Tea Classics Emperor Ming Taizu & The Abolition of 皇 Caked Tea 帝 明 茶人: Steven D. Owyoung 太 We are very honored this issue to have so many renowned 祖 tea scholars brushing scrolls of insight on the Ming Dynasty. Last, but certainly not least, Steven Owyoung illuminates the 廢 royal decree in all of China’s long history that had the greatest 除 impact on tea lovers, then to now. After having read so many tea classics, this article explains why there is such a mixture 餅 of tea, teaware and brewing methods in the Ming Dynasty. 茶 This fascinating topic, revealed in such a well-researched and articulate form, is one for posterity! n the autumn of 1391, the dragon flected in his commands on tea and the gols. Zhu Yuanzhang rose swiftly in I throne issued a declaration abol- extent to which he was obeyed. On oc- the military and in the eyes of Guo ishing the production of caked casion, transgressors included his fol- Zixing, who proposed the marriage of tea at the imperial estate in Fujian. lowers and family, their crimes forcing the young soldier to Lady Ma (1332– As recorded in the Veritable Records him to choose between the rule of law 1382), Guo’s adopted daughter. On of Emperor Taizu of the Great Ming and nepotism. The emperor’s attitude the death of Guo Zixing in 1355 and Dynasty, the Imperial Decree on the towards tea was stirred by his peasant the demise of the general’s male heirs, Jianning Annual Offering of Tribute Tea background and common touch but Zhu Yuanzhang became commander was proclaimed on the sixteenth day more often informed by his experience in chief of the army and took as his of the ninth lunar month of the twen- and talent as a civil and military ad- concubine Guo Zixing’s other daugh- ty-fourth year of the Hongwu era. The ministrator. In private, Taizu’s personal ter, known as Guo Huifei (active ca. palace order began with the simple but taste for tea was possibly influenced by 1355–1370s). The following year, Zhu severe command: “Obey.” the religious observances of his family. Yuanzhang captured Nanjing, the ma- The author of the decree was Zhu Born in 1328 among the impov- jor city from which he ruled, and cam- Yuanzhang (1328–1398), who as erished Fengyang peasantry of An- paigned for over a decade against other founder and first emperor of the Ming hui, Zhu Yuanzhang lost his parents warlords for control of the south. Be- dynasty acquired the posthumous tem- and siblings to hardship, famine and tween 1361 and 1364, he took the title ple name of Ming Taizu, Great Pro- plague, saving himself by honoring his of Duke of Wu and then that of Prince genitor of the Ming. Emperor Taizu dead father’s wish for him to join the of Wu, establishing his aristocratic if ruled imperial China from the year local Buddhist monastery of Huangjue not imperial ambitions. In 1367, Su- 1368 to 1398, a regnal period known Temple where the boy lived as a no- zhou fell under siege, followed by the as Hongwu, the Era of Great Martial vitiate. When the abbey’s poverty fall of Fujian on January 21, 1368: Attainment, in honor of his fame as a forced him to leave, he wandered the within two days Zhu Yuanzhang de- warrior and military general. The state countryside as a mendicant monk. Re- clared himself emperor and ruler of the tea monopoly played an important turning later to the friary, he learned Ming Dynasty. The successive surren- role in the economic and legal reforms to read and write until the monastery ders of Suzhou and Fujian brought un- of Taizu’s government and exemplified was destroyed by warfare in 1352. At der his control the empire’s two most his efforts to restructure agriculture, age twenty-four, he enlisted with Guo celebrated tea regions, but it took years trade and taxes while dealing with Zixing (1312–1355), a Muslim gener- for the emperor to issue the stunning fraud and corruption. The effective- al of insurgent forces rebelling against decrees that changed the forms of tea ness of the emperor’s policies was re- the Yuan Dynasty and the alien Mon- as imperial tribute. 