Lu Yu (733 — 804), styled Hongjian, a disease, styled Ji Ci, styled Jinglingzi, Sang Liweng, Donggangzi, Jingling in Fuzhou, Tang Dynasty (now Tianmen, Hubei Province), loved tea all his life, and was skilled in tea ceremony. He was famous for his work on the world’s first tea book, The Book of Tea, and made outstanding contributions to the development of China’s tea industry and the world’s tea industry. He was honored as “Tea Immortal” and awarded as “The Emperor of Song”. Worship as “tea God”. He also worked in poetry, but few have survived.
Lu Yu lived a legendary life. He was an abandoned orphan. In the twenty-third year of Kaiyuan of the Tang Dynasty (735 AD), Lu Yu was three years old, and he was found by Zen master Zhiji, the abbot of Longgai Temple of Jingling, on the shore of the local West Lake. After divination in Yi, he named his child and took the divinatory symbols in Jian, which said, “Hongjian is on the land, and its feathers can be used as instruments.” So according to the trigrams, he was given the surname “Lu”, named “Yu”, and the word “Hung Chien”. Lu Yu learned to read and write, read Buddhist sutras, and also learned to cook tea. But he refused to convert to the Dharma and shaved his head to become a monk. When he was nine years old, once the Zen master Zhiji asked him to copy the sutras and recite the Buddha, but he asked Ji Gong, “Shi Shi disciple, born without brothers, died without heirs.” The Confucianists say that there are three kinds of unfilial piety. Can a monk call himself filial?” And openly said: “Yu will give Confucius the text.” Ji Gong was angry with him for being rebellious and contemptuous of his elders, so he used heavy “cheap work” to temper him and forced him to repent and turn back. He was told to “sweep the temple floor, clean the priest’s toilet, wash the mud walls, take down the vashish house, and herd a hundred and twenty hooves of cattle.” Lu Yu was not discouraged, but his desire for knowledge became stronger. He has no paper to learn the word, to the bamboo cow back as a book, occasionally Zhang Heng “Southern capital Fu”, although he does not know the word, but sit on the scroll, muttering words. After knowing this, Ji Gong feared that he would be impregnated with the foreign scriptures and lose his religion, so he confined him to the temple, made the shears and Ou mang, and sent the elders to control him. When he was twelve years old, he escaped from Longgai Temple by surprise, went to a troupe to learn acting, and made an order. Although he was not handsome and had a bit of a stutter, he was humorous and witty, and played clowns very successfully, and later wrote three volumes of joke book “Banter Talk”. In the fifth year of Tianbao of the Tang Dynasty (746 AD), Li Qiwu, the governor of Jingling, saw Lu Yu’s outstanding performance at a gathering of the people of the state. He appreciated his talent and ambition so much that he immediately presented him with a book of poems and recommended him to study with Zou Fuzi, who lived in seclusion in Humen Mountain. In the eleventh year of Tianbao (752 AD), Cui Guofu, a Libu doctor, was demoted to Jingling Sima. That year, Lu Yu bowed and said goodbye to Zou Fu Zi. Cui and Yu met, two people often travel together, tea tasting water, talk about poetry.