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Where is the best water in China? Apparently there are no standard
answers. However, many celebrities in China's history tried to
classify the famous waters or springs and figure out which is the
best of all. Currently there are four versions of the so-called
"Number one spring" in China.
The first person was Liu Bo Chu in Tang Dynasty. As a local
governor, he visited the famous waters at that time and classified
them as seven classes:
The first was NanLing Water in YangZi river.
The second was the spring in HuiShan Temple in WuXi city.
The third was the spring in HuQiu Temple in SuZhou City.
The fourth was the spring in GuanYin Temple in DangYang country.
The fifth was the spring in DaMing Temple in YangZhou city.
The sixth was the WuSong river.
The seventh was the Huai river.
Apparently his comments concentrated only in the JiangSu and
ZheJiang Provinces.
Another famous tea scholar Lu Yu (733-804 AD, the was worshiped as
the tea saint by later people) classified much more waters and
nominated the top 20 waters at his time:
The best was the ShuiLian water in KangWang Valley, LuShan Mountain.
The second was the HuiShan Temple spring in WuXi city.
The third was the LanXi spring in QiZhou city.
The fourth was the rock spring in ShanZi Hill in ShanZhou city.
The fifth was the rock spring in HuQiu Temple, Suzhou city.
The sixth was pool water in ZhaoXian Temple, LuShan Mountain.
The seventh was NanLing Water in YangZi river.
The eighth was the waterfall in the West Hill, HongZhou city.
The ninth was the origin of Huai river in BaYan Country, TangZhou
city.
The tenth was the water in LongChi peak, LuZhou city.
The eleventh was the spring in GuanYin Temple, DanYang city.
The twelfth was the water in DaMing Temple, YangZhou city.
The thirteenth was the ZhongLing water of Han river in JinZhou city.
The fourteenth was the XiangXi brook in YuXu cave, GuiZhou city.
The fifteenth was the West Luo river in ShangZhou city.
The sixteenth was the Wu Song river.
The seventh was the waterfall on the Southwestern Peak on TianTai
Mountain.
The eighteenth was the Yuang Spring in BinZhou city.
The nineteenth was the YanLing river in TongLu city.
The twentieth was the snow water.
In Qing Dynasty the great emperor QianLong had a very special
opinion about water: he reckoned that the lighter the water was, the
lower the components of impurity in the water. Therefore he invented
a silver measuring cup to test the weight of all the famous waters.
The result was that the Yu Quan Spring was the lightest in the
country. Since then Yu Quan (the Jade Spring) has been titled as the
No. 1 Spring officially.
Ironically, it was the same emperor QianLong was nominated another
No. 1 Spring in China later. He was amused by the freshness of the
BaoTu Spring in JiNan city when he was on his tour to the South
China. He gave another "No. 1" title to BaoTu Spring and finally
there were four "No. 1" spring in China all together.
There is another version of "best spring" made by the famous
geologist Xu XiaKe. He reckoned that the best spring in China was
the BiYu Spring (Green Jade Spring) in AnNing Country, YunNan
Province. This was a hot spring and not well recognized by many
people. |
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