Tea saint Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea Chapter 4 in its original text. (To view the Chinese characters in this blog, you may need to enable character encoding of your web browser to either Unicode or Simplied Chinese.)

In this second part of translating Chapter 4 of Classic of Tea, I am working on items 2 to 9 listed by Lu Yu. As I translate, I cannot help but compare these items to our modern day Gongfu Cha tea set, I feel that the utensils used by Lu Yu is more elaborate but very cleverly constructed.

Lu Yu’s 2nd item, “ju” (筥) is essentially a bamboo basket, possibly with rattan on the outside, which was used for holding coals. Lu Yu’s ju had a height of 1 “chi” (尺. 1 chi is 33.3cm) and 2 “cun” (寸. 2 cun is 6.6cm) and a diameter of 7 cun (23cm). It had a smooth lid made of wood.

The 3rd item is “tan zhua” (炭挝), an hexagonal metal rod for breaking pieces of coal. It was 1 chi in length, and had a sharp pointy end, a thicker middle and a thinner handle end. The handle end might be decorated with various items attached.

“Huo jia” (火筴) is the 4th item listed by Lu Yu. It was a pair of fire tongs fashioned from round iron or copper rods. The two rods, which operated rather like chopsticks, were 1 chi and 3 cun long (43.2cm) and were held together at one end with decorations.

The next item is “fu” (鍑) which is a little, unlidded, cast iron pot. The fu was used to boil water on the feng lu (风炉) (a wind furnace. See Lu Yu: Classic of Tea Chapter 4 (Part I) blog post). Lu Yu says that he had old broken unused farm tools melted down to make the pot. In order to make it, he filled a mould with sandy soil before pouring on the molten iron. When the iron pot was formed in the mould, he would smear the interior of the pot with mud. It made the interior easier to clean and the exterior more heat absorbent when the pot was finished in the oven.

Lu Yu goes on to describe the pot or fu in yet greater detail. It had two square handles, making it look proper and straight. However, it also had a wide opening which would allow any powdery tea leaves to spread out inside the pot. But the pot should have a tall middle (Lu Yu uses the term “long navel”) to allow the water to boil in the middle of the pot. That way, any tea powder would float to the top, adding to the mellowness and sweetness of the tea.

A “ju” (筥) is a bamboo basket used for holding coals.

Lu Yu then says that in “Hong Zhou” (洪州. now in the Nanchang area), people like to use a porcelain pot as a fu while people in “Lai Zhou” (莱州. now the Sandong area) use a stone pot. Lu Yu says that both are considered refined crockery rather than durable or sturdy. A silver pot, he says, is distinctive, refined and clean, but much too extravagant. While not as refined or clean, the cast iron pot is the most durable.

I find it fascinating to read Lu Yu’s account of how cast iron utensils were made in those long gone days. Also to learn little historical details, such as how in those days tea was brewed by simply being boiled. Indeed, this was known as the “boiled” tea era. (The other two eras are the “whipped” tea era and the current “steeped” tea era).

The 6th item is the “jiao chuang” (交床), a foldable, cross-legged table. The table top had a round hole in which one could place a pot of boiling tea. Lu Yu did not say what this table was actually used for, but further research on the matter indicates that, after boiling tea in the feng lu (wind furnace), the fu was put on this table to undergo a “still” boiling process, allowing the tea time basically to cool down.

A “jiao chuang” (交床) is a foldable table with a round hole in which one could place a pot of boiling tea.

“Jia” (夹), a pair of tongs made from green bamboo is Lu Yu’s 7th item. It is 1 chi and 2 cun (40cm) long. About 1 cun from one end is a segment of bamboo from where it is split to the other end. The split ends can then be used to hold a piece of tea cake over an open flame. The natural fragrance of the bamboo is absorbed by the tea cake thereby improving its flavour. Lu Yu says that unless you are roasting tea in the deep forest, it is rather hard to find this kind of green bamboo. Tongs made of iron or wrought copper are more durable.

