Other wedding tea information can refer to the following:
Simply put, the relationship between tea and wedding is to apply and absorb tea or tea culture as a part of etiquette in marriage. In fact, the penetration or absorption of tea culture into weddings is related to China's tea drinking custom and the etiquette of entertaining guests with tea.
When a man marries a woman, he will exchange or buy her with a certain bride price.
Because marriage is related to the happiness of men and women all their lives, for most parents, although the bride price has certain economic value, they pay more attention to and attach importance to those auspicious things that eliminate disasters and help the good. Tea is of special significance in the bride price of all ethnic groups in China. In this regard, Lang Ying, a member of Amin Dynasty, explained in the Seventh Revision: "If you plant tea, you can't transplant it. If you transplant it, it won't live. So, I hired a woman, a tea drinker.
He also hired tea as a gift to see his obedience. Literally, it seems that only the significance of tea in the wedding ceremony has nothing to do with the inclusion of tea in the wedding bride price. In fact, a little analysis can still sort out the development process of tea in a marriage etiquette.
Seven Manuscripts is a work by Jiajing and Qin Long in Ming Dynasty. From it, we can see that the tea in the bride price at that time was not only listed as daily necessities like rice and wine, but was endowed with the meaning of "obedience" in feudal marriage, so it existed as a symbol of the whole wedding or bride price. That is to say, tea has gone through two stages in ancient China weddings: the "general gift" in daily life and the "important gift" representing the whole wedding and bride price. As a list of rice, oil and salt, as recorded in Feng Ji, the ancients also drank tea, "but it is almost a custom not to drown now, and stay overnight in poverty", probably no later than the middle of Tang Dynasty when this book was written. As for the primary bride price, commonly known as "women's engagement" and "tea", it is most likely after the Song Dynasty. Because according to the survey, in the wedding items before the Tang Dynasty, there are things that show that men are superior to women, but there are no gifts that require women to be "faithful".
The Song Dynasty was the most prosperous period of Neo-Confucianism or Taoism in China. The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty also praised Neo-Confucianism as a "country" and advocated "preserving natural principles and eliminating human desires". Therefore, the moral concept of asking women to marry and be faithful all their lives did not exist before the Song Dynasty, but was probably advocated by Taoist scholars in the Southern Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty. Tea planting in ancient China, such as Lu Yu's Tea Classic, said: "All arts are not practical, but planting is rare." Due to the limitation of science and technology at that time, it was generally believed that tea trees were not suitable for transplanting, so most of them used tea seeds to grow tea directly.
However, as the Book of Tea said, the ancient people in China only thought that tea trees were "planted and flourishing" and did not think that tea trees could not be transplanted. However, in order to put the idea of "obedience" into the wedding ceremony, Taoist scholars called the habit of growing tea at that time "not to take with you" and listed tea as an indispensable first gift among many wedding supplies, which made tea gain a symbol or represent the meaning of the whole wedding. At present, many rural areas in China still refer to the engagement marriage as "tea collection" and "tea eating", the engagement deposit as "tea gold" and the bride price as "tea ceremony", all of which are the remains of old-fashioned weddings in China. Below, list some customs of applying tea to weddings of all ethnic groups in China.
Engagement is also called betrothal, engagement, engagement, small engagement, wine delivery and tea delivery. Called by many people, almost in one place. In ancient times, engagement was an important ceremony to confirm marriage relationship, and only after this stage could engagement be established. There are great differences in engagement ceremonies in different parts of China, but one thing is the same, that is, the man should send a certain gift to the woman's house to finalize the marriage. For example, in the rural areas around Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, engagement is also called "giving small gifts"; Besides jewelry, clothes, dining tables, tea is indispensable for small gifts, so I used to ask girls if they were engaged. Also known as "collecting tea". Give a small gift, and after a certain period of time, give a big gift (some places combine giving a big gift with getting married), which is also called "giving a bride price". Gifts are more clothes, jewelry and money than small gifts; Depending on the family situation, as many as twenty-four or thirty-two.
However, in the big gift, no matter what the family circumstances, some symbolic gifts such as tea, dragon and phoenix cakes, dates and peanuts are also essential. Of course, tea also means "from one". After receiving the bride price from the man's family, the woman will also send a dowry and marry him immediately. After these procedures, employment is completed. The bride's dowry also depends on the family's economic conditions, but in any case, a pair of teapots and dressing boxes can't be saved.
