The historical origins of Chinese medicine tea
A, the origin of tea culture
Tea, also known as “bitter tea” in the Zhou and Han dynasties, it was originally a wild Camellia sinensis evergreen shrub buds and leaves. Later, with the popularity of tea drinking, the increasing need for tea, gradually introduced it into the garden planting, the Tang Dynasty tea production has reached a considerable scale, the Tang Dynasty Qi has “taste tea” poem: “flag gun Ran green bush garden, the early rains called cuckoo.” The first affiliated hospital of Henan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine pediatrics dian Yingbin
These two lines of poetry show that the Tang Dynasty has been able to produce senior “flag gun” tea, in early spring, “flag gun” grows luxuriantly, a tender green filled with tea garden, the beginning of the rainy days is the best season for picking. At that time also has been able to harvest the wild more advanced tea – Rongcha trap (tea buds). The Tang Dynasty Lu Yu “Tea Book” said: “Where the tea picking in February March April between the tea shoots, born stone fertile soil, four or five inches long, Eu syncope began to draw, Ling dew picking Yan.” As the saying goes, “praise Ran three or five inches, born must be based on the cave” (Pi Rixiu verse). This kind of wild tea buds, the plant is small, but three or five inches long, growing in the baked stone fertile soil or the shore of the cave, when it is a rare tea, the high grade, can be imagined.
Tea to the Tang Dynasty, has been enjoyed by the literati and elegant people to become “people a day can not be without” things, people generally addicted to tea, “the new Tang Book” called “Shang tea into the wind”. Some of the tea addicts, competing tea mixed with rice porridge with cooking, called “Ming porridge”. Yang Hua, Tang Dynasty, “the meals of the hands of the record” said: “tea, ancient not heard of food. Near the Jin and Song dynasties to descend, Wu people pick its leaves, cooking, is ‘Ming porridge’.” The Tang Dynasty Bai Juyi had planted tea trees by hand, wrote a poem saying, “nothing to do in life, see this heart still.”
The Tang Dynasty Lu Yu tea research, tea culture attainment is very deep, is regarded as the contemporary “tea god”. He wrote the “Tea Classic”, is China’s first special work on tea, is also the world’s earliest a special work on tea. The advent of the “Tea Classic” is a sign of the development of tea culture to a heyday. Such as the nature of tea, quality, origin, harvesting, cooking methods and tea drinking utensils, etc., the book has been discussed.
The quality of tea in the Tang Dynasty had a clear grade, such as the flag gun, tea flag two close, “cover tea taste even, its essence in the young buds. Take its first sprout such as bird’s tongue, called the gun; slightly perfumed and for the leaves, called the flag.” (“Summer Compendium”) Pi Rixiu said: “tea flag by rain show, stalagmite with cloud tip.” Description of the young leaves of tea called flag, tea “cloud tip” “bird tongue” called gun. Another example is the tea Jane, tea gun, are tea bud tip, the so-called “tea calyx is not spread said gun”, the quality is better than the former. His “early picking for tea, late picking for tea”, refers to picking the early tea leaves are more tender, picking the late tea leaves are older. It can be seen that although Ming is the common name of tea, but in ancient times once implied the meaning of old tea.
Tea roasting, in the Tang Dynasty has had a special equipment and apparatus. Pi Rixiu made “tea roasting” poem said: chisel level under the blue rock, just should be two feet deep. Mud easy to bring cloud roots, burning difficult to hinder the stone veins. At first can dry gold cake, gradually seen in the Qiong liquid. Nine miles are all roasted tea, looking at each other on the side of the mountain.
The poem points out that a 2-foot-deep pit is cut under the blue rock, and the pit is placed on the “tea cultivation”, and the fire is burned in the pit, so that the fresh tea in the “tea roast” is gradually dried until the pulp in the fresh tea (rubbed out) is dry. Like this to roast tea in the name of the pit there are many, in the mountains stretching for miles. This roasting tea equipment scale, really spectacular. So, what is referred to as “tea roasting”? The original is roasting tea equipment. Song Dynasty Cai Xiang in the “tea record” in the note: “tea baking, woven bamboo for it, wrapped with seedling leaves, cover it, in order to collect the fire also; apart from which, to have a capacity also; Na big under it, to tea feet, often warm warm, so raise tea color, fragrance, taste.”