The 8th item is a “zhi nang” (纸囊). This is paper made from rattan, a famous product from “Shan” (剡) (now called “Sheng” (嵊)) county in the east of Zhejiang province, part of Shaoxing city (where we get the famous Shaoxing cooking wine). It is extremely white, refined yet pliable and good for holding just-roasted pieces of tea cake. Wrapping the tea cakes in this paper serves to prevent their glorious aroma from escaping. This must be the favourite item in Lu Yu’s descriptions, the idea of wrapping pieces of warm toasted tea cakes in handmade paper really shows the tea master’s care for the tea.

“Nian” (碾) is the 9th piece of apparatus in this chapter. Lu Yu says that nian is best made from the wood of the mandarin orange tree. It can also be made from pear wood, mulberry wood, paulownia timber or the Tricuspid Cudrania tree. Nian is rectangular, which makes it stable, but has a curved hollow inside which fits a roller just nicely. The roller has a spindle in the middle. The spindle is 9 cun (30cm) long and 1.7 cun (5.6cm) wide. The roller itself has a diameter of 3.8 cun (12.5cm) and is 1 cun (3.3cm) thick in the middle but only a half cun (1.6cm) thick at the edges. The spindle is rectangular in the middle but more round towards the ends. From Lu Yu’s description, we can infer that a nian is used as a sort of pestle and mortar with the nian being the mortar albeit in a rectangular shape. Unlike the pestle that we know, we have a roller that crushed the tea cakes in the rectangular mortar.

Lu Yu says he uses a feather as a brush to remove any tea powder residue left on the nian, from which we can infer that pieces of tea cake, first toasted slightly on an open flame, would then have been broken into the nian before boiling in the fu to make tea. Any leftover pieces toasted tea cakes would be wrapped in the “zhi nang” paper to kept the wonderful aroma from escaping.

Again, we can notice the influence of ancient,Tang dynasty tea drinking habits on the subsequent Japanese tea culture – notably the fact that, evidently, the idea of drinking of powdered green tea was taken to Japan in precisely this era.

On to the next post where I will be translating the next set of items listed in Chapter 4. In the mean time, have a fabulous August bank holiday weekend!

Warmly, Pei ~~ Serene and fragrant TEA entices with promise of rapture in STORE ~~ tea open house . medTEAtation . @teanamu . FB page

Tea saint Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea Chapter 4 in its original text. (To view the Chinese characters in this blog, you may need to enable character encoding of your web browser to either Unicode or Simplied Chinese.)

Chapter Four of Classic of Tea (Cha Jing 茶经) is the longest chapter in this treatise and is devoted to all the utensils used in the brewing of tea. I guess this makes it the most relevant chapter to most of us today.

Lu Yu lists 25 pieces of utensils in this chapter, which I will translate from the original, ancient Chinese text in several separate blog posts.

Lu Yu starts his list with a “feng lu” (风炉) or draught/wind furnace made by himself. It was made from copper or iron and shaped like an ancient “ding” (鼎) which is a three-legged cooking vessel with 2 handles (it traditionally symbolised power and authority). He does not give the exact measurements for the furnace but he does provide the proportions. He says the furnace walls should be 3 parts thick with an overall width of 9 parts leaving an opening that is 6 parts wide. The open base is sealed with mud, thus creating the vessel.

The feng lu had 3 legs, each having an engraving of 7 characters. One leg bears an inscription involving 3 of the elements of the “ba gua” (八卦). The ba gua is an octagon, incorporating eight geometric shapes, used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality. The ba gua is an essential tool for the study and application of Feng Shui. Each of these shapes consists of three lines, each line either “broken” or “unbroken,” representing yin or yang respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as “trigrams” in English. Lu Yu position 3 of the trigrams with “kan” (坎) or water sign on top, “li” (离) air/wind sign below and “xun” (巽) fire sign in the middle.

On the second leg, Lu Yu extended from the ba gua and the Taoist concept of “wu xing” (五行) (the five elements i.e. fire, earth, metal, water and wood acting as a ancient mnemonic device for describing the two cycles of life: generating/creating and overcoming/destroying). The engraving tells us that our body is subject to the wu xing and, if we can achieve a balance, a hundred diseases will go away.

