The emperors in the Song Dynasty (960-1127 AD) paid great interest to the tea drinking. The second emperor Tai Zong ordered in 977 AD that the local officials must pay tea royal contribution to the central government. At that time the best basis of the tea production is Jian An in FuJian Province, especially in the BeiYuan Area in the Mount Phoenix. It is also called BeiYuan Tea. In the Song Dynasty tea was only made into compressed bricks. All the royal tea bricks were molded as the shape of dragon and phoenix. The Emperor HuiZong wrote a tea book “DaGuan ChaLun” (the Discussion of Tea). Tea had become a fashion from the high ranked officials to the labor workers.  

The tea ceremony in the Song Dynasty was called Tea Competition. The drinker first warmed up the cup, then put a little tea powder and hot water in the cup, mixed them into paste. Next they put more hot water inside, stirred with a broom-like equipment, until the tea soup is white colored, united with tiny bubbles on the top. The competitors will evaluate the quality of tea soup by looking at the equipment, bubbles, color and tasting the tea. Tea competition was a popular entertainment in the Song Dynasty. 

There were also many scholars and celebrities indulged in the tea competition, such as Cai Xiang, Fan ZhongYan, OuYang Xiu, Wang AnShi, Su Shi, Huang TingJian and Lu You, they were all famous poets, writers, calligraphers and politicians. The well-known female poet Li QingZhao created the tea question competition: the questioner would ask questions to the drinkers, the drink could drink the tea only if they were able to answer, otherwise they could only smell the aroma. 

There were also lots of teahouses in the Song and Yuan Dynasty. The tea business was controlled by the government only. In the border area the government used tea to trade fine horses with other countries. It was called “Cha Ma Hu Shi (Tea-Horse Trading)” in the history. 

The tea equipment also had a big evolution in the Song Dynasty. The famous “Wu Da Ming Yao (the Five Famous Kilns)” were built at that time. All the five kilns were official kilns. There were also many folk kilns which made thousands of exquisite porcelain tea equipment to the whole country. 

The five famous official kilns are called: Ru, Ge, Guan, Jun and Ding Kilns. They will be introduced separately. 

The best folk kilns included the following: 

YaoZhou Yao is a concentrated on celadon, with some other ceramic glaze products. 

LongQuan Yao is the best in the South China. It was famous for the color of glaze. 

In the tea competition, the competitors looked at the white pattern and bubbles on the tea soup. Therefore comparing to the white and celadon in the Tang Dynasty, black was the major color of the tea equipment. Such as the rabbit-hair cups in the JianYao kiln.  

In the Yuan Dynasty the spout of the tea pot changed from the shoulder of the pot to the middle part. The famous Porcelain Town JingDeZhen was developed in that dynasty. Until now it is still the most famous porcelain production place in China. The technology of celadon and glaze was also transferred to Japan in the Yuan Dynasty.

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