this book describes the Chaozhou procedure for brewing tea which became the prototype of gongfu cha 工夫茶.

Cha dao 茶道 was a term that emerged in the Tang. It became well known, and came to be associated with gongfu cha 工夫茶, a term which was not to appear until centuries later.

The other term, dao cha 道茶, less well known, also stems from the Tang. The concept of a medidative approach to tea, that is the essence of dao cha 道茶, profoundly influenced the knowledge and practice of tea for centuries.

In the next chapter of Conversations with Daoists, we will be visiting a Dao nun in Wuhan, who practices gongfu cha, and we discus more about Quanzhen dao tea.

Bibliography

1. Benn, James A., 2016. Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History, Hawai’i Scholarship Online, 17 Nov. 2016

2. 樗下, 丹阳真人马钰和南五台禅师点茶论道, 玄门道语,西安八仙宫, 2024年第1期., 2025-06-16. Chu, Xia, 2024. Master Ma Yu of Danyang and Zen Master Nanwutai Discuss the Dao over Tea, Xuanmen Daoyu, Issue 1, 2024 , 2025-06-16.

3. Li Yang, Kong Linghong. 2019. The Influence of Taoism and Taoism on Tea-chanting Poems in Tang Dynasty. Asia-Pacific Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 1, No. 3, 2019, pp. 30-35.

4. Livio Zanini, “Chinese Writings on Tea: Classifications and Compilations,” Ming Qing Yanjiu 21, no. 1 (2017): 44–57.

5. Xu, Meimin. "A Brief Discussion on Chaoshan Gongfu Tea." Chinese Language and Culture Journal 11, no. 1 (2024): 177–88. https://so02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/clcjn/article/view/266790