The last leg bears the year in which Lu Yu made the feng lu. He does so by citing the year after an incident in which the Tang emperor overcame the rebel Hu people (a Tartar/Mongol ethnic group). This occurred in 763AD and his feng lu was made the year after that.

Lu Yu then describes how in-between the three legs are three little air holes. On each of these holes are 2 characters, making a total of 6 characters. The first 3 characters are “Yi Gong Geng” (伊公羹) and the other 3 characters are “Lu Shi Cha” (陆氏茶). Geng is a thick soup. Yi Gong refers to a prime minister during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1104BC) who was really good at making soups in a ding. “Cha” refers to tea and “Lu Shi” simply means Mr. Lu (i.e. himself). What Lu Yu has cleverly done here is to compare his skill in making tea to the cooking skill of Yi Gong. Both of them use the ding as cooking apparatus. Now, we might be surprised by arrogance of Lu Yu but he was very popular amongst royals, socialising with them and making tea for them. So for him to engrave that on his feng lu suggests to me merely that he is justifiably confident about his tea making skills!

According to Lu Yu, a clay urn “die nie” (墆嵲) is placed inside the feng lu to hold the charcoal. There are 3 perforated shelves inside the die nie. The perforations take the forms of a wild chicken (symbolising fire), a mystical tiger-like animal (symbolising wind) and a fish (symbolising water). Accompanying these animals are their corresponding ba gua trigrams, representing fire, wind and water.

Lu Yu says wind can “flame” a fire and a fire can “boil” the water and that is why these symbols are required. What he is trying to convey is that the boiling tea embodies the natural laws of reality; that, rather than going against these natural laws, we should make use of each element’s attributes for our own benefit.

Then Lu Yu moves on to the external decoration of the feng lu. He says that it can depict flowers, trees, flowing water and other types of pictorial imagery. The body of the feng lu can be made from iron or clay. The feng lu also comes with a “saucer” that has 3 legs and is useful for collecting any ashes.

The feng lu design or an echo of it can be discerned in the stove and kettle design used in the Japanese tea ceremony. So it is likely that along with tea and Buddhism, Japanese monks brought Lu Yu’s design of tea brewing utensils back home with them.

Lu Yu spent wrote quite a lot about this feng lu that he has made himself. One can see from his design that he is well educated in the daoism and lead a life embodying these principles. I will cover the remaining items listed in this chapter in the new few blogs.

Lu Yu made this three-legged draught/wind furnace (“feng lu” 风炉) taking inspirations from the ancient “ding” (鼎) cooking vessel with 2 handles.		“die nie” (墆嵲) is a clay urn that Lu Yu placed inside the “feng lu” to hold charcoal.
Three shelves inside the “die nie” with perforations taking the forms of a wild chicken (symbolising fire), a mystical tiger-like animal (symbolising wind) and a fish (symbolising water). Accompanying these animals are their corresponding “ba gua” trigrams, representing fire, wind and water.

Warmly, Pei ~~ Serene and fragrant TEA entices with promise of rapture in STORE ~~ tea open house . medTEAtation . @teanamu . FB page

Bak Kut Teh – a famous traditional Singaporean and Malaysia pork ribs soup served with rice, you tiao dough sticks, chilli dipping sauce and a good strong pot of Wuyi Shuixian oolong tea. This dish is sometimes made with chicken or duck.

It was Singapore’s 45th National Day (Happy Birthday Singapore!) on Monday. As I watched the national day parade live webcast, a lot of childhood memories came flooding back. Being the glutton that I am, I cannot help but think of all the delicious hawker fares that I grew up with. So I decided to take a break from translating the Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea to talk about this delicious and very well known Singaporean (some say Malaysian) hawker fare.

