1, Sacrifice said: This statement holds that tea and other plants were first used as sacrifices. Later, some people found that it was harmless to eat, so it was "eaten by sacrifices, but eaten by vegetables, but used as medicine" and eventually became a drink.

2. Pharmacology: This view holds that tea "originally entered human society as a medicine." "Shennong Hundred Herbs Classic" wrote: "Shennong tasted a hundred herbs, and when he encountered seventy-two poisons every day, he was relieved by tea."

3. Eating: "The ancients drank water like grass" and "the people put food first". Eating first conforms to the evolutionary law of human society.

4. Synchronization: At first, tea was used as a chewing food, or as a baked food, and was gradually consumed as a medicinal material.

The history of drinking tea in China is about two thousand years, which began in the Western Han Dynasty.

China began to drink tea in the Western Han Dynasty, but in the Western Han Dynasty, China only drank tea in Sichuan. Sima Xiangru, Wang Bao and Yang Xiong, who recorded tea affairs in the Western Han Dynasty, were all Sichuanese.

In the Han Dynasty, tea, as a specialty of Sichuan, first spread to Chang 'an, Kyoto, and gradually spread to the political, economic and cultural centers in northern areas such as Shaanxi and Henan.

On the other hand, the tea drinking fashion in Sichuan has spread to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River along the waterway. From the Western Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period, tea was a rare product enjoyed by the upper class outside Bashu. Drinking tea was limited to princes and ministers, and people probably seldom drank tea.

Extended data:

At first, tea was valued as medicine. In ancient times, people felt fragrant, refreshing and astringent pleasure by directly chewing the fresh leaves of tea trees. Over time, chewing tea has become a hobby. This stage can be said to be a prelude to drinking tea.

With the evolution of human life, the habit of eating raw tea has become fried tea. That is, after fresh leaves are washed, they are put into a clay pot and boiled with water, and the soup and leaves are taken together. Although the boiled tea is bitter, it is rich in fragrance, and its taste and efficacy are better than a few tablets. After a long time, I naturally developed the habit of cooking and drinking, which is the beginning of tea as a drink.

However, as an intermediate transition, tea has gone through the edible stage from medicinal development to daily beverage. That is, tea is used as a dish and soup is used for cooking. After the tea leaves are cooked, they should be mixed with food to eat. The purpose of using tea at this time is to increase nutrition and detoxify as food.

"Yanzi Chunqiu" records that "Yanzi loves Gong Jing, eats rice without millet, and cooks tea with three eggs and five eggs"; The word "bitter tea" in Erya notes that "leaves can be baked into soup to drink";

In Lu Tongjun and other ancient books, it is recorded that tea is cooked with cinnamon and some spices. At this time, the utilization method of tea took a step forward, adopting the cooking technology at that time and paying attention to the seasoning of tea soup.

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