Lu Yu Soul Man Part 1

James Norwood Pratt, outstanding author of The New Tea Lovers' Treasury and The Tea Dictionary has kindly invited Jing Tea to serialise his most recent work on the Great Tea Saint, Lu Yu.

Once upon a time in China a man discovered a Spirit inhabiting a plant.The Spirit entered every one who imbibed the nectar of this miracle ofvegetation the Spirit inhabited. If you were cold it would warm you, ifyou were hot it would cool you, if you were weary it would refresh you,if you were stressed it would relax you. It protected you againstcountless ills and ailments and provided end less hours of leisure,friendship, sociability, and conversation.

Thisvegetative Spirit gradually became the man’s Familiar Spirit and from then onthey remained inseparable. Now this was a man with no other calling except togive utterance to what exists in realms no word has ever entered. He longed toexpress somehow the mysteries his Familiar Spirit revealed to him daily, buthow could he hope to succeed—how convey goodness the mouth discovers, howboiling kettles sound like wind in the pines?

Aidedby the Spirit’s patient inspiration, he found words or rather, since he wasChinese, characters—just over seven thousand—which concealed as much meaning asthey revealed and thus perfectly expressed the gospel and mystery of tea. Afterperhaps 26 years in the writing, Lu Yu completed The Book of Tea aboutthe Chinese Year 3458, or 760 AD.

link to Part 2