“Bak kut teh” is a rich and nourishing brew that boasts of tonic herbs. Traditionally enjoyed as a rather masculine breakfast, it is now more likely to be consumed over lunch or dinner as a satisfyingly comforting meal. Darker and more oxidised teas (typically Iron Goddess of Mercy or “Tie Guan Yin”) are frequently served with the soup. There is something very gratifying (or in Singlish “Shoik”) eating this hot meal and drinking hot tea in hot and humid Singapore (See “hot teas for hot days” blog post).

“Bak kut” is pork bones in the Chinese dialect of Hockkien. “Teh” is the Hockkien word for tea. The soup is typically cooked with pork ribs seasoned with Chinese herbs and soy sauces. It is served with rice, “xian cai” (咸菜. Salted mustard leaves), “you tiao” (油条. Deep fried dough sticks) and sliced red chilli in dark soy dipping sauce. The meat is cooked till it is practically fallen off the bone. The broth is bursting with meaty umami flavours and has a hint of dark caramelised sweetness from the soy sauces. The hits of pepper and garlic provide a very good background for these flavours. I am aware that most people might be a little put off by the dark colour of the soup (as with spaghetti made with squid ink!) but I can assure you that you will be amazed at flavours and the comfort it will bring to you.

You Tiao – sliced fried dough sticks. Adding a slight crunchy and chewy texture and provides a nutty backdrop to the Bak Kut Teh soup.

To go off the tangent for a bit regarding the character teh – tea is also known throughout the world now as variations of the words “chai” or “teh”. What a country calls this humble beverage made from leaves really depends on how tea was first introduced to its people. European and South East Asian countries who received tea via the sea route from the ports of Xiamen in Fujian Province adopted variations of Hockkien word teh (so “thé” in France, “tee” in Germany, “té” in Spain and “tè” in Itay and “teh” in Malaysia and Singapore). While counties receiving tea by land instead adopted the Mandarin pronunciation of “cha”. Hence we have “chai” in Russian and Arabia, “chay” in Turkey and “cha” in Portugal and Iran.

There are many origins for Bak kut keh. Some of them are romanticised versions, concocted by families in China, of the life lead by men who have gone to “Nanyang” (南洋. South Seas – referring to Malaysia or Singapore by the Chinese) to earn their fortunes. The most credible story for this soup has to be the one associated with the coolies who came to Nanyang to earn a living as manual labourers at the docks. Some says the dish was created in Singapore but other says it originates from Port Klang in Malaysia.

Some of these coolies would typically come from Xiamen (Hockkien speaking) and Swatow (Teochew speaking). The Hockkiens and Teochews are traditionally tea-drinking cultures and this aspect runs deep in their cuisines. These dock labourers led a very hard life (many of them have been sold as slaves or tricked to work as labourers) carrying heavy sacks of cargo from vessels to the warehouses for very little money. To supplement their diet, they would pick up bits of herbs or grains dropped on the ground from the sacks they carry. These men would gather their meagre resources to buy some pork bones and add their collected herbs to make a nice nourishing soup which they will eat with rice for breakfast. This hearty soup provides them with energy for another hard day’s work.

Now, there are regional variations to this soup. Bak kut teh made by the Hockkiens were usually heavier and darker as they used more dark soy sauce while the Teochews prefer a lighter in colour, more peppery soup base. This dish continues to evolve. I have seen pork being replaced by chicken (“Ji Ku Cha” 鸡骨茶) or duck (“Ya Ku Cha” 鸭骨茶) so that our Muslim friends can also enjoy it. I have also seen a “dry” version of this soup in Port Klang where the broth is reduced to a thicker gravy and the addition of dried cuttlefish, goji berries and Chinese red dates making it even full-bodied than the ones I know.

A famous Singaporean hawker fare “Bak Kut Teh” – Pieces of succulent pork ribs in a dark soy sauce broth favoured with garlic, goji berries, cinnamon bark and licorice root.

Even though the name of this soup suggests that it is cooked with tea or enjoyed with tea, there is not much historical evidence of these coolies having their daily breakfast of bak kut teh with tea. In fact, this dish was simply called “Jia Bak Kut” (吃肉骨. Meaning eating pork bones in Hockkien) at that time.

