Jianzhan Tenmoku and Dou Cha culture

1. What is Dou Cha and the Dou Cha culture.

1) What is Dou Cha?

Dou is the Chinese pinyin of “斗”, meaning battle, fighting, or contest. Cha is the Chinese pinyin of “茶”, which means tea. So, Dou Cha is a popular game or competition among tea lovers. The winners and losers are determined through the evaluation of the tea leaves, tea sets (such as Jianzhan), the making process, and the tea’s taste. This is similar to various championships in modern society, but Dou Cha is usually held together with spring outings. People camp, enjoy flowers, drink tea, and write poetry; it is a pleasant leisure and entertainment activity. In a broad sense, tea fighting can be divided into many steps, such as the evaluation of the quality of tea cakes, the comparison of tea sets, the competition of tea making skills, the poems game (perhaps a bit like playing a drinker’s forfeit game), people feel happy in the Dou Cha, Find meaning in life.

2) The rise and fall of Dou Cha culture

The most popular dynasty of the Dou Cha culture was the Song Dynasty. At that time, the common people and the emperors liked Dou Cha and also liked to watch people do it. Due to the prosperity of Dou Cha, many important books about tea were also published during this period, the Jian kilns began to be fired on a large scale, and various tea sets began to appear, which greatly enriched China’s tea culture. It was also introduced to Korea, Japan and other countries and impacted the culture and life there. However, the tea-making method in Doucha, the Diancha method, is too complicated because of its complicated process. The tea cake needs to be made, many utensils are used, and the tea-making process is complicated. After the Ming Dynasty, it was gradually replaced by the brewing method. Only some places in Guangdong and Fujian province still have the custom of Dou Cha, but it is not the same as before.

2. Why Jianzhan Tenmoku is the great utensil for Doucha

The tools used in the process of Dou Cha include a tea stove, tea mill, tea bottle, teapot, tea cup, tea spoon and so on. We will mainly introduce the use of the Jianzhan tenmoku tea cup.

1) Its shape is suitable for tea making

First, the shape. The bottom of the Jianzhan cup is small, and the mouth is large, like a funnel. The larger cup is like a bowl. Its mouth is slightly curved inward, and it does not easily spill outside when you stir the tea soup. This shape is also conducive to giving off the tea’s aroma and facilitates the stirring of the tea.

2) It is most suitable for making fancy tea (like modern fancy coffee).

An important criterion in Dou Cha is the color and shape of the tea foam. First of all, the color of the tea made by the Diancha method is white. It is generally believed that if the tea soup is pure white, it is the best, and the blue-white one is worse. Therefore, the Jianzhan tea bowl is a good background for the tea soup, and its black background allows you to observe the details of the tea soup. Secondly, when making Diancha, many people will use the “pigments” prepared with food to paint on the surface of the tea soup. Jianzhan’s larger bowl mouth area is more convenient for painting than other teacups. Finally, the Jianzhan tenmoku tea bowl has a thick body and high iron content, which allows it to absorb a lot of heat and release it to keep the tea soup pattern longer.

3) Its Appearance is suitable for Dou Cha

In the broad sense of Doucha, people will not only judge whether your tea is good or not. The quality of the tea you use and your utensils are also important criteria. The unique appearance of the Jianzhan tenmoku tea bowl is the most suitable for comparison. The appearance of Jianzhan has many types, and the more famous ones are Yohen tenmoku, oil spot, and rabbit hair pattern. Yohen tenmoku tea bowl is the most precious, with fantastic colors. We can see the comparison in the following pictures. Jianzhan of different patterns has a different beauty, which is very suitable for people to compare and judge.

3. Evaluation Criteria for Doucha

Diancha is an important part of Doucha. You can click: How to make Diancha know the detailed steps of Diancha. Doucha is the evaluation of Diancha after the completion. We will introduce the evaluation criteria below. There are two main factors. One is the tea soup’s colour, and the other is the tea soup’s pattern.

1) The color of the tea soup

The descending order of color quality is: pure white > blue-white > gray-white > yellow-white. If the color of the tea soup is pure white, it means the tea leaves are fresh, and the tea cake is made to a roast; if the color turns green, it means the tea leaves are not roasted enough; if the color turns yellow, it means that the tea leaves were not picked in time and not fresh enough; if the color turns red, it means the tea cake was over roasted.

2) Pattern of tea soup

There are two criteria for determining whether the tea soup pattern is good: one is the pattern’s colour. Because the color of the pattern is closely related to the color of the tea soup, this criterion is the same as that of the tea soup; the second is the speed of disappearance of the pattern. The later it disappears, the better. If the tea powder is finely ground and stirred more evenly, the foam of the tea soup will be finer and more uniform, the adhesion between the foams will be stronger, and the formed pattern will be able to aggregate for a long time. On the contrary, the pattern spreads out quickly, the tea particles are coarse and precipitate faster, and the tea and water are layered, indicating that the Diancha process is not good.

4. Conclusion

Although the custom of Doucha in the Song Dynasty is no longer popular, we can still feel the love of tea at that time through the preserved cups, books and paintings, and it will also deeply influence the way of drinking tea in modern times.