On the boiling tea skills, tea drinking water and the choice of tea utensils, the Tang Dynasty has been quite elaborate. Tea tripod, is the apparatus for frying tea, the system by iron casting. Pi Rixiu has “tea tripod” poem describes: “Long Shu have good craftsman, cast this good kind into. Stand for the bacteria stupid potential, frying for the sound of gurgling.” On the decoction of tea water, the tea sutra points out: “its water with mountain water (spring water) on, river water, well water down.” Lu Guimeng also said, “the new spring smell good.” Cups for drinking tea, called “tea ou”. This kind of tea ou is very delicate, is described as “round like the moon soul fall, light as the clouds up”. The Tang language forest” records: “Li Qi sex and tea, can be fried …… guest to unlimited number of Ou, competing day to perform tea ware tirelessly.”
The tea ceremony, in the Tang Dynasty has been prevalent, when the tea house, from the tea frying and cooking to the tea, drinking, there is a set of strict norms. In the tea house there is a “tea doctor” dedicated to its task. Lu Yu “Tea Book” was introduced, the then Emperor Dezong Li Shi called Lu into the palace to cook tea, after drinking praise, so “the tea ceremony is great, the king of the courtiers do not drink”.
After the “Tea Book” was introduced, there are many books written about tea, up to the Qing Dynasty, there are about 100 kinds. These tea books are in the “tea book” on the basis of the development, some enrichment, some innovation, constituting a glorious Chinese tea culture wreath, the tea culture from the heyday of the Tang Dynasty pushed to one high point after another.
To this day, China is still a major tea-producing country, and has spread tea culture to all over the world.
Second, the history of medicinal tea
Written in the 2nd century AD, China’s earliest surviving pharmacological monograph “Shennong Ben Cao Jing”: “Shennong tasted a hundred herbs, the day encountered seventy-two poison, got tea and solve it.”
Later generations of medical writings have been recorded in the tea agent.
Such as the Eastern Han Dynasty Zhang Zhongjing in the “Typhoid Miscellaneous Diseases” recorded in the treatment of dysentery pus and blood with tea.
To the Liang Dynasty, famous doctor Tao Hongjing that tea “(main) good sleep”, this period people have recognized the medicinal value of tea, and its application to clinical.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the theory of tea therapy was basically formed, “Tang Materia Medica” on the efficacy of tea has been perfected: “(tea) main fistula, urine, remove phlegm and heat, eliminate food”.
The Tang Dynasty, “the secret of the external platform” there is a “tea drinking formula” records, should be the earlier tea therapy formula.
The application of tea therapy in the Song Dynasty gradually expanded, a variety of medical monographs contain more tea therapy, especially by the court organization of relevant experts compiled by the “Taiping Sheng Hui Fang”, “Taiping Huimin and the Bureau of prescriptions”, etc., promulgated by the official monographs with the nature of the code have a special chapter on “medicinal tea”, such as the “Taiping Sheng Hui Fang” ninety-seven volumes contains the “medicine tea all the parties”, listed more than 10 kinds of tea therapy.
So far, the term “medicinal tea” was first contained in medical books.
After the Song dynasty, the application of medicinal tea is increasing, the Yuan dynasty Tai doctor Khu Si Hui in the “diet is about to” recorded around the production of a variety of medicinal tea, efficacy and treatment, is one of the more comprehensive monographs documenting the content of tea therapy.
Ming Dynasty Zhu Di and other editors of the “Pu Ji Fang” has a “food treatment door / medicine tea” chapter, containing 8 tea therapy such as onion and black bean tea. Li Shizhen on the medicinal use of tea research is extremely in-depth, in the “Compendium of Materia Medica” in addition to the functions of the tea has an incisive discussion, but also contains the treatment of “qi deficiency headache”, “heat poisoning dysentery”, “solve all poisoning “and so on tea therapy formula 16.
The Qing Dynasty tea therapy research and application is more common. From the recent compilation and publication of the “Cixi Guangxu medical prescriptions selection of the discussion” can be seen, medicinal tea for the Qing dynasty palace with components of medicine, such as tranquilizing tea drink, clearing heat tea drink, li-pharyngeal tea drink, flat stomach tea drink, etc. quite effective.
With the in-depth research and widespread use of tea therapy, tea from the beginning of the simple tea dosage form, gradually developed into tea alone, tea and natural medicine combined and does not contain tea leaves to medicine instead of tea three types of dosage forms.
Tea single-use dosage form also developed from the most primitive green tea for green tea, black tea, oolong tea, brick tea, tuocha and several other kinds of tea.