Soon after the Second World War, a Hockkien man called “Li Man Teh” (李文地) decided to set up a stall selling his version of this soup with Chinese medicinal herbs (sometimes contributed by these coolies). Mr Li’s soup was very popular and his customers gave him the nick name of “Bak Kut Teh” by adding the last character of his name teh (地) to Bak Kut (pork bones). This last character of Mr Li’s name happens to have the same intonation as the Hockkien word for tea (“teh”. 茶). Over time, this soup became what we now know as bak kut teh (pork ribs tea).

As far as my memories go, tea is more of a beverage to accompany this meal. The dark roast tea not only compliments the meaty umami flavours of this soup but also helps to reduce the cholesterol intake and aids digestion. Typically, customers are served with the soup, a bowl of rice and condiments together with a simplified Gong-Fu Cha tea set for brewing a dark roast oolong tea like traditional Tie Guan Yin (Iron Goodness of Mercy). I discovered later that this style of enjoying the meal is more a custom of Teochew people. The Hockkiens also consume this meal with tea but they would simply drink the tea from a bowl. Sometimes, they even pouring tea into the emptied rice bowl to pick up any remaining flavours of the soup!

One of the herbs used in this delectable soup is the Chinese Angelica root (“dang gui” 当归). This is a highly sought after herb for easing many women’s ills and aliments as it is said to help in rebuilding blood and general weakness and lethargy. It is hard and knobbly and emits an earthy and warm woody aroma that will develop very strong flavour in the soup and should therefore be used sparingly. Herbalists typically advise that one should avoid consuming other strong herbs such as ginseng or the more Yin fruits soon after or before consuming angelica roots so as not to counteract the benefits of this wonderful herb.

For this blog post, I have made my mom’s version of the soup that is slightly less herbal but still packed full of flavours. The you tiao dough sticks that you see in the pictures are from my favourite bakery in Chinatown. I have bought lots for my breakfast of rice congee and century eggs or over a thick bowl of soy bean milk. To revive them, I have put them under the grill for 3-5 minutes. Nothing beats a freshly fried crunchy you tiao! If there are any left over bak ku teh, my mom would add cooked vermicelli noodles to soup garnished lots of red chillis and corriander. A delectable night snack for me!

Bak Kut Teh (Hockkien style) Soup 1.5 liters Water 250g Pork tenderloin 250g Pork ribs 1.5 tbsp Light soy sauce (choose a better quality Chinese brands) 0.5 tbsp Dark soy sauce (~~ ditto ~~) 1 Star anise 1 Cinnamon stick, 2cm long 10 Garlic cloves 3 tbsp Goji berries 10g “dang gui” (当归. Chinese Angelica ) A few Black pepper corns, crushed Dipping Sauce: Red chillies Dark soy sauce Garnish: Coriander leaves You Tiao (油条. Deep fried dough sticks)		My Mom’s Bak Kut Teh (simplified) Soup 1.5 liters Water 500g Pork ribs 1.5 tbsp Light soy sauce 0.5 tbsp Dark soy sauce 10 Garlic cloves 1 sliver “Gan Cao” (甘草. Licorice root) A few Black pepper corns, crushed
- Bring water to boil in a large saucepan and add all other ingredients to the pot. - Bring to a boil. Then simmer over low heat for 1 hour or till meat is tender. - Serve with garnish and steaming hot rice, you tiao, some steamed pak choi and a good strong pot of oolong tea like Wuyi Shuixian or traditional Tie Guan Yin. ** To make a vegetarian version of this soup, replace the pork with dried bean curd skins (similar to Abura-age), “mu-er” Wood ears (black fungus) and dried and fresh shiitake mushrooms. Add the bean curd skins and fresh shiitake mushrooms about 5 minutes before serving.

Enough of nostalgia, now back to my translation of chapter 4 of Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea but only after I have devoured this delicious bak kut teh!

Warmly, Pei ~~ Serene and fragrant TEA entices with promise of rapture in STORE ~~ tea open house . medTEAtation . @teanamu . FB page