Tea, as a symbol of "obedience" in weddings, was once popular among Han people. Most ethnic groups in China have the habit of offering tea, so the custom of using tea as a gift at weddings is also popular among ethnic groups. For example, when the Wa people in Yunnan are engaged, they have to send "Dupa" three times (to book a wedding): for the first time, they have to send six bottles of "family wine", no more or less, and they also have to send some tea and plantains. I sent six bottles of "neighbor wine" for the second time, indicating that the neighbor has agreed and can prove the marriage. I sent a bottle of "Open Door Wine" for the third time, which was specially for the girl mother to put on the pillow at night to pray for her daughter. Naxi people in northwest Yunnan call betrothal "delivering wine". When you send wine, besides a can of wine, you should also send two cups of tea, four or six boxes of sugar and two liters of rice. Most of the Bai people in Yunnan are engaged, and like the Han people, tea is indispensable for gifts. For example, in the ceremony of "sending eight characters" for Bai people in Xishan, Erhai, Dali, tea was included in the gift from the man to the woman. For example, a Bai man and a woman living in Eryuan can get married after eight characters. The man should send a piece of cloth, three pieces of pork (one with a tail), a ham, a slaughtered sheep, two pairs of tea, a silver ring, a pair of earrings and some cash, and put a "eight-character sticker" on the woman's house. When the woman accepts the gift, the marriage is confirmed. The engagement gift of the Bai people living in Yunlong is "four bags of clothes, two Jin of tea, half a piece of pork or a leg".
As for the use of tea in wedding ceremonies, some of it is used as a gift, but it is mainly used for ceremonies such as "handing a cup of tea" and "combining tea" by the bride and groom, or "thanking tea" and "recognizing tea" by parents and elders. So some places also directly call marriage "drinking tea". Han people "eat tea", engaged people take tea as a gift, and the tea here means "from one"; However, when other fraternal nationalities in China get married, giving and offering tea is mostly just a custom in life. For example, when the Bai people in Dali, Yunnan get married, the day after the bride enters the house, the bride and groom get up in the morning, first offer tea and toast to their relatives and elders, then pay homage to their parents and ancestors, then the couple have a reunion dinner, and then leave the shed to announce the end of the wedding. When the Bai people in Eryuan get married, they usually visit their relatives on the first day, entertain guests on the second day and entertain guests on the third day (the bride visits); The newlyweds provide tea to their guests on the third day. During the interview, the man will also give gifts to the bride, her parents and her brother respectively. The gifts for the bride are mainly the clothes worn by the bride on the wedding day; Two pieces of cloth were given to the bride's parents, and the others were mainly pork and mutton and wine and tea, which were used by the bride to thank the guests. The gift for the bride's brother is ... "half a pot of wine, two teas and a side of pork". Obviously, when the Bai people in Eryuan got married, tea was not given to the bride and her parents, but only to her brother. This kind of tea has no special significance for the Han people at the wedding.
This can also be used as an example of Pumi marriage custom in northwest Yunnan. Pumi people like tea, and engagement to marriage is also very complicated. It will take two or three years to get married after engagement. The Pumi people in Ninglang area get married, and there is still an ancient custom of "grabbing marriage". Both men and women privately agreed on the wedding date first, and then let the girl go out to work. The man sent someone to sneak up on the girl, and then suddenly "robbed" the girl. While running, he shouted: "So-and-so invites you to tea!" The woman's relatives and friends soon caught up with the girl and then held a formal wedding at home. It is clear that the so-called "inviting everyone to tea" here is obviously not the same as the "tea" mentioned in the marriage customs of the Han nationality. Another example is the Yugur people in the northwest. On the first day of marriage, only the bride is brought into a small tent, and the woman and the bride stay for one night. The next morning, I ate ghee fried noodles tea and held a ceremony for the bride to enter the big account. When the bride enters the big tent, she should first present Hada to the main room shrine and butter tea to her mother-in-law. After the ceremony of entering the room, it will be transferred to celebrations and banquets. One of the most distinctive is the custom of giving calves to the groom, which is actually an activity for singers to sing and entertain. At the beginning of the ceremony, two singers, one with a pinch of wool leg of lamb and the other with a bowl of tea, put a large piece of ghee and four small pieces of ghee in the middle of the bowl. Tea represents the sea, and large pieces of ghee represent the mountains, and then we rap our favorite "ballads and songs" ("sheep's calves" in Yugu). Here, in the wedding ceremony of Yugur, tea only represents the meaning of the sea.
As mentioned earlier, most ethnic groups in China like to drink tea; Weddings of all ethnic groups in China are colorful, and in every process of marriage, tea is often inseparable from etiquette. Therefore, the above example is just a drop in the ocean. If all the phenomena of tea culture originated from weddings in China are collected, it will be an extremely beautiful picture of historical customs.