Tea and natural medicine together began with flower tea, such as chrysanthemum tea, osmanthus tea, jasmine tea, etc., followed by ginseng tea, ginger tea, gardenia tea, snake gall bladder tea, afternoon tea, sesame blood tea, even plum dysentery tea, Cixi pearl tea, fat loss tea and ghee tea, fruit tea, etc. hundreds of species.
The tea will be placed in a cup, boiling water a bubble, that is, into a tea agent, both simple to make, and easy to take.
Borrowing the advantages of tea, the tea and natural medicine, that is, the emergence of tea, medicine instead of tea “medicine tea”, such as unique ginseng tea, pure chrysanthemum tea, five flowers tea, bitter tea, gibberellic acid tea, Xihuangcao tea, Wan Ying Gan and tea, Wang Laoji herbal tea and nearly a thousand kinds, widely used in internal, external, women, children, orthopedic injuries, five kinds of diseases prevention and treatment.
Tea therapy is not only widely used in the clinical and folk, and “tea” as a dosage form has been included in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (1995 edition). 2000 edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia included two kinds of tea for children’s colds and flu tea, Banlangen tea. The Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China Drug Standard contains more than 20 kinds of tea, such as Gan and tea, antihypertensive tea bag, Pat Chun tea bag, clear heat and bright eyes tea, Shiqi external sensory tea.
At present, China has made finished products and marketed more than 100 kinds of medicinal tea. Among them, Luo Han Guo tea, five plus ginseng tea, Tian Yan weight loss tea, wormwood tea, gibberellic acid tea, three flowers, such as weight loss tea and many other medicinal tea, not only in the domestic market sales, and has entered the international market in bulk, favored by foreign people from all walks of life. This shows that tea therapy has been more and more people’s attention and love.
I believe that in the near future, tea therapy will play a more important and positive role in the prevention and treatment of diseases, to protect people’s health.
Third, the application prospects of medicinal tea
In recent years, the increasing rise of medicinal tea, weight loss, lipid-lowering class of medicinal tea popular in urban and rural areas, selling abroad, and continues to flourish. This shows that this dosage form of medicinal tea is welcomed by the majority of drinkers. How to make a broader development and application of medicinal tea is a major issue in front of us.
To dig deeper into the varieties of medicinal tea and develop its application, it is necessary to achieve a reasonable preparation process, fully guarantee the effectiveness of the drug as well as simple and economic, etc.
1, the shortage of current medicinal tea
Today’s popular medicinal tea, in terms of its varieties, no more than weight loss, lipid-lowering, hypotension, fitness, bodybuilding, alcohol, life extension and other brewing agents. The composition of the formula is mostly made up of drugs and tea, and mostly with tea as the base. This is typical of tea preparations, but the choice of drugs and the scope of adaptation are greatly restricted, so their main function lies in health care.
The recent rise of foreign listening tea, processed entirely with tea leaves, is purely a health drink, mainly for healthy people to drink, rarely have therapeutic effect.
There are also therapeutic series of medicinal punch, mostly for quantitative one-time take sachets, boiling water can be taken immediately, than the above medicinal tea brewed to use more convenient and fast. For example, cold and flu punch, antipyretic punch, cool and summer punch, antihypertensive and blood-strengthening punch, anti-wind and anti-itch punch, hepatitis punch, lithotripsy punch, gastritis punch, pulse-suppressant punch, menstrual regulator punch, fat children’s health punch, spleen and blood-strengthening punch, cerebral lejing punch, cough and asthma punch, lung and cough punch, sinusitis punch, etc. belong to this category.
All of these formulas are based on Chinese herbal formulas and processed with modern pharmaceutical technology, and sugar is generally added as the fugitive base. In essence, the punch should also belong to the category of medicinal tea, only that its prescription has been modified to appear miniaturized. The shortcomings of this dosage form: First, the processing process is generally decocted to extract the juice, and then mixed with excipients, and then spray drying for granules (or powder). In the decoction process, some of the active ingredients are destroyed, resulting in reduced or unstable efficacy. Secondly, it is not suitable for those who should not eat sugar (such as diabetes, hyperlipidemia) because sugar is the excipient matrix. Thirdly, clinical observation shows that the efficacy of many of the doses is mediocre. If the original medicine contained in the punch brewed into a tea, its therapeutic effect can be significantly improved.
2, promote the ancient method of medicinal tea new use
The ancients had their own unique method of making medicinal tea.