53 Classics of Tea Tribute in ancient China was the passing over boiling water, and fanning been encouraged by his two wives, presentation of goods from the nobili- to the luster of dark lacquer. The pro- Lady Ma and Guo Huifei, both of ty to the sovereign, a system by which cess took over two weeks before the fin- whom were raised Muslim and taught the specialties of a province were sent ished cakes were placed in pouches of to eschew alcohol. As noted in the His- as taxes to the palace. Such levies were yellow silk gauze, wrapped in bamboo tory of the Ming, Lady Ma personally first suggested in the Tribute of Yu leaves and cushioned within linings of prepared Taizu’s meals and in all like- wherein the legendary Yu the Great more silk, and sealed in a red lacquered lihood followed halal, the dietary laws described the geography of the empire, casket with a gilt lock. By custom, of Islam. Among Chinese rulers, Taizu its mountains and rivers, and the lo- forty to one hundred measures of the was notable for his support of the Mus- cal products that might be sent to the tea were sent north by special courier lim community, the emperor canoniz- mythical Emperor Shun. As an herb, to the emperor, the precious tribute ing seven Muslim generals as princes, tea was initially a southern rarity used arriving before the Festival of Purity constructing mosques throughout the for its medicinal and culinary proper- and Light and the spring sacrifices to south, and writing the One Hundred ties. Tea was recorded as tribute in the the imperial ancestors. When Emperor Word Eulogy in praise of the Prophet Records of the Southern Realms beyond Taizu declared the abolition of caked Mohammad and Islam. According to Mount Hua and included in the diplo- tea, he ended a form of tea that had the lost work Secret History of Chinese matic exchanges between the dynastic flourished for over six hundred years. Muslims by Ma Wensheng (1426– Zhou and the Ba and Shu of distant The first elimination of caked tea 1510), Taizu’s commanders were all Sichuan. Modern archaeology has re- by Taizu actually occurred in 1375 followers of the Prophet, and Taizu vealed that tea was received as tribute when he nullified the Yuan imperial tea governed his Muslim generals by im- from at least the second century BCE office at Guzhu and ordered the halt of posing on them Islamic proscriptions at capitals in the north and south. In its caked tea production. Mount Gu- and harsh penalties, especially against Hunan, excavations at Mawangdui zhu was a place on the southwestern alcohol—even personally executing near Changsha unearthed tea from shores of Lake Tai, near the town of the drunkard son of his closest military the grave of Xizui (died ca. 168–164 Huzhou in northern Zhejiang. Tea aide. BCE), otherwise known as Lady Dai, had been produced there since before After Guzhu, it was a further six- the consort of the Chu nobleman Mar- the third century, and the local leaf was teen years before Taizu acted in 1391 quis of Dai (died 186 BCE). Kept in known in history variously as Zisun or on the tribute of caked tea from Jian- a bamboo basket, the tea was labeled Russet Shoot, Yangxian, or Guzhu. In ning, Fujian. Fujian was a mountain- and registered in the tomb’s funerary 770, Lu Yu recommended the tea as a ous province far to the south where the inventory. In the north near Xi’an, ar- superior leaf to the local prefect, and cliffs, rocky soil and good drainage en- chaeologists uncovered at the tomb of thereafter Guzhu caked tea was sent hanced the quality of its tea. The herb Emperor Jingdi (188–141 BCE) a sac- north as tribute to the capital. had been grown in Jianning since the rificial pit that contained a compressed Taizu waited seven years after his Tang Dynasty, but it was in the tenth dark brown vegetal matrix, the rem- inauguration in 1368 to act at Guzhu. century that Fujian tea gained aristo- nants of a block of fine tea comprised In lieu of caked tea, he directed the pre- cratic cachet. In 933, during the Five of uniform leaf buds. From the Han sentation of two jin, about two and a Dynasties period, the farmer Zhang through the Qing dynasties, tea was half pounds, of whole-leaf tea as annu- Tinghui (tenth century) presented used as imperial tribute for over two al tribute to the palace. Just why Taizu his extensive tea gardens at Phoenix thousand years, most famously during ended the production of caked tea at Mountain to the King of Min, who the Northern Song when emperors Guzhu was unknown, but tradition then designated the gift as a royal estate were presented with highly refined had it that he preferred his tea steeped and kept Zhang as its overseer. Locat- caked teas. from dried whole leaves. Boiling or ed along the northern tributaries of the Caked tea was first described by steeping whole-leaf tea produced an Min River, the tea gardens were known the Tang scholar Lu Yu (733–804) in infusion, a practical and efficient and as North Park or Beiyuan.