The Whipped Tea-Sung Dynasty
「In the Sung dynasty the whipped tea came into fashion and created the second school of Tea. The leaves were ground to fine powder in a small stone mill, and the preparation was whipped in hot water by a delicate whisk made of sprit bamboo.
The new process led to some change in tea-equipage of Luwuh, as well as the choice of leaves. Salt was discarded firever.
The enthusiasm of the Sung people for tea knew no bounds. Epicures vied with each other in discovering new varieties, and regular tournaments were held to decide their supriority.
The Emperor Kiasung (1101-11249), who was too great an artist to be a well-behaved monarch, lavished his treasures on the attainment of rare species. He himself wrote a dissertation on the twenty kinds of tea, among which he prizes the "white tea" as of the rarest and finest quality.」(From the Book of Tea-the School of Tea, pp.27-28, Charles E. Co., Rutland, Vermont-Tokyo, Japan)
At the generation of Luwuh(the Tang Dynasty), the caked-tea was used for tea leaves preparation. The various kind of the caked-tea are still very common at present generation.
In the Sung Dynasty generation, the whipped tea came into fashion and used as the powdered-tea. As already described by Okakura, they are said to be preffered heavy bowls of blue-black and dark brown.Yet, in China, I think the whipped tea are almost disappered.
The whipped tea was brought back to Japan by Buddist such as Saigyou. Now, we are using the powdered-tea for the Way of Tea as "Macha" in Japanese.
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