First of all, completely take natural raw medicine, according to the need to process into coarse or fine powder, or just pounding, and then decocted several boiling or brewed directly with boiling water for tea.
Here the “decoction of several boiling”, almost synonymous with “decoction to open as degree”, it is slightly higher than the temperature of direct brewing with boiling water, but control the temperature to the boiling point, without destroying the active ingredients of raw medicine. Especially for flowers and other herbs containing aromatic volatile oils, high decoction temperature will definitely lead to loss of active ingredients; some other herbs do not contain aromatic volatile oils, but if the decoction temperature is too high, some of the biologically active active ingredients will be destroyed. Therefore, using boiling water below the boiling point to brew (soak) herbs can best preserve the performance of each medicine and give full play to the therapeutic efficacy of the prescription. This strongly reflects the rationality and scientific nature of the ancient physicians who created the medicinal tea preparation.
Secondly, the herbs used in medicinal tea, most of them should first be crushed for the scattered, and then bubble drink.
Common sense tells us that the Chinese medicine “for loose” and water solvents contact, greatly increasing the contact surface, can make its active ingredients fully dissolved in water, and thus can save the amount of raw medicine, and each time the amount of medicine to take more to take less, can be flexible due to disease. This is another advantage of the ancient medicine tea preparation.
Again, the ancient medicinal tea preparations do not add any flavoring agent, to maintain the original flavor of Chinese medicine.
In accordance with the principle of traditional Chinese medicine “stomach to like for tonic”, add or not add flavoring agents and add what flavoring agents, can vary from person to person depending on the disease, will not affect the therapeutic effect in any way. It can be said that this is also a major feature of the ancient medicinal tea preparations.
All of the above shows that the ancient method of brewing medicinal tea, still has practical value today, especially in maintaining the medicinal properties of Chinese medicine, highly effective Chinese medicine, enough to make up for the shortcomings of the prevailing medicinal tea. And this kind of medicinal tea preparation is simple and easy, no need for complex equipment, urban and rural can be for it, very meaningful to promote.
3.Broaden the development varieties of medicinal tea
In recent years, almost in the world has risen the boom of return to nature.
The so-called return to nature, that is, everything should be in line with nature, food requirements are natural products. The rise of this boom is not without reason. A large number of chemical products have been introduced, bringing public harm to mankind. In health care, a large number of chemicals, antibiotics, the application of many medical diseases, its toxic side effects are staggering. Faced with this serious situation, people have to open up new ways to seek new natural health care products from nature. The rise of “Chinese medicine fever” in foreign countries is a good illustration. Many foreign friends prefer to use a bowl of Chinese medicine bitter water, but fear the application of chemicals and antibiotics. The medicinal tea is easy to use and can meet the needs of oral Chinese medicine in water to a certain extent.
There are two major categories of herbal teas that have been introduced, the health care series and the medical series. From the point of view of commercially available varieties, the therapeutic series of medicinal tea are few and far between to meet the needs of society. Therefore, to broaden the varieties of medicinal tea and develop the medicinal tea market, there is a broad prospect.
How to broaden the variety of medicinal tea? Completely rely on modern pharmaceutical technology production is not realistic, and only the ancient method of new use, revitalization of the ancient medicine tea formulations, in order to achieve a variety of colorful.
The biggest advantage of the ancient medicine tea agent is: purely with natural raw medicine, after brewing can maintain the taste and efficacy of the medicine, but also due to the disease can change the formula and the amount of medicine, urban and rural can be implemented, very conducive to the development and popularity.
However, the problem is always divided into two, not medicine tea to cure all diseases, not all drugs can be into the medicine tea.
At least the following types of drugs are not suitable for medicinal tea.
① Chinese medicines containing aconitine, such as Chuan Wu, Cao Wu, must be decocted for a long time to reduce or destroy the toxicity of aconitine.
②Snakes and insects, such as wuzhang snake, leeches, the former decoction time is too short and the active ingredients are not easily dissolved, the latter fishy and unpleasant to enter.
③Shells and ores, such as oyster and stone cassia, need to be decocted first (long decoction) before the active ingredients can be dissolved.
④ spicy stinging throat and unpleasant to swallow, are not suitable for medicinal tea bubble drink.
The above shows that when we vigorously develop and promote medicinal tea today, we must ensure its health care medical functions, take the long and easy medicinal tea, discard a variety of drugs that should not be mixed into medicinal tea, in order to promote the benefits and eliminate the disadvantages.