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�������Ĵ�ʡȫ�������Y��ԇ�y���̲ģ��Ĵ�����Ӣ�Z��������China has always been acclaimed as the homeland of tea. It is believed that teashrubs was found growing in what is now China about five to six thousand years ago�� and cultivation of teaplants has a history of two thousand years. Tea from Cluna�� along with silk and porcelain�� began to be known to the world more than a thousand years ago and has since been an important Cl��unese commodity for export.����The antioxidant functions of tea have made it more and more popular in an increasing-health-awareness world. These health facilitating functions partially benefit from the geological conditions in which tea shrubs or tea trees grow. As is recorded in Hua Tuo Shi Lun ��Hua Tuo�� died AD 121�� ��Eating Scriptures���� "Tea trees grow in the river valleys and mountain slopes of Yizhou ��an ancient prefecture including what is now Sichuan and Yunnan regions���� and the tea tree leaves are oflen plucked on the third day of the Lunar March." Now it is well known that the tea plant grows best in tropical and temperate places where there is rainfall throughout the year. Tea trees can grow at an altitude of about 2��000 meters�� and the higher the region�� the better the tea quality is.����With increasing awareness of health functions of drinking tea�� more sophisticated rituals of tea drinking have also been incorporated to indicate social status and privileges enjoyed by elites. In the Song Dynasty�� emperors brewed tea to entertain their favorite ministers and scholars�� wrote poems about tea and made tea drinking an indispensable part of their intellectual life�� While tea sets have become more delicate and elaborated and tea drinking has been endowed with more culture significance�� tea quality and the water to brew tea remains essential for tea drinking. And that can fully explain why tea produced in Sichuan was taken to court as Tribute Tea and why there has existed the saying in Sichuan�� "the water����in the Yangtze River is the best for-brewing tea from Mt. Mengding".����1. Tea cultivation in Sichuan����Sichuan is one of the first regions where tea trees were cultivated. The best known and also the most typical of tea growing regions in Sichuan is Mt. Mengding. The mountain is located fifteen miles west of Mingshan County���Ĵ�ʡȫ�������Y��ԇ�y���̲ģ��Ĵ�����Ӣ�Z�� ����ɽ�h�� �� with five crests taking the shape of a lotus. On the highest one are seven tea trees which�� as the legend goes�� were planted by Wu Lizhen �������棩 �� an herb farmer�� at the end of the Western Han Dynasty ��206 BC-AD 25��. In the Mengshan County Annals you will find the following record�� "These seven tea trees neither withered nor thrived throughout two thousand years. The leaves are slender and long�� tasting distinctively sweet. When brewed�� the infusions produce the color somewhere between yellow and green�� and the steam�� saturated with scents of tea�� hovers for quite some time."����These seven tea trees are surrounded by stone fences built in the Tang Dynasty and are known as the Imperial Tea Garden. In the first year of the Tianbao Era of the Tang Dynasty�� Mengding Tea ��tea produced in Mt. Mengding region�� was listed as Gong Cha ��Tribute Tea�� to serve the imperial court. This practice had been kept until the Qing Dynasty�� lasting almost a thousand years. Back then�� three hundred and sixty leaves would be plucked from these seven tea trees each year for the emperor to use in the sacrificing ceremony.to Heaven and to the Imperial Ancestral Temple. These tea leaves were called "Tribute Tea". Tea for emperors to brew to entertain themselves was "Deputy Tribute Tea"�� and tea for ministers was given the name of "Escorting Tribute Tea".��������